President Sarkozy¹s "Le Monde" article on national identity

Written by WPF Dialogue of Civilizations   

Tuesday, 15 December 2009 15:04

Article by Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the Republic, published in the ³Le
Monde² newspaper
Paris, 9 December 2009
National identity, an antidote to sectarianism

Respect the incomers, respect the host community

The Swiss people have just decided, in a referendum, against building new
minarets in their country. This decision can legitimately raise very many
concerns. Referenda require people to answer ³yes² or ³no² to a specific
question. Can we answer ³yes² or ³no² to such a complicated question
touching on such deep-rooted issues? I am convinced this can only give rise
to painful misunderstandings and a feeling of injustice, and that such a
categorical answer to a matter, which has to be resolvable on a case-by-case
basis, respecting everyone¹s beliefs and religion, can only cause hurt. But
how can we fail to be astounded at the reaction this decision has provoked
in some media and political circles in our own country? Extreme, and at
times grotesque, reactions against the Swiss people, whose democracy, older
than ours, has the rules and traditions of a direct democracy, where the
people are used to speaking up and taking decisions for themselves?

Indeed, behind these harsh reactions lies a visceral mistrust of everything
emanating from the people. For some, reference to the people already signals
the beginning of populism. But it is by turning a deaf ear to the cries of
the people, becoming indifferent to their difficulties, feelings,
aspirations, that populism is fuelled. This contempt for the people, since
it is a form of contempt, always ends badly. How can we be astonished at the
success of extremists when we take no account of voters¹ suffering?

What has just happened reminds me of the reception given to the rejection of
the European Constitution in 2005. I remember the sometimes hurtful things
said to that majority of Frenchmen and women who had chosen to say ³no².
This implacably pitted the France who said ³yes² against the France who said
³no², opening up a split which, had it deepened would never have allowed
France to resume her place in Europe.

To reconcile the ³yes France² with the ³no France², it was first necessary
to try and understand what the French had wanted to express; to admit that
the majority had not gone astray, but had, like the majority of the Irish
and majority of the Dutch, expressed what they felt and, in full knowledge
of the facts, rejected a Europe they no longer wanted because it gave the
impression of being increasingly indifferent to the peoples¹ aspirations.

Unable to change the peoples, we had to change Europe. The ³no France² began
to be reconciled with the ³yes France² once, instead of judging her, people
sought to understand her. It was then that, transcending what had divided
her, France was able to take the lead in the battle to change Europe.

So instead of vilifying the Swiss because their answer doesn¹t please us, it
is better to ask ourselves what it reveals. Why in Switzerland, a country
with a long tradition of openness, hospitality and tolerance, can such a
rejection be so forcefully expressed? And how would the French people answer
the same question?

Instead of condemning the Swiss people out of hand, let¹s also try to
understand what they sought to express and what so many peoples in Europe,
including the French, feel. Nothing would be worse than denial. Nothing
would be worse than not being realistic about so many Europeans¹ feelings,
concerns and aspirations.

Let¹s first understand that what happened has nothing to do with freedom of
worship or freedom of conscience. No one, no more in Switzerland than
elsewhere, is thinking of calling these fundamental freedoms into question.

Europe¹s peoples are welcoming and tolerant; it¹s in their nature and their
culture. But they don¹t want the nature of their ways of life and thinking
and social relations to be distorted. And feeling you are losing your
identity can be a cause of deep suffering. Globalization is contributing to
heightening this feeling.

Globalization makes identity a problem because everything in its process
contributes to undermining it, while simultaneously increasing the need for
it. This is because the more open the world, greater the cross-fertilization
of ideas and people and movement of capital and goods, the more people need
anchors and points of reference and not feel alone in the world. This need
to belong can be met by tribes, nations, sectarianism or the Republic.

National identity is the antidote to tribalism and sectarianism. This is why
I called for a great debate on national identity. We must all talk together
about this gnawing threat which so many people in our old European nations
feel, rightly or wrongly, hanging over their identity, because if it is
pushed under the carpet it could end up nurturing bitter resentment.

The Swiss, like the French, know that change is a necessity. Their long
history has taught them that to remain what you are you have to accept
change. Like the generations which preceded them, they know that opening up
to others is a source of enrichment. No other European civilization has,
throughout its history, engaged more in the cross-fertilization of different
cultures, which is the diametric opposite of sectarianism.

This cross-fertilization denotes the desire to live together. Sectarianism
means opting to live separately. But cross-fertilization does not negate
identities, for everyone it means recognizing, understanding and respecting
the Other.

For the host community it means recognizing what the incomers can bring
them. For the incomers it means respecting what was there before their
arrival. For the host community it means offering to share their heritage,
history, civilization and lifestyle.

For the incomers it means being willing to integrate smoothly, seamlessly,
into the society they are going to contribute to transforming and the
history they are now going to help write. The key to this mutual enrichment
­ the cross-fertilization of ideas, thinking and cultures ­ is successful
assimilation.

Respecting the incomers means allowing them to pray in decent places of
worship. You don¹t respect people when you force them to practise their
religion in basements or sheds. We don¹t respect our own values if we accept
such situations. Since, once again, secularism (laicité) isn¹t the rejection
of all religions, but respect for all faiths. It¹s a principle of
neutrality, not a principle of indifference. When I was Interior Minister I
created the French Council of the Muslim Faith so that the Muslim religion
was put on an equal footing with all the other great religions.

Respecting the host community means striving not to clash with them, or
shock them, respecting their values, beliefs, laws and traditions and ­ at
least in part ­ adopting them. It means accepting gender equality,
secularism and separation of the temporal and spiritual.

I want to tell my Muslim compatriots that I shall do the utmost to make them
feel they are citizens like the others, enjoy the same rights as all the
others to live their faith, practise their religion with the same freedom
and the same dignity. I shall fight every form of discrimination.

But I want to tell them too that, in our country, where the Christian
civilization has left such a deep imprint, where the Republic¹s values are
an integral part of our national identity, everything which might look like
a challenge issued to that heritage and these values would doom to failure
the very necessary establishment of a French Islam which, denying none of
its fundamental tenets, will have found in itself the way to ensure its
smooth inclusion in our social and civic pacts.

Christians, Jews and Muslims, people of every faith, believers, regardless
of their beliefs, everyone must refrain from all ostentation and all
provocation and, aware of their good fortune in living in a land of freedom,
must practise their faith with the humble discretion which attests not to
the lukewarm nature of their beliefs, but to the brotherly respect they feel
towards people who do not think as they do, with whom they want to live./.