Unmaking Strangers: The cultural politics of emotion in the formulation of a counter-narrative to Islamophobia

Unmaking Strangers: The cultural politics of emotion in the formulation of a counter-narrative to Islamophobia

Nadine Tijdink

10002298

Master Thesis Comparative Cultural Analysis Supervisor: Mikki Stelder

Second Reader: Jules Sturm 15 June 2016


Table of Content

Introduction 4

Resetting the mood: the affective value of a hug in the formation of a counter-narrative to

Islamophobia 7

Imagining France as how it should be: #NousSommesUnis, a video by the Etudiants Musulmans

de France 21

Declining the mood with a carefully crafted “Fuck Off”: A protest photo by a French-Syrian

couple on Place de la République 37

Conclusion 52

Introduction

Since the terrorist attacks on January 9 and November 13, 2015 in Paris, France has been in quite a tense state. The mood that prevails public debate has become more Islamophobic and xenophobic, which is fueled by the extension of the State of Emergency until at least the end of July 2016. This tense mood has lead to a hyper surveillance of Arabs and Muslims in France. The 1 dominant narrative justifies this hyper surveillance through the production of the threat, casting Muslims and Arabs as potential terrorists. Fear is hereby mobilized in order to reinforce the French government’s power on the dynamics of exclusion directed at incoming refugees, as well as French Muslims and French Arabs living in France.

In this thesis I analyze three responses to the terrorist attacks of 2015 in Paris - two of which come from French Muslims, and one from a French-Syrian couple that lives in Paris. I will look at how they contribute to the formulation of a counter-narrative to Islamophobia in France. In the first chapter, I will close-read a video that shows the performance of a blindfolded Muslim man, who stands in the middle of Place de la République in Paris, asking for people to give him a hug if they trust him and do not see him as a terrorist. In the second chapter, I will close-read a video from the Etudiants Musulmans de France, who express their sadness about the events and make a call to their French co-citizens for unity. In the third chapter I will analyze a protest photo from a French-Syrian couple. Different from the other responses, the couple clearly articulates their anger about the deep-rooted racist discourse that existed long before these events. However, they do combine this with an expression of love, stating that “love will always win”.

The reason I chose these particular objects is that they have an important element in common: emotion. They show how we are led by the emotions of fear and hate that the media and ! The announcement of the extension of the State of Emergency can be found on the website of the New York Times: 1

political narratives perpetuate. And as the objects make an appeal to those emotions of fear and hate in their responses to the attacks, through the invocation of negative stereotypical associations, they demonstrate how these emotions can be transformed into feelings of solidarity, trust and love, by creating new associations, or re-defining the signification of the negative associations.

I will close-read these objects through Sara Ahmed's theory on the affect of emotion in political discourses. In her book The Cultural Politics of Emotion, Sara Ahmed points out that Western political narratives use emotions as an important manipulative tool, in the way that they regulate affective responses by creating objects of love, hate and fear. For example, the nation becomes an object of love that is only available to the white “deserving citizen”. The non-white immigrant, instead, becomes an object of hate whose “invasion” is seen as a threat to the nation. These emotions of love, hate and fear work to align the imagined “deserving” subjects and the white nation, in opposition to the dangerous Other. As a result from such affective alignments, a certain “mood” comes into being (43).

A mood, as Ahmed explains in her essay Not in the Mood, is like an atmosphere, of either a situation, around a person, or in the form of public opinion or national values and beliefs. When you are affected by the mood in the intended way, then you are attuning to that mood. When you don’t feel affected in that way, then you are mis-attuning. You then become a stranger, or an “affect alien” (26). The mood that has dominated the atmosphere in the West, especially after the recent terrorist attacks, is that of fear. Fear of terrorism, fear of Muslims, fear of racism. This leads me to address Sara Ahmed’s argument on how strangers are often already created by the mood before the arrival of their bodies. I quote: “Some bodies are being “in an instant” judged as suspicious, or as dangerous, as objects to be feared, a judgment that can have lethal consequences. There can be nothing more dangerous to a body than the social agreement that that body is dangerous” (“Making Strangers”). Fear is thus felt on both sides: fear of the Muslim body by the white Western subject, and fear of hate crimes and biased criminal profiling by the “othered” Muslim subject.

In addition to this theoretical framework, Judith Butler’s work provides a useful tool for understanding the mechanisms of structural racism and the politics of exclusion. Namely, Butler argues that it is discourse that forms subjects and governs power relations, through the regulation of what is speakable in public debate and who is allowed to speak at all (Excitable Speech 133). These discursive frames appear to be powerful tools for governments to regulate the dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion. It is necessary to take these power relations into account when imagining to formulate a counter-narrative. What are the conditions for a counter-narrative to actually modify the established discourse? Who needs to speak in order for it to be apprehended as a valuable narrative? And how should this counter-narrative be articulated in order for it to be interpreted the intended way?

As Sara Ahmed’s work shows, the dominant discourse exercises power through the politics of emotion. In this thesis I will explore how these emotions might be mobilized by “others” in order to counter that discourse. All three the objects of analysis presented here seem to make an attempt to transform feelings of fear into feelings of trust; to transform hated bodies into lovable bodies. They thereby, in an implicit and positive way, articulate their critique to the established racist discourse that depicts their bodies as “other”. The central question in my thesis will therefore be: what is the role of emotion in these forms of activism and to what extend can they contribute to a formulation of a counter-narrative that re-conceptualizes the idea of the Muslim as a stranger?

Resetting the mood: the affective value of a hug in the formation of a counter-narrative to Islamophobia

“What is the mood in Paris?” was the question that filled many headlines after the terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015. Newspapers such as the New York Times, Le Figaro, Le Monde and The Huffington Post described the mood with words like “somber”, “morose,” “bizarre”, “icy”, “grim”, “heavy” and “tense”, along with expressions like “fear and suspicion are pervasive”, “a climate of fear” and “a state of shock.” The climate of fear and distrust towards 2 Muslims, not only in France but in most Western countries, has already been lingering in the background, especially after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The attack on Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015 and the attacks on the 13th of November in Paris, have incited an intensification of already present Islamophobia directed towards Muslims in Europe.

