The very existence of the Museum-Memorial of Terrorism (MMT) is today threatened by budgetary restrictions; in October 2022, its activity was called into question on the grounds of “prioritize safety”. Remember, the MMT had refused to put its first digital exhibition online, namely the productions of students from two partner establishments (including the front page of Charlie Hebdo of January 14, 2015, entitled “All is forgiven”, and a drawing by Cabu, “Can we laugh at everything? “). We were afraid, we were told, of exposing teachers and students who had participated in the project to threats. It seems that there is always a good reason to avoid talking too much about jihadism, about ideologically based violence.
No doubt, people forget… It has already been ten years since the wave of Islamist attacks began. In societies that lose memory more and more easily, we can even think that it is an eternity. But it is precisely for this reason that it is appropriate to take actions, symbols, mental constructions that resist time.
Changing minds rather than the law
Contrary to the clichés conveyed for years, we will not defeat Islamist terrorism and separatism by piling up laws, knowing that we are also incapable of applying existing law, given the dysfunctions of our bureaucratized and sclerotic state apparatus. paralyze the slightest beginning of operational execution of a strategic design. No need to “strengthen” the legal arsenal, which turns out to be perfectly sufficient, with the exception of a few fibers in fragile situations which should be carefully identified and optimized.
It is therefore in the minds that we must make the decision! It is the convictions, the brains that are at stake in this fight, in this resistance against a form of totalitarianism. Therefore, giving up on projects like MMT is tantamount to losing a more than symbolic battle. It is not for nothing that the Algerian authorities imprison Boualem Sansal, but because his words and his books constitute a permanent confrontation with the enemies of freedom.
School and culture make up two social spaces where we must in no case give in to anxiety, where no intimidation should dissuade us from teaching freedom of expression and conscience, and from recalling what ideological radicality produced as violence. When jihadists assassinate journalists from Charlie or teachers like Samuel Paty and Dominique Bernard, they know perfectly well what they are targeting, namely our consciences, our moral strengths, our critical spirit, our faculty of reasoning and expressing ourselves, that which frees us from barbaric ideologies.
Totalitarian ambition
There is too often fear and complacency in France when we address this issue of jihadism and Islamist separatism. The arena of public debate exposes it a little more every day. Those who dare to denounce the unacceptable find themselves insulted and threatened on social networks, while misguided politicians or “intellectuals”, even “doctoral students”, insult the memory of Samuel Paty, liberate or justify anti-Semitism or want to disarm justice by repealing the offense of glorifying terrorism to facilitate the propagation of hatred by all supporters of totalitarian ambition. Today we are at a point where an activist can promote the intifada in the streets…
Today's controversies are often shameful: they most often aim at intimidation or the incitement of violence. Only one debate is important: the one which allows us to place on one side those who want to live in freedom, and on the other the supporters of the fascist model, totalitarian by nature, whether brown, red or green, instrumentalizing atheism or faith, race or class, God or the devil. The latter are both true Islamists and true decivilized criminals, in short, perfect jihadists…
The necrotic intellectual and cultural spheres
Consequently, what is important to understand from the outset is that our internal security forces can do nothing against Islamist militants who are gradually invading, and more and more quickly, the intellectual and cultural atmosphere, finding themselves in unconscious or cynical allies in university strongholds, within a necrotic and neurotic intelligentsia, in some “no-vaguist” public services (like national education) and in certain companies blind to liberticidal behavior, under religious cover.
Those who have the power to act are those who educate, write, demonstrate, draw, maintain memory and recall the values that keep us conscious and free. Refusing places of memory, giving up explaining, giving up showing, giving up thinking, is deciding to abdicate. Going backwards with MMT, like not letting a writer express himself in a conference, or denying a teacher the right to illustrate freedom with Cabu's drawings, is to prepare for defeat in the face of jihadist barbarity.
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