Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims: Perspectives Across France and the Maghreb [1st ed. 2021] 3030812332, 9783030812331

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Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims Perspectives Across France and the Maghreb Edited by Ramona Mielusel

Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims

Ramona Mielusel Editor

Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims Perspectives Across France and the Maghreb

Editor Ramona Mielusel Department of Modern Languages University of Louisiana at Lafayette Lafayette, LA, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-81233-1 ISBN 978-3-030-81234-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81234-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To all individuals who feel mis/underrepresented, wherever they are...

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all the contributors to this volume. In order of their chapters in the volume, thank you Laura Reeck, Nabil Boudraa, Delphine Letort and Abderrahmene Bourenane, Patrick Saveau, Sabrine Herzi, Pamela A Pears, Mary Vogl, Simona Pruteanu, David Yesaya, and Jennifer Howell. You have been on board from the beginning of this project without hesitation; written compelling chapters, and have always gracefully and swiftly responded to any requests, comments, and constructive feedback both from me and from the external reviewers. I would equally want to extend my gratitude and appreciation to Laura Reeck who has been on my side from the inception of this project and with whom I established a tight collaboration during the whole writing process. Not only is she the author of a chapter in the volume, but also a co-writer for the Introduction and Conclusion. Camille Davies, my editor and Hemapryia Eswanth, Project Coordinator, were the living proof of professionalism: I could not be more grateful for their help and guidance. Thank you for your enthusiasm and trust in this project. I would also like to address a big thank you to the anonymous reviewers of the proposal for their detailed analysis and comments that were helpful in developing further the ideas of the volume and adding depth to the complex aspects of Islam and secularism both in France and in the

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Maghreb. I am also grateful for the extremely careful reading of each individual chapter by external reviewers who have provided the contributors with many insightful comments and suggestions. This thorough process was truly beneficial to all the contributors of this volume and has resulted in a stronger and coherent manuscript. Last but not least, I would like to thank my husband and all the people who were by my side during the months of confinement in 2020 during which most of the project has been shaped. As editor of this collection of essays, I am proud to have worked with all these amazing researchers and editors and I really hope that this volume will open new dialogues regarding representations of Islam and Muslims in France, in the Maghreb, and beyond.

Praise for Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims

“Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims: Perspectives Across France and the Maghreb is an ambitious project that strikes by its breadth and in-depth analyses of major issues surrounding the representation of Islam and Muslim identity since the 2000s in film, literature, visual arts, music/dance, and comics across the political spectrum. The different contributions highlight the inscription of a variety of perceptions, identities, and identifications that capture France/Maghreb as a cultural space and an imaginary shaped by the history of colonialism, immigration, the rise of political Islam and fundamentalism, terrorism, the Arab popular uprisings, and the current debates on secularism. Another appealing aspect of the volume is its several contributions subtly addressing issues of gender and femininity within the wider topic of Islam and Muslim identity. The book is a welcome interdisciplinary addition to the study of Islam and Muslims across France and the Maghreb.” —Naïma Hachad, American University, Washington DC “Apart from its appeal for scholars and students in Humanities and Social Sciences, this volume, also written for a large audience, has as an undeniable merit, its timeliness. It offers a new perspective on the Muslim question in the context of the public debate that is raging in France and, to a certain extent, in the Maghreb over “islamoleftism,” “identity fascism,” “separatism,” “communitarism,” “Republican values,” with

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PRAISE FOR ARTISTIC (SELF)-REPRESENTATIONS OF ISLAM AND …

calls for “policing academia” and attacks on some disciplines and methodologies (such as decoloniality, gender studies, intersectionality) under the pretext of the risk of “Americanizing,” not only the intellectual sphere, but of the whole social tissue. In this book, the main objective is to initiate a paradigm shift by reframing the question of Muslimness outside the limitations imposed by French secularism and political violence. First, the contributors go beyond the French context and the usual treatment of Maghrebis as others, to include voices from the southern rim of the Mediterranean. In lieu of the “imagined Muslimness/Arabness,” this volume favors what can be considered as the Muslim/Arab imagination. Instead of treating this topic as part of the debate around the challenges the French state is facing while dealing with issues related to minorities, multiculturalism, and collective memory, the opportunity is given to artists, filmmakers, and writers to talk about how they imagine the self and the other. In this sense, the volume is an exploration of the “social imagination” of the Maghrebi by privileging the intrinsic and organic relationship between individuals and a context shaped by social and historical realities. Far from racialized “social ghosts,” these creators are presented as the product of individual circumstances as well as dynamics that shape postcolonial societies from independence to the Arab Spring.” —Dr. Abderrahman Beggar, Professor of Religion and Culture, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada

Contents

Introduction Ramona Mielusel and Laura Reeck

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Cinematic Representations of Islam: From Imams to Radicals Imams and Audience in Kaouther Ben Hania’s Niche Filmwork Laura Reeck

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Representations of Radical Islam in Merzak Allouache’s Most Recent Films Nabil Boudraa

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De-westernizing the Gaze on Islam and the Veil in French and Franco-Algerian Films Delphine Letort and Abderrahmene Bourenane

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Nicolas Boukhrief’s Made in France: Nuancing the Mediatized Approach to Islamic Terrorism Patrick Saveau

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CONTENTS

Veiling, Islamic and Artistic Symbols and Far-Right Politics in Literary Representations of Islam and Muslims Jeux de rubans (2011) by Emna Belhaj Yahia or the (Un)Veiling of Modern Tunisia Sabrine Herzi Eclipsing the Sun in Amira-Géhanne Khalfallah’s Le Naufrage de La Lune: Re-Appropriating Islamic Power Dynamics Through Allegory and Self-Representation Pamela A. Pears In Praise of the Transgressive Muslim Body: Portraits of Moroccan Chikhates Mary B. Vogl Islam and Far-Right Politics in Post-contemporary Francophone Speculative Fiction: An Ethical Call to Resistance or Revival of French Orientalism? Simona Emilia Pruteanu

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Representations of Islam in Music, Comic Series and Visual Arts (P)raising Islam: When French Muslim Rappers Advocate for Peace, Love, and Unity in a Multicultural France David Yesaya

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Drawing the Muslim Self: Muslim Citizenship and Contemporary Islam in France Jennifer Howell

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Franco-Maghrebi Perspectives on the Islamic “Body” in a Contemporary Artistic Context: Kader Attia and Zoulikha Boubdellah Ramona Mielusel

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Conclusion Ramona Mielusel and Laura Reeck

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Index

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Notes on Contributors

Nabil Boudraa is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Oregon State University. He holds a Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, a Research Fellowship at Harvard University, an M.A. from Queens College, another M.A. from l’Université de Caen in France, and a B.A. from Algiers University. Boudraa’s previous publications include Francophone Cultures Through Film, Hommage à Kateb Yacine and North African Mosaic: A Cultural Re-appraisal of Ethnic and Religious Minorities. He has published in several journals such as The International Journal of Francophone Studies, The Journal of North African Studies, and The African Studies Review. Dr. Boudraa was a guest on several shows, namely BBC’s The Forum and NPR’s Morning Edition. Abderrahmene Bourenane is Ph.D. student writing a thesis on The Orientalist Heritage in American Cinema at the University of Le Mans, France. He has presented various papers at national and international conferences. Sabrine Herzi is Visiting Assistant of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Jendouba in Tunisia. Her teaching and research interests revolve around interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to contemporary Francophone Cultural Studies with a special focus on women’s literature, postcolonial studies, and identity politics.

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Jennifer Howell is Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Illinois State University where she teaches postcolonial Francophone literatures and cultures, with a focus on North African comics, photography, and crime fiction. Her scholarly work has appeared in journals such as Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, The Journal of North African Studies, Modern and Contemporary France, European Comic Art, and The French Review. She is the author of The Algerian War in French-Language Comics: Postcolonial Memory, History, and Subjectivity (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2015). Delphine Letort is Professor of American Studies at the University of Le Mans, France. She is the author of Du film noir au néo-noir: mythes et stéréotypes de l’Amérique 1941–2008 (L’Harmattan, 2010) and The Spike Lee Brand: A Study of Documentary Filmmaking (SUNY, 2015). She has co-edited several books on film and television studies, including Révoltes armées et terrorisme à l’écran, CinémAction n° 170, 2019. Ramona Mielusel is Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her teaching and research interests revolve around interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to Contemporary French and Francophone Cultural Studies with a special focus on immigration, transnationalism, multiculturalism, postcolonial studies, and identity politics. She is the author of Langue, espace et (re)composition identitaire dans les oeuvres de Mehdi Charef, Farid Boudjellal et Tony Gatlif (L’Harmattan 2015), and FrancoMaghrebi Artists of the 2000s. Transnational Narratives and Identities (Brill Publishers, 2018) as well as of several articles and book chapters. She co-edited with Dr. Simona Emilia Pruteanu the volumeCitizenship and Belonging in France and North America. Multicultural Perspectives on Political, Cultural and Artistic Representations of Immigration (Palgrave Mcmillan, 2020). Pamela A. Pears is Professor of French at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. Most recently, she is co-editor with Valérie K. Orlando of Paris and the Marginalized Author: Treachery, Alienation, Queerness, and Exile (Lexington, 2018). She has published on francophone Maghrebi and Vietnamese authors, including, Assia Djebar, Kateb Yacine, Kim Lefèvre, Ly Thu Ho, Yamina Mechakra, Malika Mokeddem, Leïla Sebbar, and Nina Bouraoui. Her current research explores French