In this chapter I will consider the response of Abdel Tadmaya, a Muslim French citizen, to the attacks and to this mood of fear and suspicion. His performance criticizes the Islamophobic gaze that rests on the surface of the bodies that are deemed to be Muslim. The response came in the form of a performance from a man in Paris who, following the Canadian example The Blind Trust Project , stood blindfolded on Place de la République with his arms wide open. By his feet he had 3 placed a cardboard with the sign: “Je suis musulman et on dit de moi que je suis TERRORISTE. Je vous fais confiance, et vous? Alors faites moi un CALIN”. In the Now, a global digital news

! Adam Nossiter and Liz Alderman, “After Paris attacks, a darker mood toward Islam emerges in France,” New York 2

Times, 16 Nov. 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/world/europe/after-paris-attacks-a-darker-mood-toward-islam-emerges-in-france.html?_r=1 “The day after the horror in Paris” The Economist, 14 Nov. 2015. http:// www.economist.com/news/europe/21678512-capital-shocked-terror-sense-defiant-normality-day-after-horror-paris Sandra Lorenzo, “Jusqu’à quand aurons-nous peur après les attentats du 13 novembre,” The Huffington Post, 21 Nov. 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2015/11/21/peur-attentats-13-novembre_n_8601562.html Marie Théobald and Mathilde Doiezie, “Après les attentats, Paris survit,” Le Figaro, 18 Nov. 2015. http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/ 2015/11/14/01016-20151114ARTFIG00261-un-jour-apres-paris-survit.php “Ambiance “pesante” dans les écoles après les attentats,” Direct Matin, 16 Dec. 2015. http://www.directmatin.fr/france/2015-12-16/ambiance-pesante-dans-les-ecoles-apres-les-attentats-718331

! The Blind Trust Project is a project initiated by Canadian Muslims in order to "break down barriers and eliminate the 3

fear and ignorance that's projected towards Muslims and Islam and to make an effort to eliminate stereotypes and Islamophobia." Their video can be found on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNUHnzkojag

platform, made a video about this performance with English subtitles: “I’m a Muslim but they say about me that I’m a TERRORIST. I trust you, do you trust me? If yes, HUG ME”. They inserted 4 the introduction "This Muslim man sends a powerful message" and added music to the video, which enhances the emotional aspect of the performance. In relation to the context of the “heavy mood” in Paris, I interpret this video as a manifestation of how strongly emotions are involved in political discourses. I argue that the performance attempts to produce a “counter-mood” by appealing to feelings of fear and distrust, which were lingering in the background but have become more manifest after the attacks, in order to transform them into feelings of solidarity, trust and love.

My analysis of the video concerns the political discourses that influenced the development of Islamophobia in France. François Hollande’s proclamation of a State of Emergency and the Far Right political parties, using the attacks to reinforce their politics of fear and their anti-immigration and anti-Islam discourses, have both contributed to further polarization of narratives concerning the West and the Muslim Other (Ahmed, Cultural Politics 72). In these narratives the West sees itself as the arrival point of civilization and progress and posits their own values as universal. Such a vision results in the consideration of others who do not share their “universal" values or livelihood as backwards and, when these others are in proximity to the West, even as a dangerous (Mignolo 471). The imperialist and xenophobic narrative dominating public debate in the West denounces the Islam as incompatible with Western - and thus universal - values, creating thereby an image of the Islam as a threat to the West and to humanity in general. A threat to "our way of life”. The idea that 5 the Islam is inherently violent and hateful towards the West, explains why the Islam is often associated directly with the terrorist attacks. As a consequence, it enhances a suspicious attitude ! The video of Abdel Tadmaya's performance can be found on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch? 4

v=lRbbEQkraYg

! This exact quote comes from Will Cummins’ article in The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-5

view/3608849/Muslims-are-a-threat-to-our-way-of-life.html , but there are many more examples of this narrative on websites such as: http://www.debate.org/opinions/is-islam-a-threat-to-the-world , http://specialguests.com/guests/ viewnews.cgi?id=EkApVZFkplJTEnCpak&style=Full%20Article , http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/islam-greatest-threat-world-peace-since-hitlers-nazis/ and https://destroyislamnow.wordpress.com. These websites aim to destroy the Islam, since they consider it the biggest threat to world peace. On these websites, Muslims are described as "vile and dangerous" and sometimes they are even compared to nazis.

towards any person with Arab or Middle-Eastern features, naturalized in the narrative as the face of a Muslim and hence, a potential terrorist. This has resulted in heightened racial profiling and hate crimes against the Arab population and people of color more generally, justified in the name of the “war on terrorism” (Butler Precarious Life 76).

Many Muslims from all over the world have responded to the terrorist attacks and the dangers of Islamophobic discourse. From individuals, to Imams, and organizations like the EMF (Étudiants Musulmans de France) and Making a Stand, many responded with an apologizing tone. An example of this is the frequently used hashtag #NotInMyName. Others, like the blindfolded man in the video make their co-citizens aware of the Western Islamophobic gaze, and show how this gaze puts Muslims in a vulnerable position. Some have critiqued this pressure to apologize for the attacks (Dagli and Mokhtar), as in fact, this duty to apologize derives from the same essentialist discourse that considers violence to be an inherent aspect of the Islam. In chapter two I will discuss this topic further.

I will close read the video presented in this chapter through Sara Ahmed’s work on the cultural politics of emotion, in which she points out how emotions such as love, hate and fear are mobilized in Western political narratives to align certain bodies against “other” bodies. I will first reflect on how the political discourse has contributed to the creation of the figure of the “could-be- terrorist”, which is alluded to by the man in the video, and how this figure has become an object of feeling through sticky negative associations. Then I will approach the figure of the “could-be- terrorist” in the context of public mourning, using Judith Butler’s work on the aftermath of 9/11, in which she shows that public mourning plays an important role in the construction of certain bodies as “other” and how it contributes to affective responses regarding those bodies. Finally, I will analyze the act of the hug itself, for “it is through sensual experiences … that we come to have a sense of our skin as bodily surface, as something that keeps us apart from others, and as something that “mediates” the relationship between internal or external, or inside and outside” (Ahmed

Cultural Politics 24). The hug hereby performs the meaning of touch in both literal and symbolical sense. A touch affects people emotionally, which means that people are not only touched through the contact of their bodies, but touched in the metaphorical sense as well: the hug symbolically “unmakes the stranger” as it transforms the “fearsome” Muslim body into a body that can be trusted and loved.

Setting the Mood

The sign stating “I’m a Muslim but they say about me that I’m a terrorist. I trust you, do you trust me? If yes, give me a hug” implies that there is a label put on the Muslim body: the figure of the “could-be-terrorist”. It is worth noting that the part “they say about me” is translated differently in the subtitles of the video. There it says: “I’m told”, which has a slightly different implication. The French words “On dit de moi” allude to a sharper distinction between “they” and “me” than the translation “I’m told” does, which is a small but important detail for the interpretation of the performance. I would argue that the performer clearly wants to confront his co-citizens with the Islamophobic gaze that rests upon Arab people, inviting them to look at his body through the label “terrorist”.

The sign also implies that there is a feeling of trust involved, on both sides, which has been disrupted. Now the question is, how has this trust been disrupted? By the terrorist attacks? Or could it be the label itself that has evoked feelings of distrust? The first option contains the essentialist assumption that terrorism is a feature inherent to Islam and that any Muslim would be capable of performing such acts. The second option suggests that political and media narratives have perpetuated such a label. Since these narratives are the main source of information for citizens, they have the capacity to “set the national mood”, which would make this option more likely to be true.

