THE NST Leader was right after all about France becoming a republic of hate under President Emmanuel Macron.
Beginning next month, Muslim women will not be able to insist on being examined by a female doctor. Likewise, male Muslims can't insist on male doctors either. Should they do so, a €75,000 fine and a five-year jail sentence await them.
Soon, there will be more Muslims in French jails than on its streets. Halal food counters and religious education, too, are set to go the way of the hijab. These and many more measures that are targeted against Muslims go to form the mega Macron plan to wage a war against Islam. In short, Muslims can't be Muslims in France.
Never has racism been so targeted against Islam and Muslims. Macron is fast turning France into an autocracy. Muslims are born free, but in France, they are in chains. Our fear is that Macron will not stop at France. He will take his war against Islam and Muslims to Europe. He appears not to be satisfied with a Muslim-hating France; he wants Europe to hate them, too.
Macron must remember this. Inciting hate against a people or their faith is an international crime, even if it is committed within the borders of France or European nations. Most genocides begin with hate speech.
Leaders of the past may have escaped charges of French brutalities, especially in Algeria. The Sétif and Guelma massacres of civilian Algerian Muslims in 1945 were two shameful examples that have gone unpunished. The world was unjust then as it is now.
But now at least we have the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to stop international crimes against humanity. We suggest the ICC keep a close watch on the hate speech of Macron and his ministers. Granted, powerful nations do stop an ICC investigation against their citizens with threats and sanctions, like what the Americans did recently to the court's chief prosecutor and her senior officers. Little wonder, we hear no investigation against any of the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council, the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China.
Macron has a terrorism problem, but it is not what he is after. Reading France's Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin's statement on Sunday to La Voix du Nord newspaper as quoted by Al Jazeera that France is "waging a war against radical Islam" in the context of Macron's "Islam is in crisis everywhere" speech of Oct 2, it appears his battle is aimed at Islam and Muslims.
The proposed bill that will reach Parliament next month points that way, too. To begin with, there is no such thing as radical Islam or Islamist Islam. Islam is a revealed religion. To attach an adjective or an "ism" or "ist" is to display ignorance of a grand kind. It was Islam then, it is Islam still.
Granted, France has a problem, but it is not Islam. Or Muslims. Macron must take heed of what Indonesian President Joko Widodo said on Sunday in response to his hate speech on Oct 2 and his subsequent actions: "Associating religion with acts of terrorism is a big mistake. Terrorism is terrorism, terrorists are terrorists. Terrorism has nothing to do with any religion."
Let's be blunt. Macron can't end terrorism if all he wants is to custom-make a revealed religion for France.