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author, Jean Genet’s relationship with and advocacy for the Black Panther Party in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Simona Emilia Pruteanu is Associate Professor in the Department of Languages and Literatures at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. Her first book entitled Migrant Writing in France and in Quebec: A Comparative Analysis was published in 2013. Her research interests also encompass the concept of americanité in Québec and in Latin America. Among her most recent articles she counts « Entre l’Amérique du Nord et l’Amérique du Sud : création d’un nouveau métarécit québécois dans trois romans d’Alain Beaulieu » (Études en littérature canadienne 41. 1, 2016) and “Cooking, Language, and Memory in Farhoud’s Le Bonheur à la queue glissante and Thúy’s Mãn.”(CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 18.4, 2016). Laura Reeck is Professor of French and International Studies at Allegheny College. Her research interests include postcolonial literary categories, the banlieue cultural field, and contemporary film. She is the author of Writerly Identities in Beur Fiction and Beyond (2011; 2013). Most recently, she has contributed to The Oxford Handbook of Arab Novelistic Traditions (ed. Hassan, 2017); Cinéma-monde (eds. Gott and Schilt); Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Writing since 1945 (eds. Sievers and Vlasta, 2018); Paris and the Marginalized Writer (eds. Orlando and Pears, 2018). She is co-editor with Kathryn Kleppinger of the 2018 annual volume for the Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies, Post-Migratory Cultures in Postcolonial France. Patrick Saveau is Professor of French and Cultural Studies at Franklin University Switzerland. He has co-edited with Véronique Machelidon Reimagining North African Immigration. Identities in Flux in French Literature, Television, and Film, published by Manchester University Press in 2018, and wrote a monography on the French author Serge Doubrovsky, Serge Doubrovsky ou l’écriture d’une survie, published by the Editions Universitaires de Dijon in 2011. For the past few years, he has specialized on Francophone writers of Maghrebi origins, such as Nadia Bouzid, Saphia Azzeddine, Fouad Laroui, etc. Mary B. Vogl is Associate Professor at Colorado State University in the United States. She is the author of Picturing the Maghreb: Photography, Literature, and (Re)-presentation (2003) at Rowman and Littlefield and she has published numerous articles on Francophone authors such as Le

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Clézio, Djebar, Ben Jelloun, Laroui, El Maleh, Kilito and on topics like Orientalist art and art in the Maghreb. Her most recent research interests are on contemporary artistic productions in Morocco and on the relationship between multilingualism and the Francophone world. David Yesaya obtained a B.A. in French literature from the University of British Columbia. He holds a Master of French Literature from the University of Toronto. Currently, he is a doctoral candidate at the University of Waterloo (ON) and he is now an Instructor at University of Calgary. His interests relate to the Francophone world cultures and literatures in general and more particularly those focused on migrant texts. His latest articles to date are entitled « Une analyse littéraire du message d’autoaffirmation du peuple noir dans les chansons de Nèg’Marrons » in Images et imaginaires de l’Afrique postcoloniale dans le reggae africain and « Voyou, victime ou bouffon du roi : l’image médiatique française du statut social de l’immigré africain postcolonial dans une France contemporaine».

Introduction Ramona Mielusel and Laura Reeck

When Islam is present in the western media, cultural and social encounters or political debates, often-circulated narratives, and images conjure up political or radicalized Islam: violence in the name of religion, Islamism, radicalism, sectarian phenomena like ISIS and Salafism. The primary motivating factor behind this project was to move away from politicized Islam in order to explore alternative narratives on Islam and Muslims. By choosing to look at contemporary artistic productions in the fields of literature, cinema, music, and the visual arts, the present volume proposes a different approach to understanding Islam—via artistic mediation. In an interview published in the journal Socio, “L’islam dans sa dimension culturelle et artistique: un enjeu politique à saisir” (2018), Nilüfer Göle, Turkish sociologist, and Yannick Lintz, Director of the Department of Islamic Art at the Louvre, suggest that it is necessary now

R. Mielusel (B) Department of Modern Languages, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, USA e-mail: [email protected] L. Reeck Allegheny College, Meadville, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Mielusel (ed.), Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81234-8_1

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more than ever to consider Islam from cultural and artistic perspectives in order to offer a more comprehensive and expanding view of its cultures and civilizations. For example, according to Göle and Lintz, to better understand contemporary Islamic and Muslim practices and claims, it is useful to turn to artistic representations over time—in looking carefully at them, certain assumptions are dispelled, for instance that Islam prohibits figurative artistic expression in all contexts. Further, Lintz sees the Department of Islamic Art at the Louvre as having an educative mission, since many people coming through the galleries have very little knowledge or understanding of Islam, adding “C’est important à une époque où se cristallisent préjugés et idées toutes faites” (It is important at a time when prejudices and preconceived ideas are hardening) (166). In representations of Islam, they locate the tension-filled interface between the domains of art and politics, affirming “La représentation de l’islam est au cœur des malentendus culturels et religieux, c’est là que les frontières de l’art et du politique s’entrechoquent” (Representations of Islam are at the heart of cultural and religious misunderstandings; the domains of art and politics collide in them) (167). As a corrective to these misunderstandings, both Göle and Lintz point to the long-shared history between European and Islamic civilizations and suggest that there is already a high level of familiarization in addition to an augmented desire at present for understanding (195). They advocate for artistic expression as one means of increasing them both. This edited volume’s aim is therefore to explore artistic representations and self-representations [together, “artistic (self)-representations”] of Islam and Muslims in France, the Maghreb, and in/between since the 2000s. It offers different voices and perspectives by focusing on a cultural field shared by Franco-Maghrebi, Maghrebi and transnational writers, artists, filmmakers, and performers, and one in which colonial history, Orientalism, neo-orientalism, contemporary politics as well as social debates on diversity, inclusion, and national belonging all bear weight and influence.

Backgrounding and Situating the Twenty-First-Century Context Samuel Paty’s killing in France in October 2020 brought to the fore how representations of Islam sit at the tension-filled interface between the domains of art and politics. The expressed intent of the Chechen-born

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18-year-old who murdered him was tied to classes Paty had dedicated in histoire-géographie to freedom of speech. He focused on the Charlie Hebdo caricatures of the Prophet, returning to an ongoing and charged debate in France. Only days before the killing of Paty, President Macron’s new proposed measures to eradicate Islamism had led to opening the old discussions about the importance of Islam in France and the place of Muslims in the society among public opinion. In his speech on October 2nd, 2020, Macron announced his plan to regulate Islam in France by preventing and putting a stop to what he called “Islamist separatism.” His focus was mainly on French Muslims who, he claims, have progressively transformed into a “counter-republican” community. With a draft law titled “projet de loi confortant le respect des principes de la République” (Draft bill supporting respect for the principles of the Republic) but widely known as the “loi contre le séparatisme,” the current French government aims to clamp down on foreign influences on French Muslim communities, especially on all external funding directed toward French mosques and Islamic schools, the training of new imams, and a ban on homeschooling for young children to prevent the growing number of Islamic schools. It contains an article titled the “Paty Law,” which makes it a crime to endanger someone’s life by giving away private information including the person’s location. After months of intensive debate in the National Assembly and Senate, it became law on August 24, 2021. Macron’s response to Paty’s killing was swift and uncompromising: “Et j’appelle l’ensemble de nos compatriotes, dans ce moment, à faire bloc, à être unis sans aucune distinction quelle qu’elle soit car nous sommes d’abord et avant tout des citoyens unis par des mêmes valeurs, une histoire, un destin” (And I’m calling on all French people to be united in this moment, to be unified with no difference among us because we are first and foremost citizens united by the same values, a shared history, and future) (https://www.elysee.fr/front/pdf/elysee-module-16300-fr.pdf). When Macron tied separatism in France to Islam being in crisis around the world, leaders in Muslim countries around the world reacted in responses ranging from boycotting French goods to denouncing the need to return to the caricatures as the primary means of discussing freedom of speech in France. Islam has become a cornerstone of debate and discussion in France as well as in the Maghreb in the last twenty years. This is due in part to geopolitical changes since the beginning of the 2000s especially since

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9/11, to the growth of political Islam, and to the presence of Islamophobia and Islamism in Europe and the Middle East North Africa (MENA). With the expansion of Muslim communities in Europe and increased visibility of Islam in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, and with the regime changes it brought, Islam and Muslims today occupy an important place in conversations on national identities, secularism, and religious practices (Göle, 2010, 2015; Kumar 2012; King and Maghraoui 2019). Some scholars and theorists go so far as to maintain that Islam has become the measure against which western concepts of secularism and democracy have been reinterpreted in relation to the religious or the sacred (Berger 1999; Murray 2017; Erik-Nelsson 2018). In relation to the current French context, historian Jean Baubérot (2009) has noted that the shifting definition of the term secularism (laïcité) should be seen in strong connection to the March 15th, 2004 law [also known as “the secularist law” or the “veil law”] (15). The law banned the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols (such as the veil, kippa, or the Sikh turban) in public schools, but primarily targeted Muslims. Baubérot understands this political reaction as an explanation of the so-called principles of secularism (“principes de la laïcité”) (10). According to these secularist principles, there should be freedom of religious conscience. Additionally, they are meant to instate equality for all religions and non-discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs. But in La Laïcité falsifiée (2014), Baubérot makes the case that the far-right in France is the main actor behind a “nouvelle laïcité” that diverts these principles from the original 1905 law and recasts them as opposite in meaning and intention. He calls for a return to the essence of the 1905 law as a means out of the current “crisis” in France with regard to laïcité. Per-Erik Nilsson (2018) argues that Islam has come to represent a negative marker of identity in French political discourse (13). But it is not the far-right alone that has demonized Islam and Muslims. In this vein, various theories have been put forward by scholars and intellectuals: Guillaume Faye’s monoracial society theory (1985), the great replacement theory of Renaud Camus (2011), and Éric Zemmour’s French suicide theory (2014). All promote the idea that Muslims are “invading,” “colonizing,” and “replacing” les Français de souche and France’s secular principles. In Un racisme imaginaire: islamophobie et culpabilité, Pascal Bruckner (2017) calls Islamophobia in France an “imaginary racism.” In his view, discriminatory attitudes toward Muslims in France are a construction in the minds of Muslims who are intolerant of French laws

