An imprisoned writer? Left-wing intellectuals stand alongside the executioners. On the set of public television, Sunday evening, Boualem Sansal was convicted of Islamophobia!
At a time not so long ago, when you were a humanist and a writer was imprisoned for an offense of opinion by a military dictatorship, fighting for his release was obvious. But that was before. Today, on the contrary, we join his executioners to press his head, we explain that he was looking for it a little and we are proud to stand alongside the authoritarian state which imprisoned him arbitrarily! We even participate in its dehumanization to suggest that in any case, it will not be a big loss.
The trials of French public television
In any case, this is what the public service and France 5 did in the broadcast C policy from Sunday, November 24. Around the table, among others, Nedjib Sidi Moussa and Benjamin Stora were particularly contemptible. We thus witnessed a program entirely occupied with putting on trial a writer who is languishing in prison by relaying, for Benjamin Stora, the accusations of the Algiers regime and for Medjib Sidi Moussa, elements of Islamic language. leftists. Apart from the journalist of Marianne Rachel Binhas, who ended up admitting her discomfort in the face of this incriminating investigation, and who courageously attempted to dismantle the record of the accusatory inversion of which Boualem Sansal was the victim, all the others participated or remained silent in the face of the degradation in public place of the writer by people who almost act as little telegraphers of the discourse and the world vision of the Islamists.
The means by which these small prosecutors of the new Committee of Public Safety demonized Boualem Sansal is a classic of the genre: the referral to the extreme right, which everyone interprets as an assignment to fascism and which makes you unworthy of society of your compatriots.
So, of course, before initiating charges against the writer, everyone opened their umbrella wide, indicating that demanding the release of Boualem Sansal was a question of principle. Result: 15 seconds of speech on the principles to defend in order to buy a totem of immunity, then 30 minutes of shooting on sight to suggest that all this is perhaps hardly worth it, since it amounts to fight for a fascist! The fact that he risks being sentenced to death for an offense of opinion is clearly not a problem for these so-called committed “intellectuals”. All these people, contrary to what they claim, have no principles and are ready to sacrifice Boualem Sansal to their ideology and their relationship with an Algerian regime in distress. If they say the opposite, it is to keep their napkin ring on public television and their academic position. But this is only a prerequisite to protect themselves and get to their real message, delivered clearly by Medjib Sidi Moussa: Boualem Sansal deserves what happens to him because he is an Islamophobic bastard.
Benjamin Stora will do the same thing but more honeyed and creamy. All smiles, the unofficial representative of the Algerian government will explain that the writer hurt the “Algerian national feeling” while mocking his historical incompetence. All without forgetting to do self-promotion and publicity for his latest book. He will justify his opprobrium for the arbitrarily imprisoned writer by highlighting the “intellectual debate”. Yes, for this gentleman, a man's life does not count when faced with the opportunity to show off. And the host will let it happen.
What Boualem Sansal thinks about religion
Sunday evening, our TV set intellectuals thus launched a process of dehumanization of Boualem Sansal which is the prelude to his abandonment in the hands of the Algerian power. They have already shown that there was not unanimity in the defense of Boualem Sansal, that France could be divided on this point and that Algeria's arbitrary act was acceptable in practice. The worst part of this inglorious story is that these people risked nothing by doing their simple job as human beings! And yet they choose the camp of the executioners. Imagine then, if there were risks to be taken?
However, Boualem Sansal tirelessly denounces the violence of Islamists, the refusal to grant equality to women, cultural anti-Semitism, the use of blasphemy to gag freedom of conscience and expression. He is accused of making the link between Islam and Islamism? He just says that if the discourse of Islamists dominates Islam today, it is because it is based on religious and cultural traits to which most Muslims in the world adhere: the refusal to grant freedom of religious practice, the refusal of equality in the name of sex or ethnicity, the primacy of Sharia law, the hatred of Jews enshrined in the liturgy, the refusal of freedom of conscience in the name of the fight against blasphemy, victim speeches intended to legitimize violence… Boualem Sansal speaks of an obscurantist society which he measures to what extent it diminishes those who live there and urges us not to renounce our civilization, the one which believes in the equal dignity of man, believes in its creativity, relies on the use of Reason and on the creative capacities of man to write the future rather than on submission to a dogma. Boualem Sansal also notes that the lack of creativity in Muslim societies undoubtedly comes from this very castrating religious overhang.
A betrayal
Boualem Sansal like Kamel Daoud are humanists; they are part of this long history in which the left participated before betraying it today. They believe that every man can achieve emancipation, and that if Islam and Islamism are related, not all believers are doomed to violence and radicalism. So, since when does being far-right mean defending equality, fundamental freedoms, fraternity rather than community enclosure? Since when does being far-right mean fighting for human emancipation? And vice versa, in the case of MM. Stora, Moussa or Snégaroff, since when does being on the left mean being the henchman of authoritarian regimes? Since when does having a conscience mean standing alongside them to throw shovelfuls of dirt on an imprisoned man? Since when does being a humanist mean defending the worst ideologies on the planet?
The atmosphere was so media lynching on the set that Rachel Binhas seemed almost embarrassed to have to intervene to point out some obvious facts. As if she was taking an insane risk by doing her duty as a human being. No doubt because the atmosphere on the set made his just reaction seem like something likely to also earn him a trial as an extreme rightist, a prelude to exclusion from the mainstream media. But apparently, at France Télévisions this sequence hardly appeals. As for Arcom, it must have aqua-pony, as every time the refusal of pluralism in public service is singled out. But perhaps this silence reveals an agreement on substance or is the delicate means that the leaders of public broadcasting have found to prevent questions of principle from polluting an intellectual debate, according to the position of Benjamin Stora… In the meantime, Boualem Sansal's lawyer fears that he will never leave prison. But our self-proclaimed great consciences seem to make fun of this.
