I read an interesting commentary earlier today about the Paris attacks: rue89.nouvelobs.com/…
The question under consideration is one that has bothered me for some time: what are Daesh trying to achieve with all their disgusting bloody violence?
The standard answer given by certain pundits is that they hate our western values, and are trying to destroy them. However, this has always seemed rather silly to me—rather like trying to bail out the sea with a teacup. In any case, the worst damage done to our values has always come from our excessive reaction to terrorism, not from terrorism itself.
Xavier de La Porte, the writer of the article, believes that their goal does not concern our values directly. Instead, what they want to do, and the reason they choose to attack France so often, is to destroy peaceful coexistence of Muslims with non-Muslims.
France, in spite of recent agitation by right-wing nationalists, has a well-established history in which Muslims, Catholics, atheists, and others are all treated as “French” in official matters, and co-exist reasonably well. There are frequent collaborations, intermarriages, and other kinds of relations among people with these different religious outlooks, only rare serious disagreements, and even more rarely actual violence. In fact, even with its glitches, France is a pretty good example of how successful a secular society can be, even with large segments of its population belonging to traditionally opposed religious groups.
This is what drives Daesh crazy. They just can’t stand it that Muslims are currently living in France by the millions, and are not burning with desire to join them in Mesopotamia, or perhaps their fellow travelers in the AfPak region. All these French Muslims seem to want is better jobs for their kids and for the boulangerie on their street to stop selling them baguettes that have been frozen.
So, they attack France, wanting the Muslims there to be treated badly by other French people and possibly by the government, and wanting the non-Muslim French people to harass Muslims and make them feel unwelcome. This, the Daesh “reasoning” goes, will cause them to abandon the secular hell they are living in France and come home to the purity and female slave markets of l’État islamique. Yes, it’s insane, but it’s logical.
De La Porte also has a suggestion for what to do about it: if what Daesh hates is for Muslims and non-Muslims to co-exist peacefully in France, then the best way to oppose them is for the French Muslims and non-Muslims to cherish each other. It’s an admonition we too might well heed.