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and traditions—thus imaginary. Of course, not everyone agrees: Beggar (2020) argues that the concept of Islamophobia should be seen as the product of distortions in western perceptions of Islam and Muslims (204). As Roland Barthes affirmed in Mythologies (1957), contemporary myths dominate our cultural imaginaire; they are powerful influencers that impose a certain worldview and a logic to societal organization. For Barthes, myths normalize particular and oriented views and transform them into a “reality.” Promoting, broadcasting, rebroadcasting, streaming the same images of Muslims seen as the “cultural other” (Shaheen, 8) creates a fixed image set. In the context of the French media, Thomas Deltombe has called the end result “imaginary Islam” (2007), itself heavily informed by Islamophobia. On very rare occasions does one get a different perspective on Islam and Muslims in the western-facing news media. For instance, despite efforts by Muslims to publicly condemn fake news and the defaming portrayal of their religion in France—a clear example being the unanimous response to the terror attacks of 2015, done publicly and at the highest organizational levels (https://www.mosqueedeparis.net/appel-des-federations-musulm anes-a-lunite-et-au-deuil-national/)—the same stereotypes continue to inform public opinion. Stereotypes and tropes around the veil, radical imams, the clash between first and second-generation Maghrebis in France, violence, honor crimes, etc., have been mediatized and reinforced in public and political discourse to such an extent that they have become myths that must be challenged to be undone. In a 2019 IFOP poll for the Journal du dimanche, 61% of respondents indicated they believe Islam is incompatible with French values and society; 78% indicated they believe that Islam threatens laïcité in France. Another IFOP study found that 42% of Muslims report having been discriminated against because of their religion, with a higher proportion of women (48%) reporting this than men (38%). 60% of women wearing the veil report having been discriminated against at least one time in their lives. Marches against Islamophobia in 2019 in Paris and Toulouse organized by the Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France (CCIF) paid testimony to mounting concerns about Islamophobia and its prevalence within French society. An increasing number of Muslim or Muslim-heritage activists, business leaders, politicians, journalists, and university professors and researchers are gaining prominence and visibility in France. So while French President Emmanuel Macron and his government aim to eradicate “séparatisme”

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and “communautarisme,” in order to maintain the principles of secularism, a large swath of the Muslim or Muslim-heritage population in France has experienced a high level of integration. In addition, there is evidence that there is widespread satisfaction with how they are able to express their religion. In an IFOP poll conducted in partnership with the Institut Montaigne, whose report was titled “Un islam français est possible,” self-identified Muslims or persons of Muslim heritage (with at least one Muslim parent) indicated that there is neither a lone Muslim community nor a Muslim “communatarisme” in France. Further, 2/3 indicated that they believe that laïcité allows them to fully practice their religion in France. As to veiling, 2/3 women reported not currently wearing the veil, and 57% reported never having veiled (https://www.institutm ontaigne.org/publications/un-islam-francais-est-possible). The amount of time spent casting all of the above as problematic seems disproportionate; de-dramatizing the fixed ideas turning on the above appears justified. Certainly, Muslim and Muslim-heritage voices in France are working toward that end and will only become more audible as they play a more and more visible role in social media and in public and political debate. As for the Maghrebi context, starting with the struggles for independence from colonial rule in the 1950s and 1960s, adherence to Islamic beliefs and practices played a significant role in formulating and consolidating a national identity. Religious customs and traditions have been an integral part of culture and marker of Arabness (Roy 2013). Programs and policies to modernize MENA societies launched by leaders such as Bourghiba in Tunisia, General Nasser in Egypt, or Atatürk in Turkey were met with mixed feelings: on the one hand, they engendered a desire to move toward and integrate western democracy, and, on the other, they incited reticence and protectionist feelings toward Islamic values. The strong push to promote secular principles in the laws of the state and in civil society in the Maghreb encountered opposition from Islamist parties starting in the 1980s and culminating with the electoral success of the Ennahda party in Tunisia after the Arab Spring in the late 2000s. According to Abdeslam Maghraoui (2019), democratic parties in MENA showed structural weakness and lack of a strong political agenda after the toppling of long-standing autocratic or dictatorial regimes. Because of this, they were defeated by Islamist political parties who were better organized and had already infiltrated all levels of society. The current struggle in the MENA region is to find the balance between the desire

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for democratization and secularization of civil society and the return of neo-fundamentalism (Roy, 30) that sees democracy as a set of “social and economic orders as postulated in Islamic principles” (Maghraoui, 4). The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, the February 20 protests in Morocco, and more recently the Hirak movement in Algeria all point to a deep-seated desire for change, particularly among young people, as well as to an enlivened civil society. The Hirak movement has been discussed in terms of transcending secular versus religious communities, as it brought together liberals, secularists, and Islamists in an extended popular protest movement. It began several days following the announcement that enfeebled Abdelaziz Bouteflika would seek a fifth term as President of Algeria. Youth took to social media; a movement had been created in the space of several days. The first day of demonstrations in Algiers—where street protests have been illegal since the Algerian Civil War—occurred on Friday, February 22nd, 2019 following an anonymous call to action on social media. Ultimately, Bouteflika resigned and the presidential election was canceled. The demonstrations have been going on for two years now with an interruption of a few months due to COVID-19; demonstrators have continued to ask for social justice, the liberation of all political detainees, and the end to corruption, as seen in the recent February 22nd, 2021 anniversary protest. Among other things, social media platforms have come to the fore as a means of organizing and sharing information within protest movements. While part of the demands during these demonstrations have been freeing of the press and media in favor of free and open speech, it has not been fully acquired. A 2019 Human Rights Watch report highlights the ongoing crackdown that outspoken activists face in Morocco, with prison often being part of their sentencing. With the resumption of street protests in Algeria in October 2020, new arrests such as that of the independent journalist Khaled Drareni from the Kasbah Tribune and a correspondent for a French television station point to still-present censorship. Efforts like Drareni’s result in prosecutions and jail time. Though artistic expression opened up with Tunisian President Ben Ali’s departure, the extent of the opening has been questioned. The Franco-Maghrebi filmmaker Nadia El Fani, an outspoken critic of political Islam, ostensibly went too far too soon with her documentary Ni Allah ni Maître (Neither God, nor Master) (2011) in the eyes of the authorities and religious groups. As a consequence of the screening of her film at the Africart in Tunis, the cinema was

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attacked by dozens of Salafists confirming what Reuters had noticed in the aftermaths of the Arab Spring in 2011—that “religious tension is rising over the limits of freedom of expression, as Islamists challenge the dominance of liberals in what was once a citadel of Arab secularism” (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tunisia-islamists-tension/nogod-film-angers-tunisian-islamists-idUSTRE7652VZ20110706). Arrests in April 2020 of Tunisian bloggers and political activists Anis Mabrouki (who criticized the government’s distribution of pandemic aid) and Hajer Aouadi (who criticized the government’s distribution of food assistance during the pandemic) reveal the incompetent handling of the Covid-19 crisis by authorities and also reveal that the country is still not fully open to free speech. In sum, the decade beginning with the Arab Spring has revealed the potential for change and the attentes held by young people, in particular, in Maghrebi countries who continue to face underemployment and limits on their personal freedoms. The question remains as to how deep regime change will be and what openings it might provide. An increasing number of reports and articles have begun pointing to the Arab Spring’s relative “failure,” in evidence by a continued political instability, counterrevolutions, and in some cases increasing authoritarianism across the MENA region. Meanwhile, Tunisia tends to get featured as exemplary in terms of its democratic transitions and transformations, though, as we write this, Tunisians have been demonstrating in the streets since midJanuary 2021 to contest unemployment, corruption, and police brutality. One thing that has not diminished in importance since the Arab Spring is voicing discontent and not allowing silence to fall upon ongoing claims. In this respect, Moroccan artist and activist Zainab Fasiki has suggested that artistic expression has its role to play. For her, more so than interventions on social media, artistic expression resists and acts against the silencing of important debate and conversation: “The artist must not fall into the trap of satisfying the public, the artist must disturb, they must draw, they must create the art that provokes the public, not just to provoke, but also to debate subjects that were always a hshouma (shame) and therefore, the artist for me, the artist is the only courageous professional who uses art to finally discuss these subjects” (https://www.you tube.com/watch?v=R0hPuy3GMHY).

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Short Histories of (Self)-Representations Secularism and democracy have become charged and shifting concepts in the twenty-first century, especially since 9/11. Since then, Islamophobia has grown in western countries, while Muslim-majority countries in the Maghreb have been preoccupied with questions of open and free society and governance, particularly since the Arab Spring. At the same time, artistic expression related to Islam and Muslims has come alive in France and the Maghreb: from fiction and life-writing to cinema, from rap music and RnB to stand-up comedy and the visual arts. In this context, Franco-Maghrebi and Maghrebi writers, artists, filmmakers, and performers have contributed to a wider understanding of the position of Islam and Muslims in their respective societies. They share in a consensus that too often the way Islam and Muslims are presented or represented is through a culturally constructed and biased perception of them (Beggar, 2020; Shaheen, 2001). Western perceptions of Islam and Muslims have been influenced by centuries of misrepresentations. In this respect, in French colonial artistic production, Muslims were portrayed as the western other and were at turns “demonized” and “exoticized.” The west showed a vivid interest in the east as exotic and mysterious, a destination for artistic pursuits and the creative imaginings. Over the centuries, French travelers, painters, and cinematographers maintained a growing attraction to the east and its people. Feeding their imagination with second-hand information and representations of certain notions about Muslim women and their daily lives as well as with orientalized images of oases, deserts, and remote villages in the Maghreb or Egypt, colonial French artists and writers contributed to creating a stereotypical portrayal of these populations and their traditions for a western audience. Edward Said (1978), Jack Shaheen (2001), and Deepa Kumar (2012) have all shown that stereotyping of Muslims is a European imperial by-product, in which part of the equation was casting Islam as mysterious, backward, and uncivilized. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the primary sources of information on Muslims were the influential collection of stories One Thousand and One Nights and the King James Bibl e, with theoretical research on the Maghreb and the Middle East in the orientalist tradition developing in the mid-nineteenth century as the western powers were dividing up the world. Most European historical knowledge about Islam and Muslims comes from the documentation of cultural, political, and social life in