In fact, the national mood is an important factor in the creation of “sticky” associations, as it “is a fundamental medium or presupposition through which we apprehend the world, it also allows

certain affects, which are more punctual and more object-oriented than moods, to attach to certain objects, while at the same time foreclosing other attachments” (Flatley 507). When the mood is dark or threatening, people tend to perceive things they encounter with more suspicion than they would if the mood had been optimistic. In this case, national citizens are on heightened alert, called upon by the French government to look out for any “suspicious activity”, and thereby directing a monitoring gaze towards those taken to be Muslim (Butler Precarious Life 76).

In fact, the French government has clearly demonstrated that they perceive the nation as under threat, by responding to the attacks with a declaration of the war on terrorism, similar to George W. Bush’s response after 9/11. As Ahmed points out, such a perception entails the distinction between “those who are under threat and those who threaten … Through the generation of “the threat,” fear works to align bodies with and against others” (The Cultural Politics 72). This alignment leads to the increase of love for the nation as well as the increase of fear and hate towards the dangerous Other. The Other becomes the origin of bad feeling, the one who threatens to injure the normative subject and the nation. It is through these politics of fear that, by essentializing the ones perceived as the Other, the figure of the “could-be-terrorist” is created (72).

This essentialist narrative then opens up a history of stereotypes that have already been attached to the Arab Muslim body (75). Stereotypical associations and the negative feelings that accompany them do not reside within that body, but have been put onto its surface by the dominant discourse, which is a racist discourse that works through processes of racialization. These bad feelings move between signs, like affective economies, and work to generate fear precisely because they have no specific referent; anyone with more or less these racialized characteristics could be a terrorist. In Sara Ahmed’s words: “The movement of fear between signs is what allows the object of fear to be generated in the present … and allows others to be attributed with emotional value, as “being fearsome”” (67). This is what she calls the “rippling” effect of emotions: they move between various persons or objects, as well as between past and present associations, gaining thereby

affective value. And it is precisely the increase of affective value that makes associations sticky, as they are justified by past histories and are applicable to anyone deemed to be Muslim. This economic sense of movement of affect allows for a differentiation between ordinary and fearsome bodies, which is an ongoing process of social exclusion. Consequently, this process of trying to pick out the potential terrorists, is what “justifies the repetition of violence against the bodies of others in the name of protecting the nation” (47).

In fact, Hollande’s call for a State of Emergency increases the risk of radicalizing the suspicious attitude toward Muslims in France. In such a suspension of the rule of law, the French government ascribes itself the (illegitimate) power to detain any person who is suspected to be dangerous, in the name of national security. Suspicion has thus become a sufficient ground to detain an individual. The State does therefore not need to justify its actions, which, on the contrary, poses a significant threat to those being detained, since they have no possibility of defending themselves (Butler Precarious Life 67). Furthermore, the French government has the legal power to denaturalize an individual found guilty of an “act of terrorism”, if that individual has acquired French nationality (Beauchamps 128). Such policies compromise the ontological status of the Arab and Muslim population in France, exposing them to juridical dispossession and suspension (Butler Frames of War 29). Butler explains that this is not the same as Agamben's notion of “bare life” - the life of a person who has lost his or her legal rights as a citizen and political being, falling outside of jurisdiction, since:

The lives in question are not cast outside the polis in a state of radical exposure, but bound and constrained by power relations in a situation of forcible exposure. It is not the

withdrawal or absence of law that produces precariousness, but the very effects of

illegitimate legal coercion itself, or the exercise of state power freed from the constraints of all law. (29)

Exclusion from social and political life hence does not mean to be outside of power relations. In fact, the government exercises power over the perceived dangerous Other, exactly by monitoring them and dispossessing them of power and social status through coercion and intimidation, such as unwarranted house raids, assigned residency and other counterterrorism measures. Or as Sara Ahmed points out: “Strangers become objects not only of feeling but also of governance: strangers are bodies that are managed” (“Making Strangers”).

In the video, Abdel Tadmaya portrays the above described mood with his performance: with a keffiyeh before his eyes he symbolizes the feared object. He performs the figure of the Muslim enemy who has violated national security. I argue that the choice of Place de la République as a site for the performance is significant because in the days after the attacks it had become a site of mourning. Whilst standing there, in the center of the somber mood filled with grief and fear, he confronts his audience with the Islamophobic gaze on the one hand, but on the other hand he calls for mourning too. By spreading his arms wide open towards his audience and by blindfolding his eyes as a sign of trust, Abdel Tadmaya demonstrates trust, compassion and solidarity toward his co-citizens as well as he demands it in return from them. The performance shows that this return is not taken for granted in France. It brings to the surface the implicit questions that white French nationals might have in the back of their minds while looking at him: could he after all be a potential terrorist, a potential threat, an enemy? Can he be trusted? Does he sincerely care for the victims or does he hate us and our values underneath? The significance of this performance on the site of mourning ties in with Judith Butler's discussion on public mourning, in which she asks whether all lives are equally grievable. That is, Butler notices how there seems to be a differential distribution of who can be grieved in public and who cannot (Frames of War 38).

In fact, besides the allusion to the feared object, the blindfold seems to refer to the figure of Lady Justice as well, who has often been represented with a blindfold covering her eyes. This alludes to the notions of justice and equity, which involves the objective and impartial judgment of

the presented evidence and reasoning. The blindfold means that Lady Justice is not influenced in her judgment by factors that may cause prejudice, such as race, gender, wealth or social status for example. It is a sign of hope as well, as it means that regardless of their position in society, all citizens are equal before the Law (Sutherland-Smith 220). By wearing the blindfold, the man in the video confronts his co-citizens with this notion of justice and impartiality: Who counts within the French understanding of égalité, liberté and fraternité? Can the life of a Muslim be grieved as well in face of hate crimes and political violence after these events? Does a Muslim count as a human? Abdel Tadmaya raises awareness of these questions with his performance, exactly by confronting his audience with the dehumanizing label “terrorist” and the reference to Lady Justice, while at the same time showing his vulnerability by blindfolding himself and spreading his arms for hugs. I interpret the performance therefore as a call for mourning for all victims of terrorism and violence, since apparently it is not self-evident.