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the countries where France or England had colonies like Morocco and Egypt. From literary representations in eighteenth-century travel literature and the Orientalist period, to visual images and paintings (e.g., les odalisques ) dating from the same period to cinematic views since the 1930s to modern times, Muslims have mostly been portrayed from a Eurocentric perspective. This perspective has often been based on tropes or imaginings rather than on social reality. As such, they perpetuate a range of stereotypical views on behaviors and beliefs of Maghrebi people as perceived by European outsiders. Sometimes referred to as the first Maghrebi francophone author, Driss Chraïbi wrote in Le Passé simple (1954), “I am a little Arab dressed like a Frenchman.” Over time, numerous Maghrebi writers have spoken in novel-form to the dangers of acculturation, such as Albert Memmi’s Agar (1955) and Tahar Ben Jelloun’s Amours sorcière (2003); others have pushed back against orientalism and its legacies, Assia Djebar’s Femmes d’Alger dans leur appartement (1980) or her film La Nouba des femmes (1987) are but two early examples. More recently, Lalla Essaydi is one of the clearest examples of a visual artist who has made refiguring orientalism an artistic priority by recasting the gaze and in particular the odalisque. When asked about the importance of her faith and gender in her work, Lalla Essayadi replied: “I am a Muslim and a woman and if I’m trying to make clear the role of the Moroccan and Muslim woman, that we are not just confined and sitting in one corner, that has nothing to do with your faith and religion … We don’t want this projection of the Western world or Islamic culture on us from both sides. We just want to be seen as human beings” (https://www.pbs.org/new shour/arts/revisions). Much of Maghrebi francophone artistic production has involved unburdening, extrication, and disentanglement (e.g., Hachad 2019; Hiddleston 2017; Orlando 2009)—whether a freeing from the orientalizing gaze, turning away from patriarchy, or challenging the premises of autocratic regimes that followed in the post-independence era (The Years of Lead, la décennie noire, the Ben Ali era). The complicated postcolonial history of first and second-generation Maghrebi immigrants in France led to a “génération du silence” (Ben Jelloun) between the end of the 60s and the 80s. However, the 80s opened a new era with the “génération de la parole” (Ben Jelloun). The writers, singers, and filmmakers of the 80s and 90s of Maghrebi immigrant background, most of them born into a Muslim family, presented a “soft” version of Islam. They often portrayed Franco-Maghrebi people

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as aspiring to full French citizenship and its benefits, sometimes at the expense of their Muslim heritage. Their connection to the Maghreb was at times tangential—most often, they did not see the Maghreb as their homeland, though they were commonly seen within France as Maghrebi and not French. The 2000s saw a boom in productions and a turn toward referencing Islam and Muslims. By including religious practices such as prayers, references to Ramadan, and celebrating Eïd, writers, artists, filmmakers, and performers have tried to familiarize the general French public with the pacifist principles of Islam and with practice of Islam in France. Some examples are Rachid Djaïdani television series Une heure avant la datte (2011), Faïza Guène’s Kiffe kiffe demain (2004), and Saphia Azzeddine’s novel Combien veux-tu m’épouser? (2013). Salim Bachi’s Le Silence de Mahomet (2008), nominated for the Goncourt des Lycéens prize in France, is the life story of the Prophet Mohammed told through four different voices and perspectives, including those of his first and last wives, Khadija and Aïcha. The multiplication of perspectives in witnessing undoes uniform or fixed account-telling. Stand-up comedians such as Jamel Debbouze, Samia Orosemane, and Yassine Belattar often talk about Muslim practices in their skits, such as the circumcision ritual in Debbouze’s Tout sur Jamel (2011), the taboo around the hijab in Orosemane’s one person show Femmes de couleur (2017), the discussion about Frenchness and Islamophobia in France in Belattar’s show Ingérable (2014), and his new show En Marge (2019–2020). Live stand-up offers an unmediated connection between comedian and audience, and in this way it is more directly experiential. In reference to his Festival Marrakech du Rire, Jamel Debbouze has said: “Si l’on peut rire ensemble, on peut vivre ensemble!” (https://www.pre miere.fr/Tele/Jamel-Debbouze-sur-son-Festival-du-Rire-de-MarrakechSi-l-on-peut-rire-ensemble-on-peut-vivre#). In a different vein, Zahia Rahmani’s “Musulman” Roman (2005) stands out as a novel that probes Islamophobia following 9/11 and does so in the form of searching and fragmented writing. As Najib Redouane’s collection of essays attests (2013), in the Maghreb we also find a polyglossic interpretation of Islam and Muslims (that includes various interpretations of religious thought) in its artistic representations past and present. Earlier artistic expressions ranged in their treatment of Islam: from the impact of tradition on religious thought in Driss Chraïbi’s Le Passé simple (1954), women’s status in a patriarchal Maghrebi society in Malika Mokkedem’s L’Interdite (1993), the feminine

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view on Islamic history and traditions in Assia Djebar’s Loin de Médine (1991) to contestations of Islamic fundamentalism and Islamism in FIS de la haine (1992) by Rachid Boudjedra or De la barbarie en général et de l’intégrisme en particulier (1992), La Malédiction (1995) by Rachid Mimouni and the Arabophone writer Ahlem Mosteghanemi with her El aswad yalikou biki (Black Suits you so Well) (2012), which follows the course of a young female Algerian teacher whose father, a musician, is killed by Algerian terrorists who view the artistic expression as sinful and shameful. Tahar Ben Jelloun’s L’Islam expliqué aux enfants (et à leurs parents) (2002) and Abdelwahab Meddeb’s La Maladie de l’islam (2002) are two key essays that explain the complexity of Islam and the misunderstandings around its radical factions who are far from the peaceful tenets and practices of Sufism and mainstream Islam. More recent works resume the previously explored themes of women’s status in the Maghreb [Saphia Azzedine’s Confidences à Allah (2008)], the return of the veil [Chronique frontalière (1991) and Jeux de rubans (2011) by Emna Bel Haj Yahia], the culture of shame and guilt [the comic book Hshouma (2019) by Zaïnab Fasiki or the film Aala Kaf Ifrit (Beauty and the Dogs, 2018) by Kaouther Ben Hania], and Islamization and radicalization of Maghrebi youth in recent films [Fatwa (2019) by Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud, Fleur d’Aleppo (2016) by Ridha Behi], among others. In Tahar Ben Jelloun’s L’Islam expliqué en images (2017), complement to his L’Islam expliqué aux enfants (et à leurs parents), the Moroccan writer addresses a wide and inclusive audience: “Je raconte ici l’islam et la civilisation arabe à mes enfants nés musulmans, à tous les enfants quels que soient leur pays, leur origine; leur religion, leur langue et aussi leurs espérances” (I tell the story of Islam and Arab civilization for my Muslim-born children and for all children regardless of their country, their origin, their religion, their language, or their dreams.) (Back cover). He places a premium on educating and raising awareness, whether for children or parents, Muslims or non-Muslims. He appeals for inclusivity. One of the ways that Ben Jelloun shows the richness of Islam over time is through photographic images of its artistic cultural heritage. An additional comment on the back cover reads: “L’iconographie très riche de cet ouvrage, choisie et commentée par l’auteur, démontre également à quel point l’art s’est depuis toujours placé au service de la religion et comment, sans connaître les fondements de l’Islam, il n’est pas possible d’appréhender l’ensemble de notre histoire culturelle” (This books’s very rich iconography, as selected and commentated by the author, shows the

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extent to which art has always responded to religion and how, without knowing the foundations of Islam, it is impossible to appreciate the full range of our cultural history). Here the historical and traditional focus on the Islamic arts, which point back toward what is sometimes seen as the golden age of Islamic civilization, recurs. [Mahgrebi fiction writers have also returned often to the sources of Islam or to the Medieval period in which Islam and Muslims held prominence (e.g., Amin Maalouf, Anissa Boumediène, Assïa Djebar, Salim Bachi as seen in Hanan Elsayed’s L’Histoire sacrée de l’islam dans la littérature maghrébine)]. All the while recognizing the important cultural heritage that historical art forms hold (for a full and rich discussion on what the Islamic arts in the past and contemporary, see the full interview with Göle and Lintz), the current volume moves beyond Islamic architecture, iconography, calligraphy, etc., to push toward less “canonical” and more populaire and contemporary art forms sitting adjacent to them. The (self)-representations explored in the volume come at a time when tensions between secular and religious views are increasingly resonant as post-secular thinking gains ground in France and the Maghreb, and as grand narratives on secularization and Islamization are being debated in the public sphere (Roy 2016; Kepel 2018; Meer and Modood 2009; Allen 2010). In the contemporary context, artists, writers, and performers have chosen diverse media such as literature, film, music, and the visual arts to explore and nuance topics like Islamic religious practices, pacifism in Islam, terrorism, and radicalization, the debates about religious symbols (burka, haik, veil, etc.), women in Islam, and communautarisme in France. Taken together, the volume features a set of artistic voices and perspectives that are not looking for consensus, but rather invoke dissensus (Rancière) and a full range of expression. A necessary part of that full range of expression is self-representation—Muslims representing themselves, though this is not a flat self-representation, as they continue to complexify and multi-layer how they represent themselves.

Critical Landscape and Volume Organization The volume aims to make a contribution to the fields of Francophone postcolonial studies, Maghrebi studies, cultural studies, and post-secular studies through a comparative study of artistic (self)-representations of Islam and Muslims in France, the Maghreb, and in/between. Another contribution it makes resides in its focus on the most contemporary

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artistic production. In terms of reception and treatment in scholarship and criticism, relatively little scholarly work in the field of Francophone postcolonial studies has considered Islam, its expressions, and its representations in a sustained way. Already mentioned is Hanan Elsayed’s L’Histoire sacrée de l’islam dans la littérature maghrébine. In addition to it, The Star the Cross and the Crescent (2011) by Karine Bourget stands out in its comparative approach to religions across francophone literature in MENA. Among other topics, Bourget organizes the book around the Algerian Civil War and the headscarf debate in France. In Les Écrivains maghrébins francophones et l’Islam: Constance dans la diversité (2013) edited by Najib Redouane, contributors focus on the strong tie between culture and religion in the Maghreb from the colonial period to the postcolonial struggle in the décennie noire in Algeria and traditions of democracy in the Maghreb. Here, however, contributors only focus on the literary productions of the Maghreb without bridging to France. Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp’s Muslim Women in French Cinema: Voices of Maghrebi Migrants in France (2015) looks at a lone group—firstgeneration women Maghrebi immigrants—and uses “Muslim” not in terms of a religious identity but rather as a marginalized identity during colonial Algeria. In fact, Kealhofer-Kemp explicitly references why discussion of religion is absent from her study: the obstacles facing women characters in the films she studies are not bound up with religion, but rather with patriarchal society; and some filmmakers of Maghrebi descent may want to avoid what they see as charged characterizations of Islam (25–27). This last point echoes Carrie Tarr (2014), who has indicated that representations of Islam and Muslims in French cinema have been oriented to a mainstream Franco-French audience. Tarr notes that since the mid-1908s, both French and Franco-Maghrebi filmmakers “have proceeded with caution with the representation of their characters’ Muslim heritage” (519). She adds that when represented, it has been contained: “the films’ representations of religious beliefs have conventionally been confined to the unthreatening, secondary roles of first-generation immigrants in private, domestic spaces” (519). And so, the relative absence of representations of Islam and Muslims in francophone productions as well as their relative absence in the field of research may relate directly to audience and readership, themselves influenced by the French secular tradition. Further, given the contested terrain, a degree of self-censorship may play a role in what is produced

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and also what is taken as an object of scholarly inquiry. One limitation to the current volume is that only francophone literary production is studied (and not Arabic or Amazigh), though this does place the written production from both sides of the Mediterranean in the same fond culturel francophone in terms of “values” (e.g., secularism), potential audience and readership, and possible forms of self-censorship. The volume partly adjusts the francophone orientation with Arabic-language film and the metalanguage of the visual arts. At the same time, we see Karima Laachir’s (2015) “reading together”—which dispenses with the notion that French-language and Arabic-language writing are incompatible, dissonant, or differently oriented—as a compelling comparative approach. It even seems possible to move her “entangled comparative readings” beyond linguistic bounds and toward a broader artistic field, like the one studied here. All of this is to say that the question of language and audience remains critical and unresolved. The volume brings together researchers from North America, the Maghreb, and Europe who enter into a conversation spanning media studies, literary studies, film studies, and visual studies. Contributors consider a variety of authors, filmmakers, musician/performers, and visual artists, some residing in France, others in the Maghreb, and still others living intentionally in/between as in the case of the visual artists discussed in the volume like Kader Attia and Zoulikha Bouabdellah or the filmmakers Merzak Allouache and Kaouther Ben Hania. In this way, the writers, artists, filmmakers, and performers and their audiences are shared between both sides of and across the Mediterranean. The contributors to the volume engage with the following questions: How do contemporary writers, artists, filmmakers, and performers respond to debates on religion, secularism, national identity, multiculturalism on both sides of the Mediterranean? How do (self)-representations of Islam and Muslims express social transformations in both France and the Maghreb? Through what properties of art and the imagination do these artistic (self)representations displace fixed perceptions and commonplace perspectives and perceptions? The premise of this volume lies in seeing the domain of artistic expression as a space for alternative representations—in this way, artistic creation can be seen to act as a cultural mediator. The emphasis here is on diverse realities, which are not one-dimensional or flat, but rather multi-dimensional. The particular emphasis on self-representation, in the many forms it can take including self-narration, autofiction, self-reporting,

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self-filming, etc., allows for intentional adjustments to visibility, invisibility, and hypervisibility. In other words, self-representation, in particular, exerts pressure on both under- and over-representation. It participates in the horizon of what Rancière has termed “dissensus”: “What ‘dissensus’ means is an organization of the sensible where there is neither a reality concealed behind appearances nor a single regime of presentation and interpretation of the given imposing its obviousness on all. It means that every situation can be cracked open from the inside, reconfigured in a different regime of perception and signification. To reconfigure the landscape of what can be seen and what can be thought is to alter the field of the possible …” (The Emancipated Spectator, 48–49). In order to present the multi-dimensional aspect of (self)representations of Islam and Muslims in France, the Maghreb, and in/between, the volume is organized according to three main lines of inquiry: cinematic, literary, and visual/audio representations. Part I, Cinematic Representations of Islam: From Imams to Radicals, focuses on contemporary cinematic representations of Islam from both sides of the Mediterranean. In the first chapter, Laura Reeck examines Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s filmwork that works around the figure of the imam. Using Arabic-language fiction shorts set in Tunisia (Yed Ellouh, Wooden Hand, 2013; Les Pastèques du Cheikh, The Sheikh’s Watermelons, 2018) and a feature documentary set in France (Les Imams vont à l’école, Imams go to School, 2010), she argues that Ben Hania highlights important societal and generational shifts by way of “perspectival filmmaking.” Moving to a cultural analysis of contemporary Algerian cinema, Nabil Boudraa focuses on the political context leading to the radicalization of young people attracted by fundamentalist thought as described in iconic Franco-Algerian Merzak Allouache’s filmography. Boudraa looks more specifically at the filmmaker’s latest films to date, Enquête au Paradis (Investigating Paradise, 2016) and Rih rabani (Divine Wind, 2018), in comparison to films like El taaib (The Repentant, 2009) and Es-stouh (The Rooftops, 2013), in order to show how they echo the political and religious agendas set by the décennie noire that are still persistent in contemporary Algeria. Turning to the depictions of the impact of Islamic fundamentalism and of terrorist acts on French and Algerian societies, Abderrahmene Bourenane and Delphine Letort consider two French films (Made in France, Nicolas Boukhrief, 2015, and Le Ciel attendra, MarieCastille Mention-Schaar, 2016) and two Franco-Algerian films (Rachida, Yamna Bachir-Chouikh, 2002, and Papicha, Mounia Meddour, 2019).

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Of central importance in their comparative approach are the notions of gender and femininity, symbolized by the female characters’ relationship to clothing and to the veil, which the films highlight as a multiple signifiers. Patrick Saveau’s analysis of Made in France (2015) by Nicolas Boukhrief also delves into a discussion about the radicalization of young Muslims in France and their organization in jihadist cells. Considering it a film about (de)constructing mediatic images of representations of Islamist terrorism, Saveau’s chapter nuances the way radical Islam is being depicted in the media. He argues that the film should be seen as a thriller, not as a political film that caused a panic in French society. In fact, authorities halted the release of the film in cinemas across the country in light of the 2015–2016 terror attacks that took place a few months into the shooting of the film. Chapters in Part II, Veiling, Artistic and Islamic Symbols and FarRight Politics in Literary Representations of Islam and Muslims, revolve around literary and essayistic representations of Islam from both French and Maghrebi perspectives. Taking the Tunisian contemporary context as a reference point, Sabrine Herzi’s chapter highlights the controversial interpretations that arose around wearing (or not) the veil in Tunisia. In a close reading of the novel Jeux de rubans (2011) by Tunisian writer Emna Belhaj Yahia, Herzi is interested in understanding the meaning that the veil takes on for Tunisian women following the Jasmine Revolution. Pamela A. Pears’s analysis focuses on the Algerian historical past and its relevance for present Algeria. The chapter constitutes a fine account of Amira-Géhanne Khalfallah’s re-writing of the story of the 1664 French naval attack on the city of Jijel (formerly known as Gigérie) on the northeastern Algerian shores seen as a revalorization of the Maghrebi historical past through self-representation. In addition, in Khalfallah’s novel, Islam translates to new connotations of knowledge, life, and powerful femininity. Moving to a Moroccan cultural setting, Mary Vogl proposes an analysis of the transgressive nature of cheikhates, female performers, by proposing a comparative study of Mahi Binebine’s novel Rue du Pardon (2019) and artist Fatima Mazmouz’s duo exhibit, “Raw Queens.” She shows how Binebine and Mazmouz celebrate Muslim women artists who apply pressure to the boundaries of acceptable behavior in Islam. In the French context, Simona Pruteanu discusses the relationship between Islam and far-right politics in Michel Houellebecq’s Soumission and Karim Amellal’s Bleu Blanc Noir novels published in the midst of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in 2015 and the terror attacks of 2016. Her chapter adds

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to the debate about whether literature can perform a political function or if it contributes to the stereotypical view of orientalizing or othering Islam. Part III of the volume, Representations of Islam in Music, Comics and Visual Arts, presents artistic representations of Islam in rap music, Internet comic series, and the visual arts. For example, David Yesaya’s chapter theorizes a form of rap in France, Islamic rap, which advocates for a vivre ensemble through mutual respect of different cultures. Yesaya’s deeper look into the lyrics of this type of music deconstructs stereotypical views on Islam by showing its universalizing principles of peace and unity as they are expressed in Islamic rap. Jennifer Howell offers a view on questions of multiculturalism and Islam in France through the lens of comic author Norédine Allam. Howell investigates the cultural and political implications of comics in contemporary French society through the analysis of the series Muslim Show. The last chapter of the third part presents some of the most (inter)nationally acclaimed contemporary Franco-Maghrebi visual artists. Ramona Mielusel’s chapter focuses on the reception of visual artists like Kader Attia and Zoulikha Bouabdellah on both sides of the Mediterranean, exploring how they contribute to current discussions about secularism, Islamophobia, and representations of women in Islam. With an emphasis on the twenty-first-century contemporary, the volume provides an overview of artistic (self)-representations of Islam and Muslims in France and the Maghreb over the last twenty years, all the while highlighting the vital importance of perspective. With its focus that cuts across disciplines and engages with contemporary social issues, the volume comes at a complex moment in our contemporary history when nations around the world are seen to be defending and protecting their histories, cultures, and identities while at the same time trying to make way for more inclusive national identities.