As I just mentioned, Judith Butler remarks that there is a certain hierarchy at play in the conduct of public mourning. She asks, “why is it that governments so often seek to regulate and control who will be publicly grievable and who will not?” (Frames of War 39) The lives that do not count as grievable lives are thereby rendered “unreal,” taking a spectral form somewhere in between life and death. Such a dehumanization already takes place on the level of discourse, by excluding some lives from the normative frame of the human (Precarious Life 33-34). However, as Butler explains,

It is not simply, then, that there is a “discourse” of dehumanization that produces these effects, but rather that there is a limit to discourse that establishes the limits of human intelligibility. It is not just that a death is poorly marked, but that it is unmarkable. Such a death vanishes, not into explicit discourse, but in the ellipses by which public discourse proceeds. (35)

So according to Butler, discourse exercises power not through explicit dehumanization of particular subjects, but through the establishment of norms for who might be seen as human and what might be seen as a human life, thereby determining the frames of inclusion and exclusion. Those who do not count as human within the dominant frame of human intelligibility can thus not be grievable and their death will therefore not be mentioned in public discourse. The blindfolded man on Place de la République in Paris calls for a recognition of his live as a precarious and grievable life - as precarious and grievable as the lives of the normative subjects. I would argue that his performance is also as an expression of fear, namely the fear of not being acknowledged as a human, to be judged as the Muslim enemy, and the fear that people will turn away from his “fearsome” body. Fear is thus felt on both sides: the white Western subjects’ fear of the Arab Muslim body and the “othered” Muslim subject’s fear of hate crimes and racially biased criminal profiling. And it is exactly this fear that demonstrates how socially embedded our bodies are, as they are exposed to the gaze of other people and are vulnerable to violence and exploitation: we are reciprocally dependent on each other (Butler Frames of War 14).

Resetting the mood

Judging from the video it looks like Abdel Tadmaya’s action has been successful, since many people gave him a hug. Here, the words “somber” and “tense” appear to be insufficient to describe the mood on Place de la République; there must have been other feelings than fear and distrust in the atmosphere. The memorial site where he stood provoked feelings like solidarity and compassion too, for the victims and their families, as well as for the people who were on the square at that moment.

At a certain point in the video a woman bursts into tears at the moment she hugs Tadmaya, upon which another woman begins to cry too, joining the two in their embrace. The moment is accompanied by dramatic music. I argue that the emotionally charged moment expresses an

accumulation of pain caused by a politics of fear that seeks to dehumanize the Arab Muslim body. As stated above, this relates to the politics of public mourning. Judith Butler argues that “whether we are speaking about open grief or outrage, we are talking about affective responses that are highly regulated by regimes of power and sometimes subject to explicit censorship” (Frames of War 39).” The dehumanizing narrative thus seems to come to the surface especially in such moments of public mourning, as it goes back to the question of who fits in the frame of a grievable life, worthy of being mourned.

By assuming this vulnerable position, Tadmaya reclaims humanity. He does so by showing that the hateful feelings attributed to his body do not actually reside within, but touch the surface of it through the stickiness of negative associations that the dominant discourse has perpetuated. His audience appears to be touched by the sight of him in this position, which I deduce from the fact that many people came up to him and gave him hug. My interpretation of these reactions is that Tadmaya raises awareness about the precariousness of the French Muslim's life - if this is the case, precariousness becomes a shared condition. And this shared condition of precariousness is necessary in order to become grievable (28). More importantly, in this moment, Abdel Tadmaya renders the Arab Muslim a subject instead of the “othered” object of fear, by demanding inclusion to the established frame of recognizability.

Maybe even more than the sight of the performer’s vulnerability, it seems that the hug has a powerful affective value in raising awareness of the precariousness of his life. In fact, the woman who bursts out in tears, does so at the moment she touches him. The second woman seems to be affected emotionally by the sight of that moment, judging from her emotional reaction to this sight . This instance triggered reactions in the crowd as well: some people saddened their facial expression, others were filming it with their smartphones, while there were also people who smiled compassionately. Looking at the reactions, I suggest that it was an event of important affective value: cheesy sayings such as “a hug is worth a thousand words” do indeed seem to apply here.

Dan-Mikael Ellingsen et al. argue that touch can be a powerful tool for conveying an emotional message and improving social bonding (12). Matthew J. Hertenstein adds to this that people can even detect with precision which emotion is communicated by a touch, such as love, gratitude or sympathy (532). Besides its communicative functions, touch gives the subject a sense of the self as well. As Suzanne Peloquin puts it: “Touch fulfills several functions of the self. Through touch one communicates, tests the reality of the world, affirms connectedness and comfort with others, and manifests the self as a person” (303). I would argue that touch, besides setting boundaries between the self and the other, crosses boundaries too. A part of the self is given to the other through touch, which opens up the opportunity for identification. The possibility of identifying with each other is probably what gives the hug in the video the most power, since identification is what brings people closer, like a form of love (Ahmed The Cultural Politics 126). The hug reinforces the man’s call for a recognition of the precarious condition of the lives of Arabs and Muslims, as it is precisely this recognition that that opens up a space for positive associations with the racialized Muslim body.

I argue that the hug in this case is a symbolic attempt to reject the a priori stickiness of the sign of “could-be-terrorist” onto the body of Muslims and Arabs and, at the same time, to turn this body into a body that can be loved. In fact, Sara Ahmed notes that "a hug, one assumes, expresses ‘the quality of feeling of a shared affective state’” (Not in the Mood 20). By using his body, the Abdel Tadmaya has thus, as the video suggests, successfully transformed the suspicious mood into a mood of compassion.

Conclusion

As Sara Ahmed’s work shows, moods and feelings towards certain objects and bodies are evoked and mobilized by political discourse, in order to maintain certain power relations. Narratives that evoke binary oppositions between “us” and “them” are expressed through feelings of love (for the nation) hate, and fear (for the dangerous could-be-terrorist), which create objects to which these

feelings can be attributed, often through processes of racialization. In the case of the could-be-terrorist, the object does not have a specific referent, but the associations attached to the figure assume a body with certain characteristics, based on racist and Islamophobic discourses about Arabs and Muslims. The object of love is instead a shared object. Subjects identify with one another through their love for the nation. Connecting these findings to the video, I argue that the performance on the one hand evoked the negative mood by assuming the figure of the could-be-terrorist, but on the other hand evoked feelings of compassion and togetherness. In that moment the blindfolded man demonstrated that difference does not necessarily signify antagonism and that love for the nation should be able to go hand in hand with cultural and bodily differences.

When taking Butler’s concept of precariousness and grievablity into account, matters become more complicated because only certain bodies (white bodies) are associated with the nation, and others are not, even though they are part of that nation, e.g. French Muslims and French Arabs. Butler's discussion shows that love for the nation can actually be a dangerous site through which inequality works, as it divides citizens into subjects that pose a threat to the nation and subjects that need protection from that threat. The subjects in need of protection become through this narrative deserving and valuable citizens, whereas the subjects that fall into the category of the threat come to be excluded from the frames of the deserving citizen and grievable life. Loving the nation becomes a shared orientation or goal which generates connection and recognition between the "deserving" citizens whereas the subjects that are viewed as a threat to the object of love, lose their humanity and hence face exclusion from participation. In other words, the issue lies in who is allowed to participate as a subject in this sharing. It is a question of who counts as a human in the hegemonic socio-political frame of human life. It involves therefore a sharing of recognition as well, namely the recognition of precariousness as a shared condition. Through the awareness of this shared condition, the antagonistic discourse that presents the Muslim as a threat, makes place for a discourse of inclusion, in which the Muslim becomes a recognizable human.

This performance is of course the action of an individual on a small scale and probably will not have large consequences for the national mood. In fact, as Judith Butler has pointed out, these frameworks of cultural recognizability are regulated by regimes of power, which means that if a big change is to be made, it should be in political policy making. This is because of the interconnectedness of media representations and political decisions: the shaping of the hegemonic socio-political frame for human life is influenced by the media and policy making and vice versa. In Judith Butler's words: “Perception and policy are but two modalities of the same process” (Frames of War 29).” This means that in order to make a significant change, policy makers should become aware of precariousness as a shared condition, because this recognition "introduces strong normative commitments of equality and invites more robust universalizing of rights that seeks to address basic human needs for food, shelter, and other conditions for persisting and flourishing” (28-29).

Nonetheless, the performance in the video demonstrates that citizens do have the agency to promote civil imagination - the imagination of a civil discourse outside the category of the political that does however function as a critique to political discourse. As stated by Ariella Azoulay: “The first step in the evolution of a civil discourse lies in the act of refusing to identify disaster with the population upon whom it is afflicted” (2). The blindfolded man in the video seems to do exactly this - he refuses to let the political discourse define him as the enemy, and dehumanize him up to the point that his life becomes ungrievable. He does this by re-appropriating the Islamophobic and racist associations with Arabs and Muslims through the performativity of his body. In fact, although Butler advocates for a change from policy makers, she also aims to find ways in which the individual can find the agency to resist established frames. For Butler, agency is not something the subject has, rather, it departs from the established norms of what is allowed to be said in public discourse. The agency of the subject lies on the margins of those norms, through the re-appropriation or re-signification of speech acts (Excitable Speech 163). Such performative speech

works as well through the body, since “both action and gesture signify and speak" (Notes Toward 124). In Abdel Tadmaya's performance, the body interacts with speech: with the cardboard sign he exposes the normative speech that defines his body as untrustworthy, and through the bodily gesture of hugging, he re-appropriates that speech and thereby re-directs the reading of his body as trustworthy. I therefore conclude that in this specific moment, Abdel Tadmaya succeeded in resetting the mood on Place de la République.

Imagining France as how it should be: #NousSommesUnis, a video by the Etudiants Musulmans de France

Près de 120 morts. Une centaine de blessés. 3 jours de deuil à cause de 8 terroristes présumés. La France est plongée dans le chaos et l'effroi. Et moi, je reste sans voix...

Ils pensent mener une guerre contre des croisés.

Et invoquent le Coran tout en s'appuyant sur ses versets. Mais verser le sang d'un innocent ne répond à aucune loi. Si eux ne l'ont pas compris, moi je ne les comprends pas. Laissera-t-on à mon cœur blessé, le temps de cicatriser. Entre Charlie Hebdo, le Thalys et Paris submergé. "J'ai mal à ma France", crie mon coeur de vive voix. Et la voie choisie par mon cœur se rattache à ma foi. Ma foi dont les fondements se trouvent ébranlés. Par 120 morts et des millions de coeurs blessés.

Par les actes de terroristes, persuadés du bienfondé de leur choix Mais le bien fondé sur la foi condamnera toujours ces attentats. Ils voulaient affaiblir la France. Ils ont renforcé le cœur des Français. Un cri se fera plus fort: c'est celui de la fraternité.

Un pour tous et tous pour l'Humanité. Nous sommes et resterons unis à jamais.‑6

(Etudiants Musulmans de France 2015)

! This is the script of the spoken words in a video by the Etudiants Musulmans de France (EMF), which they published 6

on Youtube November 15th 2015 in response to the terrorist attacks in Paris: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=WVUCMBuAQNs

Nearly 120 deaths. Around a hundred injured.

3 days of mourning because of 8 presumed terrorists. France has plunged into chaos and fright.

And I, I am speechless…

They think they are waging a war against crusaders. As they invoke the Quran, hinging on its verses.

But shedding an innocent’s blood does not correspond to any law. If they haven’t understood that, I do not understand them.

Give my wounded heart the time to heal.

Between Charlie Hebdo, the Thalys and an overwhelmed Paris. “My France hurts,” cries my heart out loud.

And the path my heart has chosen is connected to my faith My faith which finds its foundations being shaken.

By 120 deaths and millions of hurt hearts.

By the acts of terrorists, convinced of the legitimacy of their choice. But the justice of faith will always condemn these attacks.

They wanted to weaken France. They have strengthened the hearts of the French. A cry will grow louder: the one of fraternity.

One for all and all for Humanity. We are and will be united forever.

On November 15, 2015, the Etudiants Musulmans de France (EMF) launched a video on Youtube in response to the terrorist attacks that took place in Paris two days earlier. With this video they express their sadness about the events, stating that they were just as broken-hearted as everyone else in France. Through the condemnation of the terrorist attacks and distancing themselves emotionally as well as ideologically from the manner in which the terrorists invoke Islam, they show their loyalty to France and the French ideals of liberté, égalité and fraternité, while at the same time demonstrating how their practice of Islam is compatible with these ideals. With the hashtag #NousSommesUnis that each of the participant in the video displays, they call out to all French citizens to unite and work together. It refers to the collective Nous Sommes Unis that, 7 ! The collective works by means of communication on the street (handing out badges, stickers etc.), on social media 7

through testimonies of fraternity and unity, aims to produce a counter-narrative to violence and polarizing discourses. They believe that through togetherness and the creation of community, France can stand tall against terrorism.

With this video the EMF insist on making a statement that opposes terrorism and its dividing effects on people, but it is also a call for mourning: mourning the French victims, as well as mourning the way in which the Islam has been used to justify the killing of innocent people. In order to comprehend the implications of this statement, it is necessary to consider the context in which it has been made. In this chapter, I will argue that as much as this video is an attempt to convey a message of brotherhood and unity, it is also a product of the intensification of stigmatization against Muslims, caused by French government’s counterterrorism measures under the State of Emergency, such as unwarranted house raids, assigned residency and the shutting down of associations. As discussed in the previous chapter, the search for terrorists has led to a 8 heightened suspicious mood towards Muslims and Arabs in general, and a sharpening of identity politics already at play, that casts French Muslims as the Other, as not completely French (Fredette 3). Muslims are pressured by the “national mood” to openly condemn the attacks, in order not to be suspected of Islamic extremism. In fact, as I have argued with Judith Butler, the law that one is innocent until proven guilty, is suspended in the State of Emergency, resulting in a permanent state of racially biased vigilance on anyone deemed to be Muslim. France has even adopted a law in 2012 that enables the government to sanction anyone who is “guilty of justification of or incitement to terrorism on the internet.” 9

! In an article on their website on December 22th 2015, Amnesty International warns for human rights violation by the 8

State of Emergency in France: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/12/france-new-law-threatens-to-make-emergency-measures-the-new-norm/

! A list of counter-terrorism measures can be found on the website of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs: http:// 9

I therefore interpret the video of the EMF as a manifestation of the implicit (yet sometimes explicit) obligation to stress their loyalty to the French nation and French values. Ironically, this 10 obligation also manifests their difference from white, French nationals, who instead are not expected to publicly condemn the terrorist attacks. The questions at stake in this chapter are hence: What does a public condemnation of terrorism such as the statement of the EMF mean in relation to the suspicious “national mood” regarding French Muslims and Arabs? What does it do to publicly give an account of oneself in terms of “what kind of Muslim” one is - extremist or moderate? Against or with the French nation? Fearsome or trustworthy? Hateful or loving? And finally, in what manner do the politics of emotion play a role in this obligation of public condemnation?