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Hachad, Naïma. 2019. Revisionary Tales: Moroccan Women’s Auto/Biographical and Testimonial Acts. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Hammond, Andrew. 2011. “No God” film angers Tunisian Islamists. Reuters.com. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tunisia-islamists-tension/ no-god-film-angers-tunisian-islamists-idUSTRE7652VZ20110706. Hiddleston, Jane. 2017. Writing After Postcolonialism: Francophone North African Literature in Transition. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Kealhofer-Kemp, Leslie. 2015. Muslim Women in French Cinema: Voices of Maghrebi Migrants in France. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Kepel, Gilles. 2015. Terreur dans l’Hexagone. Genèse du Jihad français. Paris: Gallimard. _____. 2018. Sortir du chaos. Les crises en Méditerranée et au Moyen-Orient. Paris: Gallimard. King, Stephen J., and Abdeslam Maghraoui. 2019. The Lure of Authoritarianism: The Maghreb After the Arab Spring. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Kumar, Deepa. 2012. Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Laachir, Karima. 2015. The Aesthetics and Politics of ‘Reading Together’ Moroccan Novels in Arabic and French. The Journal of North African Studies 21 (1): 22–36. Meer, Nasar, and Tariq Modood. 2008. On Conceptualising Islamophobia, AntiMuslim Sentiment and Cultural Racism. In Thinking Thru’ Islamophobia. Centre for Ethnicity & Racism Studies, University of Leeds. _____. 2009. Refutations of Racism in the ‘Muslim Question’. Patterns of Prejudice 43 (3–4): 335–354. Murray, Douglas. 2017. The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam. Bloomsbury: Bloomsbury Publishing. Nilsson, Per-Erik. 2018. Unveiling the French Republic: National Identity, Secularism, and Islam in Contemporary France. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. Orlando, Valérie. 2009. Francophone Voices of the “New” Morocco in Film and Print: (Re)presenting a Society in Transition. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Rancière, Jacques. 2008. Le Spectateur émancipé. Paris: Éditions La Fabrique. Redouane, Najib, ed. 2013. Les Ecrivains maghrébins francophones et l’Islam: Constance dans la diversité. Paris: L’Harmattan. Roy, Olivier. 2016. Le Jihad et la mort. Paris: Seuil. Roy, Olivier. 2013. Le printemps arabe et le mythe de la nécessaire sécularisation. Socio 2: 25–37. Saeed, Amir. 2007. Media, Racism and Islamophobia: The Representation of Islam and Muslims in the Media. Sociology Compass 1 (2): 443–462. Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books.

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Shaheen, Jack. 2001. Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. Northhampton: Olive Branch Press. Tarr, Carrie. 2014. Looking at Muslims: The Visibility of Islam in Contemporary French Cinema. Patterns of Prejudice 48: 516–553. Varisco, Daniel Martin. 2005. Epilogue. In Islam Obscured: Contemporary Anthropology of Religion. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. _____. 2010. Muslims and the Media in the Blogosphere. Contemporary Islam 4 (1): 157–177. Zemmour, Éric. 2014. Le Suicide français. Paris: Éditions Albin Michel. “Zainab Fasiki Fights for Women’s Rights.” Showcase. TRT World. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0hPuy3GMHY. 2015. Appel Des Fédérations Musulmanes À L’unité Et Au Deuil National. https://www.mosqueedeparis.net/appel-des-federations-musulmanes-a-lun ite-et-au-deuil-national/.

Cinematic Representations of Islam: From Imams to Radicals

Imams and Audience in Kaouther Ben Hania’s Niche Filmwork Laura Reeck

Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania released her first feature-length film in 2010, a documentary titled Les Imams vont à l’école that follows imams and chaplains in training who must learn about laïcité at the Institut Catholique de Paris to complete their training. To date, it is her lone film set in France, but one that connects thematically to some of her filmwork set in Tunisia through its inclusion of imams. Interestingly, its focus on religion and secularism in politics and society parallels a debate alive in Tunisia following the Jasmine Revolution, which began only months after the film’s release. In January 2011, following the self-immolation of fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid, popular uprisings began that would eventually lead to the ouster of long-standing President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of the Parti Destourien Libre ruling party. The Jasmine Revolution came to be seen as synonymous with the beginning of the Arab Spring. Since its independence from France in 1956, Tunisia has often been qualified in terms of its openness to the west, the freedoms accorded

L. Reeck (B) Allegheny College, Meadville, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Mielusel (ed.), Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81234-8_2

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to women, and the secular approach to governance and society. But this has also come at the expense of individual liberties, free and open debate, and what some have seen as the instrumentalization of Islam over Ben Ali’s years in power (1989–2011), as the ruling class became increasingly authoritarian and distanced from the Tunisian electorate. When free and open elections were held following the Jasmine Revolution, the Islamist moderate Ennahda party, whose founder Rachid Ghannouchi had returned from a 22-year exile in France (his exile a sign of how the Ben Ali regime had marginalized opposing currents of thought) came to power. Now, as a result of a democratic process, Tunisia found itself with expressed, viable, and divergent socio-political currents: a push toward political Islam, on the one hand, and a push toward more generalized secularism, on the other (Alvi 2019). At the center were questions of tradition and heritage, religious expression, social values, and more equality and access. At the same time, in the post-revolution, newfound freedom of expression along with more funds directed to cultural institutions had a positive impact on Tunisia’s film industry, which had almost gone dormant during the last years of Ben Ali’s regime. Ben Hania can be situated within what has variably been called new cinema, post-revolution cinema, and the Ben Ali generation of filmmakers. Not only is Tunisian cinema experiencing revitalization through a post-revolution wave of films, but it has also entered an experimental phase and brought to the fore women filmmakers, and in particular women documentarists.1 Of note, on the felt competition between political Islam and secularism, Franco-Tunisia filmmaker Nadia al-Fani released a controversial post-revolution documentary titled Ni Dieu, Ni Maître that warned of increasing Islamism and promoted a return to secularism (Hammond 2011). Broadly, filmmaking has renewed with Tunisian cinema’s reputation of being unafraid of challenging the status quo and taking on social taboos, which often means making visible what is invisible within society as a result of stigma. In its first post-revolution iterations, Olivier Barlet suggests that new Tunisian cinema began to show particular signs of innovation in short films (Barlet 2011). More recently, 12 feature films a year have been produced (AFP 2018), and there has been an effort made to expand the global audience and reach of Tunisian films, most recently with Netflix. Four Tunisian films have been programmed for release through Netflix over the 2019– 2020 timeframe, the first of which was Kaouther Ben Hania’s Aala Kaf Ifrit (La Belle et La Meute), released in May 2019 (Balkis 2020), marking

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the first Tunisian film ever to show on Netflix. Her film L’Homme qui a vendu sa peau was the first Tunisian film nominated for Oscar for Best International Feature at the 2021 Academy Awards. Both of Ben Hania’s films mentioned here expose bodies under threat and endangerment; in La Belle et la Meute, a female character who seeks justice in Tunisia for a police rape, and in L’Homme qui a vendu sa peau, a male character, originally from Syria, allows for his body to be tattooed in Lebanon with a Schengen Visa and put on the art market as collateral for his mobility/migration to Europe. In no way does Ben Hania shy away from exploring subject matter that challenges the status quo. Ben Hania was born in Sidi Bouzid and maintains a presence in Tunisia; after having turned away from the business world, she attended Paris’s La Fémis film school and also maintains a presence in France—in part through her co-owned production company, Who’Z Prod, located in Montreuil outside of Paris. As is obvious from her filmography, which now includes fiction shorts, two feature documentaries, one hybrid long film, and two feature fiction films, Ben Hania works between genres and forms and has moved over time from documentary to fiction.2 Though increasingly globally filmed, many of Ben Hania’s films are set in Tunisia and filmed in Arabic, and production companies there, such as Sister Prod and Cinétéléfilms produce or co-produce her films.3 It is important to note that Ben Hania has often worked in niche film genres—the documentary long, the fiction short—as forms in which to experiment and develop her filmmaking. With this in mind, I focus first on the short films Yed Ellouh (Peau de colle 2013) and Les Pastèques du Cheikh (2018), both set and filmed in Tunisia, and on the documentary Les Imams vont à l’école (2010). A unifying element across these films is the figure of the imam, and relatedly the question of the audience. As Ben Hania has indicated, “Les religieux à travers leur auditoire ont un vrai pouvoir” (Lépine 2018) (Religious figures have real power because they have an audience). Here it is important to point out that Ben Hania appears most interested in the web of relations the imam inhabits, in questions of tradition and heritage along with generational and social relationships. In her fiction shorts with imams as central figures, the intradiegetic audience,4 whether children at Qur’anic school or a group of followers, occupies a pivotal role in outlining the shifting contours of authority. Interestingly, in her documentary Les Imams vont à l’école, the imams in training themselves become the intradiegetic audience: they are now an audience of students learning how to integrate to the Republic—liberté, égalité, fraternité, laïcité. Importantly, Ben Hania’s way of filming audience draws the viewer’s attention to perspective.

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` Peau de colle and Les Pasteques du Cheikh: Looking the Future in the Eyes Peau de colle 5 opens with a tracking shot from behind a small red truck transporting a wooden chair; hues of yellow in the sky and on the surrounding buildings—no doubt produced intentionally by a camera light filter—contrast with bright colors bordering on neon. Music, here and elsewhere in the film, accompanies movement between locations and continues uninterrupted until the film cuts to a second shot that takes us inside a mosque where an imam holds Qur’anic school for young children. The imam recites a passage on chosen messengers, and his young pupils repeat with the exception of a lone young girl who averts his gaze. The imam calls her forward and asks her to repeat in front of the class; she refuses and, under pressure, wets her pants in front of the other pupils. Amira, the only named character in the film, gets no sympathy from either the imam or her fellow pupils, which reinforces her desire to not return to Qur’anic school. So as to not return to the mosque, she superglues her hand to the new wooden chair. The 22-minutes short is visually stimulating from the mise-en-scène of interior spaces to the constant interplay between the contrasting hues of yellow against bright red and neon-like colors. Interior shots in the yellow hues reveal an apartment adorned with family portraits, including portraits of Amira’s deceased father. Many shots looking down hallways or through rooms are framed by walls or curtains that show spaces as both separate and adjoined, providing an internal frame to the camera’s frame, as if to signal an embedded point-of-view. Despite being glued to the chair, Amira returns to Qur’anic school, but she continues to refuse to recite aloud, interrupting the imam when she requests to be taken to the bathroom. Once there, with the imam waiting outside, Amira dwells in the pleasure of having triumphed—though not having used it, Amira flushes the toilet for good measure, showing that her request was a ploy. The imam’s next gesture is to call Amira’s mother and request that she come get her daughter; he explains that he is losing control of his pupils; what was once an obedient audience is now a group of playful and transgressive children, and in his view, Amira acts as the key instigator. This role reversal in the face of the imam’s loss of authority leads to a shot in which the imam, wearing a checked shirt and red kufi hat mirroring the checked coats of the pupils with red highlights, stands in the middle of a courtyard with Amira, as a lone viewer, looking at him

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on one side of the courtyard and the audience of other pupils from the other side. He occupies center stage with on-lookers on both sides of him: Ben Hania stages his avowal that he has lost control of his followers. The imam sees Amira as a subversive element at the Qur’anic school: in a subsequent scene in which her fellow pupils chide her, creating a disruption, the imam asks her to leave and definitively closes the mosque doors on her. The short is a battle of wills, sometimes playful, sometimes harder-edged, resulting in a soft loss of the imam’s authority and ability to control his audience. If at first it becomes obvious that Amira is not listening to the imam, the imam is also not listening to Amira. In Peau de colle, the fact that the intradiegetic audience is made up of children is also noteworthy since children are eyes to the future, the next generation, and often used in storytelling to provide a fresh and naïve, but also visionary, perspective. Within Tunisian film history, children have played a remarkable and significant role over time, including in such now-classic films as Asfour Stah [Halfaouine, l’enfant des terrasses (Boughedir 1990)] and Samt El Qusur [Les Silences du palais (Tlatli 1996)]. In an article on the child character in post-revolution Tunisian short films, Mathilde Rouxel characterizes Amira’s subversion as “une résistance vaine mais audacieuse d’une jeune tunisienne à qui les traditions ne siéent pas” (2017, 363) (futile but audacious resistance from a young Tunisian girl who is not in line with traditions).6 In this way, Amira embodies an unmet desire for change. As already mentioned, in the postrevolution era, Tunisia has seen parallel pushes toward secularism, on the one hand, and political Islam, on the other. Rouxel situates Ben Hania in the former mouvance: “mettre en scène une jeune enfant qui rejette la petite école coranique du Kouttab peut apparaître comme un acte politique – un acte contre les traditions, un acte, peut-être, contre un principe d’imposition de la religion dans le cadre éducatif” (2017, 364) (featuring a child who rejects Qur’anic school could be seen as a political act countering tradition and possibly countering the notion of imposing religious study for children).7 By refusing to recite the Qur’an, Amira dismisses a long-standing tradition of recitation, but, perhaps more importantly, she refuses to repeat what she hears, gesturing toward a breaking point with the past, or the end of the primacy of the past. It is interesting to parallel the new wave of young post-revolution filmmakers in Tunisia, “la génération Ben Ali” (Rouxel 2017, 358), with child

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characters who hold the potential for change in their youth and perspective. Both mediate in favor of newness and invention, or re-invention. Rouxel concludes with some pessimism in suggesting that Amira’s revolt leads nowhere except to her exclusion, which she interprets as suggestive of Tunisian society’s lack of progression since the revolution. At the same time, however, the child character’s audacity and tenacity point toward a willingness and momentum for change. And using a child character who is far from decision-making but who challenges the status quo provides an alternative perspective on power and authority, one that highlights who is inside and who is outside the realm of decision-making.

With the same actor, Ahmed Hafiane, as imam, and the same mosque as a location, Ben Hania’s spin-off, Les Pastèques du Cheikh,8 made five years after Peau de Colle, again revolves around a generational divide. The film script was selected for the 2016 Paris courts devant film festival, where it won the Prix France 2: Histoires courtes. With this film, Ben Hania wanted to scrutinize power, and not just power within religious leadership or institutions, but how the same few detain power: “Les figures du pouvoir sont des personnes qui sont là depuis de longue date; c’est aussi ce qui représente le cheikh” (Lépine 2018) (Leaders have been in power for long time; and that is also what the sheikh represents). She adds that the sheikh is but one example in contemporary Tunisian society of someone who belongs to an older generation, becoming out-of-date, being supplanted by a younger generation, which she calls “machiévelque” (Lépine 2018). Ben Hania believes the political metaphor that she works around extends beyond contemporary Tunisian society to a wider context in which political leaders do not have a clear vision for the future and too often make decisions that profit themselves and their own affairs. Les Pastèques du Cheikh opens with a tracking shot of two young boys, one prodding a donkey to continue pulling a casket that they are transporting, the other eating watermelon at the back of the trailer. Ben

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Hania’s signature music accompanies the film’s opening as it did in Peau de colle. An overhead shot follows, showing imam Taher leading a group prayer; all at once, a young child pops up from behind his father and begins making silly noises and laughing to himself. This is a first in a series of interruptions in the opening scene that introduces tension to the film. While this first interruption has an innocent air to it, the interruptions that cross the film from beginning to end will get progressively more tense. The camera then focuses on a man dressed all in white, Abdelhamid, who serves as the assistant to the imam here but will come to play a central role in the film. At the end of the group prayer, as the followers—the intradiegetic audience—are leaving, they suddenly stop in their tracks and announce that there will be a funeral to perform upon arrival of the casket. One of the boys explains that his mother has just passed away and that the boys have no one to care for them now, at which point the imam turns to the followers and asks them to recite the prayer of the dead. Suddenly, a man steps forward to say that he has an outstanding debt with the deceased, which prompts the imam to collect money from the assembled followers. Before the group disperses, the young child steps forward to the casket, opens it, and promptly closes it. He sees what no one else has seen; then imam Taher also glimpses inside—all he sees is wood. Perplexed, the imam must now lead a funeral as the followers align themselves again in rows. He calls Abdelhamid to lead and excuses himself to the bathroom where he splashes cold water on his face, all the while looking at himself in a cracked mirror. Numerous scenes with mirrors, most often broken mirrors or inverted mirror reflections, highlight his interior predicament and disorientation. Some of the comedic effects that Ben Hania sought to experiment with emerge here with the intervention of her signature music, which punctuates an important comedic (and also dramatic) moment: a chicken limps toward the camera as the imam limps back toward the prayer room, now deserted apart from Abdelhamid. The visual juxtaposition induces a comedic effect. Once enclosed in the prayer room alone, he opens up the casket for a full view, and what he finds are a collection of watermelons, including one serving as a head wrapped in a scarf. Interestingly, when he realizes the nature of the manipulation, we are returned to a shot of the broken mirror in the bathroom reflecting the imam as he takes a close-up look at himself. A further plot twist is added when a boy who had offered a necklace in gold to pay the woman’s debt arrives during

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a prayer at the mosque with his older brother Fadi, who demands the necklace back. Fadi announces to the group of assembled followers that there was nobody, and that the sheikh has stolen their money. When the group asks to see the tomb, Abdelhamid offers to guide them to it in the cemetery. For much of the first part of the short, the character of Abdelhamid stands in the shadows of the imam, but in this scene, the roles reverse and the imam looks on as Abdelhamid begins a prêche at the supposed tomb of the deceased: the imam has become a lone viewer, looking onto the audience listening to Abdelhamid. When he calls Abdelhamid over, in a volte face Abdelhamid tells imam Taher that to keep the secret (he has pictures of the watermelons-as-visage on his cellphone), the imam needs to write a letter stepping down from his function at the mosque. As in Peau de colle, the imam’s authority and power have been compromised; in this case, not by children, but by Abdelhamid, who turns out to be an ISIS acolyte. The generational divide here is crueler and more troubling. It exposes corruption and manipulation since Abdelhamid sets all this up with Fadi’s help, and despite the purity of his message, he is a purveyor of drugs to Fadi and also makes an unwanted sexual advance on him. All this unraveling occurs over less than three minutes of film. Much as the film began, it concludes with a succession of interruptions, and so the resolution remains tension-filled. Abdelhamid has effectively pushed the imam out and announces at a Friday prayer, with Fadi at his side, that he will be taking over the service. No sooner has he proclaimed himself prayer leader than imam Taher enters the prayer room with police who dethrone Abdelhamid, creating an enormous brouhaha. Imam Taher resumes his place, speaking now to three followers and the young child who precipitated the crisis by looking into the casket, and who now asks his father when they can go to a toy store. Who is listening? What is left of imam Taher’s authority? Peau de colle and Les Pastèques du Cheikh are well-conceived and constructed films that solve the “storytelling puzzle” (in Schwab 2016) of short films through cinematography—here light filters, internal framing, close-ups, mirror images—to enhance visual presentation, dramatic arc, and meaning-making.9 Though both films have comedic elements, a real seriousness pervades them—their brushes with comedy are largely situationally based, and these same situations have relatively pessimistic resolutions. The intradiegetic audience in these films, whether the children at Qur’anic school or the followers at imam Taher’s mosque, are

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fractured, questioning, and ultimately disillusioned and diminished in number. But the resolutions are not wholly pessimistic in that Amira will move forward holding hands with her friend, and the ISIS elements have been purged from imam Taher’s mosque. As already mentioned, Ben Hania believes that these short films have a broader message than what might first be apparent, one that applies as much to Tunisian society as to French society; they are less about religious leaders and institutions per se and more about leaders and decision-making generally. Together they also raise the question of transmission and descendancy. In effect, they can be seen as cautionary tales whose ploys and subversions work at first glance in opposite directions but ultimately paint a shared picture: on the one hand, the status quo will not suffice forever—eyes to the future are saying so; on the other, the status quo is being challenged by elements among a younger generation at once more untrustworthy and determined than their elders. Remembering that the second film is a spin-off from the first, it is as if to say that authority is in flux, but what was once playful—a child’s antics—has now become a more serious ideological challenge.