In my analysis of the video I will first examine how the EMF’s statement regarding the terrorist attacks relates to the sharpened identity politics surrounding the Arab and Muslim population in France, by positing it in relation to the rhetoric of multiculturalism and its regulating force on affective responses. With Sara Ahmed’s economic model of emotions I will argue how the figure of the dangerous “could-be-terrorist” comes back in the video as a “sticky” association with Muslims, exactly in the EMF’s attempt to distance themselves from that figure. I will then turn to the EMF’s approach towards the French nation and French values, by examining how they demonstrate the possibility of uniting their faith to the French values of liberté, égalité and fraternité. Similarly to Abdel Tadmaya’s performance of the hug in chapter one, the EMF seek to change the suspicious mood towards Muslims through the creation of positive associations with the Islamic faith. Whereas in the former video the focus lies on the body, in this video the focus lies on mourning and highlighting sameness instead of difference. By invoking the French values alongside the expression of loyalty to their faith, the EMF remind their viewers that they share love for the nation as much as white French nationals do, and as they underscore the value of brotherhood and

! For explicit appeals to Muslims to openly condemn terrorism, see newspapers such as the National Review, or La 10

Voie Droit: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429227/islamic-terror-muslims-should-condemn-it and http:// www.lavoiedroite.com/article/le-statut-religieux-concernant-les-attentats-terroristes-de-paris

unity, they imagine a France as how it should be: a France that acknowledges all its citizens as full members of the nation that all equally deserve protection from hate and violence.

The performative rhetoric behind the national mood

As Paul May points out, among the European multicultural countries, France could be considered quite a particular case: it is one of the European countries with the largest amount of immigrants, while it maintains an integration policy of assimilation (2). This means that incoming migrants should “become French”, at least in public life. The assimilationist policy is different from the concept of multiculturalism, which instead acknowledges cultural differences as important constitutive elements of identity, and which allows them to be expressed in the private as well as the public domain (May 2 and Rattan and Nalini 13). In fact, Paul May states that France is “a country which is ethnically and religiously diverse, but reluctant to take this diversity into account in its institutions” (2). In addition to that, the concept of multiculturalism has been severely put into question by the norm of laïcité, which has had a strong revival in France since the increasing arrival of Muslim immigrants in Europe and the rise of global terrorism perpetrated by Islamic extremist groups (Jansen 16). Laïcité, or secularism, challenges multiculturalism as it demands for the exclusion of religion from politics and public life. A direct example of this, is the law adopted in 2004 that forbids the wearing of religious symbols in public and particularly the niqab and the burqa since 2011, in name of protecting the norms of laïcité. Yolanda Jansen states that:

In response to the events that have brought religious dimensions to the foreground of today’s cultural diversity and especially of political conflict, and as an alternative to

multiculturalism, public and academic debates have turned overwhelmingly to the question of how to deal with religion in the public sphere and with Islam specifically. In these

contexts, secularism is invoked as a precondition of democracy, especially defense of the rights of women, children and sexual minorities. (16).

However, adds Jansen, such a focus on secularism and assimilation entails the risk of “othering” the Muslim population in France, which actually makes it more difficult for them to fully belong to the nation. She calls this the “paradox of assimilation” (Jansen 2013; 17). This assimilationist rhetoric assumes that pushing back cultural differences to the private domain leads to social cohesion in public, and that it creates the possibility for all citizens to adhere to a national culture (May 13 and Ahmed Strange Encounters 105). Culture is hereby perceived as existing only on the level of appearance, which results in a distinction between strangers that can be assimilated and strangers who “threaten the cultural identity of the nation” (Strange encounters 105). That is, the assimilable strangers look different from the outside, but underneath they are close to the French “cultural identity,” whereas the unassimilable strangers are different in a way that “cannot be reduced to mere appearance” (106). By refusing to adopt French values such as laïcité, they threaten the “we” of the French nation: “such strangers are assimilated precisely as the unassimilable and hence they allow us to face the ‘limit’ of the multicultural nation” (106). However, this is not to argue that appearance does not matter in the recognition of the unassimilable stranger. In fact, skin color plays an important role in whether a person can assimilate to white secular ideals or not. Through the workings of the threat as an affective economy, particular bodies are already recognized as threatening before they approximate the nation (24). In fact, such an affective economy works on a visual level, too: like the figure of the could-be-terrorist, the unassimilable stranger is associated with the bodies of anyone deemed to be Muslim. This means that even secular Arabs, because of their physical appearance, will never fully belong to the nation, no matter how well they assimilate to the ideals of laïcité.

The terrorist attacks could only have worsened the image of Muslims as a threat to the national cohesion in France, as the dominant Islamophobic discourse uses them to justify the affective association between the notion of the “threat” and Muslims. This reinforces the iteration of the sticky association of the “could-be-terrorist” with the Arab body. What happens with both the assimilationist and the multiculturalist rhetoric is that by focusing exclusively on “culture” and

religion as the source of the issues at stake, they tend to neglect social and economic problems, which results in the perpetuation of essentialist ideas of the Muslim and Arab population in France (Ahmed Strange Encounters 105 and Jansen 32). By imagining a homogeneous group with a fixed identity, any Muslim or Arab could be or become extremist, or maybe even a terrorist. In fact, as Mireille Rosello affirms, it is through such one-dimensional narratives that stereotypes come in to being, in this case the figure of the “could-be-terrorist”: "The stereotype facilitates the transmission of ideas, images, and concepts, but it does so by freezing a certain stage of the production of the text” (Rosello 23). This is how associations become sticky, they are simple concepts to remember. And the more these sticky associations are repeated, the more they gain affective value. Thus, the circulation of the figure of the could-be-terrorist, as it attaches to anyone deemed to be Muslim on the basis of their appearance, allows it to engender fear and anxiety as well as it allows certain bodies to align as belonging to the nation and needing protection while casting others as threatening to injure those “national bodies”. In this sense, fear works as an affective economy: “it circulates between signifiers in relationships of difference and displacement” (Ahmed Affective Economies 119).

Et moi, je reste sans voix…

When the voice in the EMF’s video utters the words “They think they are waging a war against crusaders. As they invoke the Quran, hinging on its verses. But shedding an innocent’s blood does not correspond to any law. If they haven’t understood that, I do not understand them,” and further, “…the acts of terrorists, convinced of the legitimacy of their choice. But the justice of faith will always condemn these attacks,” it becomes clear that the figure of the “could-be-terrorist” is 11 present in their discourse. That is, by stating firmly how the terrorists’ use of the Islam has nothing to do with their Islam the EMF show awareness of the dominant narrative in public debate that associates the figure of the “could-be-terrorists” with all Muslims. Through the public ! My translation. See first page of this chapter for the original text in French

condemnation of the attacks they respond to the essentialist narrative surrounding the Muslim and Arab population in France, as they distinguish themselves from the terrorists who, according to them, misuse the Islam. In fact, they express a feeling of incomprehension regarding the manner in which the terrorists justify the killing of innocent people using verses of the Quran. I would argue that by making such a distinction, the EMF demonstrate that the Muslim population in France is not a homogeneous group, and that extremist individuals cannot define nor categorize a whole population who might have many differences amongst one another. On the other hand, the making of this distinction resonates as well to the dichotomous “either with us or against us” narrative that the French government and media are disseminating: they distance themselves from the “unassimilable stranger”, or the “could-be-terrorist” - those who are against the core values of the national “us.” In fact, as François Hollande stated in his speech on November 14th 2015, the terrorists are waging a war “against France, against the values we defend everywhere in the world… against what we are: a free country that means something to the whole planet.” To be against the 12 “universal we” of the French nation is to be against the whole world, so it seems from Hollande’s speech. Not defending the same values would mean to become a threat to the nation. And more precisely, to oppose to the official “war on terrorism” narrative would be to risk being accused of sympathizing with terrorism, which could have legal consequences.

In this sense, the EMF is confronted with a form of implicit censorship. Neither the state nor other institutions explicitly forbid them to say anything, but the counterterrorism law that enables the government to sanction anyone who is “guilty of justification of or incitement to terrorism on the internet,” implicitly forecloses certain forms of speech (Butler Excitable Speech 138). In fact, how is one to set the criteria for what counts as “justification” or “incitement”? And who will set those criteria for whom? Will an utterance from a white French citizen be judged the same way as

! This part of Hollande’s speech can be found with English subtitles on the website of the Independent newspaper: 12

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-attacks-francois-hollande-vows-merciless-response-to-isis-barbarity-a6734461.html

an identical utterance from a French Muslim of immigrant descent? Because of the ambiguity of the words “justification” and “incitement,” one is never sure whether his or her statements on the internet might be judged as such, which means that one should be very careful about the choice of words. According to Butler, through such an exercise of foreclosure, censorship works as a “productive” form of power, as it “produces discursive regimes through the production of the unspeakable (139).” The subject who speaks is thus a product of that foreclosure, in the sense that the subject is speaking within norms that were already established before the utterance of that speech. Discourse is in that sense performative: it creates our reality as well as it sets the limits for what might be seen as real. In fact, as Butler puts it, “to become a subject means to be subjected to a set of implicit and explicit norms that govern the kind of speech that will be legible as the speech of a subject. … To move outside of the domain of speakability is to risk one’s status as a subject “(133). And as I have discussed in the previous chapter with Butler, such discursive regimes also establish who counts as a subject at all, and thus govern whose speech might be heard as speech. Therefore I argue that, although the terrorist attacks have engendered counterterrorism measures that exercise censorship in a more distinctive manner, it is the repeated exercise of foreclosure through existing identity politics and elite discursive attacks that make it more difficult for Muslims in the first place to give their opinion in the public debate (Fredette 26). In other words, it means that speaking at the borders of what is speakable could thus have different consequences for different subjects.

So when the EMF states at the beginning of the video that they are speechless after hearing the news on the attacks, I would say that the word “speechless” alludes to two different sentiments: on the one hand the EMF expresses its speechlessness as they were in a state of shock after hearing about the attacks. This sentiment is emphasized by the introduction of the video with a part of Hollande’s speech and a news report that says how the attacks have upset the whole world. The attacks on November 13th 2015 came to many people in the West as a shock, as it was an act of

violence without a specific target - unlike the Charlie Hebdo attacks which, instead, raised controversy amongst some Muslims who did not agree with the slogan Je suis Charlie. In fact, some children in the schools of the banlieue refused to participate in the national minute of silence for the victims of Charlie Hebdo, stating that the cartoonists shouldn’t have insulted them by mocking the prophet. Newspapers such as Le Monde have interpreted this refusal as a failure of the schools to transmit the values of the République such as the freedom of expression, but also as a failure of the Muslim children to understand these values . Looking from these interpretations, it 13 appears that for Muslims, speaking out against the official narrative means that they risk fueling ideas that cast Muslims as unassimilable strangers, and the Islam as incompatible with the values of the République.

This leads me to address the second sentiment that the EMF appears to allude to in the video, namely that of not knowing how to react in face of the dominant discourse that puts them on the spot. Indeed some Muslims affirmed in articles and interviews that when they heard about the attacks, they hoped that the perpetrators were not Muslim, Arab or Black, as they feared hate crimes and more discrimination in social life and on the job market (Muhammad and Packer). Speechlessness is felt among many Muslims in the sense that speaking out has become obligatory as well as it has become more difficult for them to express their authentic opinion. Especially when confronted with a public discursive attack such as the one from Alain Juppé, who stated that laïcité is about “the possibility for all French to practice the religion of their choice, but under one condition: that the French Muslims state clearly that they do not have to do anything with this

! For articles on the refusal of children in the banlieue schools, see Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/ 13

2015/01/10/a-saint-denis-collegiens-et-lyceens-ne-sont-pas-tous-charlie_4553048_3224.html ; Le Plus L’Obs: http:// leplus.nouvelobs.com/contribution/1306128-minute-de-silence-pour-charlie-hebdo-refusee-par-des-eleves-on-est-tous-responsables.html ; Le Figaro: http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2015/01/09/01016-20150109ARTFIG00338-ces-minutes-de-silence-qui-ont-derape-dans-les-ecoles.php

fanaticism, this barbary, that they commit themselves fully to the values of the République.” I 14 therefore consider the “speechlessness” in the video of the EMF not merely a sentiment of shock, but also a reference to the difficulty French Muslims face in challenging implicit censorship and discursive attacks.

#NousSommesUnis: Towards a more inclusive national mood

At the beginning of the students’ performance in the video, the following text appears: “After the attacks, the EMF express their emotion.” With soft, sentimental music on the background, the 15 students appear one by one with bowed heads. Resembling the minute of silence that is performed nationally as an act of commemoration, it seems like the EMF is calling for mourning at this very moment. The first impressions they invoke in the video are thus the shock following the news report, and then a call for mourning as an expression of solidarity with the victims and their families. This intention becomes more obvious when the voice starts speaking: “Nearly 120 deaths. Around a hundred injured. 3 days of mourning because of 8 presumed terrorists.” And as the voice in the video later says “give my wounded heart the time to heal, Between Charlie Hebdo, the Thalys and an overwhelmed Paris. “My France hurts,” cries my heart out loud,” the EMF make clear that, as French citizens, they are strongly affected by the events. Their hearts are wounded because their France hurts, as if it were a part of their bodies that is hurting.

What does it mean to state that their France is hurting? Apparently it is not taken for granted that they love the French nation as if it were a part of them. This need to reaffirm their loyalty to France demonstrates that they are indirectly accused of disloyalty to the nation, or, more precisely,

! My translation. Original in French is quoted by Thomas Guénolé in an article on the website of Le Plus L’Obs: “la 14

possibilité pour tous les Français de pratiquer la religion de leur choix", mais "à une condition" : "que les Français musulmans disent clairement qu'ils n'ont rien à voir avec ce fanatisme, cette barbarie, qu'ils souscrivent pleinement aux valeurs de la République”: http://leplus.nouvelobs.com/contribution/1450166-attentats-a-paris-non-alain-juppe-les-francais-musulmans-n-ont-pas-a-se-justifier.html

! My translation. Original text in French: “Suite aux attentats, EMF exprime son émotion.” 15

it shows once again that government officials and co-citizens constantly put their position as a French citizen into question. Fredette points out in her analysis of French Muslims as a social group in France, that, despite their official equality before the law, in social reality this equality is undermined: “formal rights do not compensate for the daily indignities of being seen as an undeserving citizen, in the same way that having the right to employment does not necessarily put food on the table (21).” There is thus a clear distinction between having political equality in terms of rights and having social equality, and the French context demonstrates that political rights are not enough to ensure social equality for its Muslim citizens (22). And now, as I have stated previously, the French government puts those political rights in question too in name of the war on terrorism.

It is thus clearly not easy for French Muslims to address the social inequality they face, nor is it easy to speak out regarding the terrorist attacks. But I do not perceive the video of the EMF as completely governed by this implicit censorship. Indeed, as they call for mourning, they mourn for the misuse of their religion too, while at the same time demonstrating a strong connection to their faith, by stating “and the path my heart has chosen is connected to my faith. My faith, which finds its foundations shaken up. By 120 deaths and millions of hurt hearts. By the acts of terrorists, convinced of the legitimacy of their choice. But the justice of faith will always condemn these attacks.” They condemn the attacks from a religious point of view, through their faith in the justice 16 of god. Through this form of mourning, they demonstrate that they can stay close to their religion - it is the path that their heart has chosen - while also stay loyal to France and believe in the French core values, since France is a part of them. In this sense, although very implicitly, the EMF criticizes the assimilationist model of integration in France. It is an implicit critique toward the dominant narrative that accompanies this model, which questions whether or not Muslims, being the “unassimilable other,” deserve French citizenship. Especially when they underscore the French value of fraternité followed by the call to unite for humanity, they imply that the French core values

My Translation. For the original text in French, see first page of this chapter. 16

of liberté, égalité, and fraternité are something they believe in, but also something that should count for them as well. The statement “a cry will grow louder: the one of fraternity. One for all and all for Humanity. We are and will be united forever” emphasizes the need for equal treatment in order to be united, and to become strong as a nation.

This call for unity resonates to Hollande’s speech, as he said: “During this grave, painful and decisive period for our country I appeal for unity, togetherness and for everyone to keep a cool head.” However, this was the same speech in which Hollande declared that France “is at war” and 17 that it will “take its responsibilities.” As I have previously discussed, when these responsibilities consist of searching potential terrorists and exercising counterterrorism measures, it becomes difficult for all French citizens to unite since one group is regarded with suspect and under constant surveillance. I interpret the repetition of this call for unity in the video of the EMF therefore as a call for recognition as well. That is, the recognition of French Muslims as deserving citizens on the one hand, but most of all, the recognition of French Muslims as human beings. If government officials and their co-citizens would take humanity as a starting point, and apprehend Muslim lives as grievable, as equally precarious and defendable as the lives of white French nationals, then they could begin to unite in the fight against terrorism. Despite the statement that this union has already happened as a result of the attacks, reality shows that this situation is far from achieved. I therefore consider the statement as a performative speech act, in the sense that the EMF criticizes the very same narrative that seeks to censor them, through the performative act of linguistic re-appropriation: they insist on the French values of liberté, égalité and fraternité in order to demonstrate that the current situation does not represent those values, since they do not appear to apply to them the same way as to their white co-citizens. In other words, they have re-appropriated these values to show France the way it should be, and not the way it is.

! This part of Hollande’s speech can be found with English subtitles on the website of the Independent newspaper: 17

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-terror-attack-francois-hollandes-declaration-of-war-disrupts-travel-in-france-a6738151.html

Conclusion

Although the video of the EMF does not explicitly demonstrate it, I suggest that there is an underlying racist discourse that regulates how the EMF might have expressed themselves in response to the terrorist attacks. I also suggest that the EMF has subverted this implicit censorship through the reproduction and re-signification of the words that they are expected to express. As Judith Butler’s work on the performativity of speech acts shows, the dominant discourse sets the norms for what is speakable in public debate through the foreclosure of certain speech.

In the case of French Muslims, they are up against a racist discourse that essentializes Muslims and Arabs as unassimilable strangers or as could-be-terrorists, because of the supposed incompatibility of the Islam with the French values and the direct association of Muslims with terrorism. Muslims come to be seen as a threat to the cultural identity and the security of the nation. As a result of this discourse, feelings of fear attach to the figures of the unassimilable stranger and the could-be-terrorist, and as affective economies they stick to the bodies that are racialized as Muslim. This means that also secular Arabs or people of color in general may be associated with these figures. The two important factors for the persistence of these stereotypical figures, are their iterability and their stickiness - because of their simplistic content, they are easy to remember, but also easy to be reproduced. And this is exactly what makes it so hard to break them down (Rosello 25).

Furthermore, the notion of laïcité and the assimilationist model of integration in France reinforce these mechanisms of “othering” Muslims, as they force citizens to confine their cultural differences to the private domain. As Jeniffer Fredette points out, the French elites, consisting of mostly white politicians, intellectuals and the media, use these norms to produce a narrative of the “deserving citizen”. This supposedly universal model of citizenship, defines the deserving French citizen as “sexually liberal, irreligious (indifferent or hostile to religion), culturally singular, abstract