´ Les Imams vont a` l ’ecole : Showing la lai¨cite´ and Its Paradoxes From the time Pierre Joxe, then-Ministre de l’Intérieur during the Mitterand presidency, promoted the idea of an “Islam de France” (French Islam)—as opposed to “Islam en France” (Islam in France)—in 1990 by establishing Le Conseil de réflexion sur l’Islam de France, debate and discussion has circled around the question of forming future Islamic religious leaders in France, particularly non-native French imams and imams détachés, to the secular traditions and values of the Republic. Part of Joxe’s aim with the Conseil was to address the fact that nine in ten imams in France were non-native French. On the one hand, this prompted reflection on why native-born French were not serving in the role of imam, and, on the other, a reflection on how to best integrate foreignborn imams. Over time, though ministerial orders, such as a 2017 order that Islamic chaplains receive a “diplôme de formation civile et civique” (degree in citizen and civic learning) before assuming their functions, and actions by public officials have accumulated without ever quelling the debate.10 Most recently, President Emmanuel Macron indicated that he intends to render null and void the bilateral conventions that France holds with Algeria, Morocco, and Turkey, who identify imams who begin

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training in their home countries and later arrive in France to continue their training. In an effort to reduce “séparatisme islamiste” (Macron 2020),11 no further Visas will be issued to imams détachés under this agreement, so that by 2024 the program will have lapsed. The documentary Les Imams vont à l’école (2010)12 was filmed not long after a new program of study was introduced to familiarize foreignborn imams and chaplains in France with the laws, practices, and beliefs relative to laïcité. French laïcité can best be understood through Article 1 of the 1905 law, which is referenced repeatedly across the film: “La République assure la liberté de conscience. Elle garantit le libre exercice des cultes sous les seules restrictions édictées ci-après dans l’intérêt de l’ordre public” (legifrance.gouv.fr) (The Republic ensures freedom of conscience. It guarantees freedom of worship limited only by the following rules in the interest of public order) (https://www.museeprot estant.org/). Qualified as assertive secularism by Ahmet Kuru (2009), as opposed to passive secularism as seen in the United States, French laïcité means that religious practice and expression must remain absent from public space and discourse, and, theoretically, no one religion can be prioritized over any other—all of which is meant to protect the state from religion and its influences and influencers. If then-President Nicolas Sarkozy had imagined such laïcité instruction as early as 2002, it was not until 2008 when the Ministère de l’Identité Nationale et de l’Immigration allocated 80,000 Euros that it took shape. While Paris IV and Paris VIII refused to house and sponsor the curriculum, the Institut Catholique de Paris agreed to develop one in partnership with the Institut Al-Ghazali of the Grande Mosquée de Paris and its Rector at the time, Dalil Boubekar. It could do so because it is not one of the state-run or sponsored institutions falling under Article 2 of the 1905 law: “La République ne reconnaît, ne salarie ni ne subventionne aucun culte. En conséquence, à partir du 1er janvier qui suivra la promulgation de la présente loi, seront supprimées des budgets de l’Etat, des départements et des communes, toutes dépenses relatives à l’exercice des cultes” (legifr ance.gouv.fr) (The Republic neither acknowledges, nor pays for nor subsidizes any form of worship. Consequently, from 1 January on, after the present law has been publicized, all spending related to worship will be eliminated from the budgets of the State and localities) (https://www. museeprotestant.org/). Affiliated with the Institut Catholique de Paris, sociologist Olivier Bobineau spearheaded the creation of “Interculturalité, Laïcité, Religions” culminating in a Diplôme Universitaire,13 which led

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to the paradox of a private Catholic institution housing the instruction of future Islamic leaders in France. To complete her film project, Ben Hania first observed classes for six months at the Institut Al-Ghazali, where she met Yaniss, Mohammed, and Hamid whom she would ultimately feature.14 In an article in the Lebanese daily L’Orient le Jour, she explains that she has always had an interest in laïcité: “aujourd’hui plus que tout dans sa forme paradoxale qui est la cohabitation avec la religion de l’islam […] J’ai tout de suite eu envie de la mettre en forme” (more than anything else, I wanted to show it in its paradox with the Islamic religion). While in theory laïcité is meant to protect religious expression, in practice laïcité can work to suppress it and abstract it from everyday life. In other words, while in theory creating public space in which any one religion has equal value to all others with none holding sway or priority over any others, laïcité can also be seen to act negatively, as a deterrent, on religious life and expression. To the extent that practicing Islam can be seen as including outward expressions and as a way of life, it enters into a tension-filled relationship with laïcité. The film opens with a quick succession of shots, the third of which shows Olivier Bobineau of the Institut Catholique responding to questions from Ben Hania and her film crew. We see a camera as Ben Hania asks him to name detractors; he says resistance has come from “les intégristes radicaux” (radical fundamentalists) from all religious groups and denominations. Next, the imam and chaplain students begin to arrive for their first class but soon recognize it is time for prayer, which they perform in a hallway. Throughout the opening section, Yaniss stands out through dedicated close-ups, extreme close-ups, and over-the-shoulder shots. When we first see him, he remarks aloud on the Saint-Josephdes-Carmes church housed within the Institut Catholique, wondering when Muslims might be afforded the same quality of space: he quips, “peut-être quand on aura plus intégré” (5:30) (maybe when we’re better integrated). At the end of the introductory section, Yaniss occupies the foreground of a shot in which the other students congregate together in the mosque’s courtyard. On a phonecall, he explains that he was born and raised in France and already understands its cultural codes and expectations—in other words, he is integrated. He gets dispensation from the Institut Catholique course but continues at the Institut Al-Ghazali. If Yaniss can be seen as a “personnage” (“character”), as Ben Hania calls him, his constructed and assigned role is to keep the charged and complicated concept of integration close at hand. In a powerful subsequent scene

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in which Yaniss is dramatically set off in interview format against a black screen, he points out that people with no religion or who do not practice, which accounts for more than a majority of people living in France, lose nothing with laïcité. But for Muslims, who see their daily lives and social relationships through the lens of Islam, there is a trade-off. Integration clearly involves sacrifices. Les Imams vont à l’école shuttles between the two institute spaces, rarely in connectivity, almost always as a cut to a new shot. Reinforcing this unbridged presentation is the use of language of instruction—French at the Institut Catholique, and Arabic at the Institut Al-Ghazali. The imams in training are therefore the intradiegetic audience in two separate situations: they are first and foremost an audience to Bobineau’s stage (fittingly, there is a platform stage in the classroom), but they are also the audience to a series of scholars and religious figures at the Institut Al-Ghazali. It is incumbent upon the imams in training to shift perspective depending on the situation in which they find themselves. A sequence at the film’s midpoint occupies a critical juncture in the film’s development as it dramatizes key filmic threads built around audience and perspective. Early on in the film, when speaking about Bobineau, Yaniss comments, “C’est un personnage du théâtre, il ne fait pas son cours, il joue son cours” (10:20) (He’s a stage actor, he doesn’t give his class, he acts it out). At the same time as this dramaturgy analogy captures Bobineau’s animated presence in the classroom, it heightens our attention to shifts in situation and perspective. In this sequence, when television crews from France 2, 3, TF1, and Radio France Internationale arrive at the Institut Catholique to film a class session, Bobineau instructs the three students who have given permission to be filmed to not answer any questions, ostensibly in fear that their words will be instrumentalized or misrepresented. With numerous cameras and crews within the frame, perspective becomes all-important: Ben Hania films the imams in training being filmed. Now through the frame of Ben Hania’s camera, they appear as “actors” in a different film project, and what she has effectively filmed is perspective itself.

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After the media have failed to get their story, Yaniss, Mohammed, and Hamid enter into a discussion about the media, which Hamid claims is dishonest 90% of the time. He adds that Muslims may have to take charge of changing their misrepresentation (44:00). Yaniss adjusts the conversation by removing some of the blame from journalists, saying they have not been properly trained and are limited in what they can report, and so “on voit toujours les mêmes gens” (44:30) (you always see the same faces). Then Hamid responds by raising the question of media audience, stating they are not addressing “you and me,” but rather the other 90% of the French population (44:55). To deconstruct the images the media offers, he proposes opening up mosques to the general French population for them to see with their own eyes. Interestingly, now the proposition is not that the imams in training must change perspective, but rather that the perspective of mainstream French society could usefully change. Such a reversal is more strongly worded in Yasser Louati’s op-ed: “Ce dont nous avons besoin, ce n’est pas la formation des imams, mais la formation de nos ministres” (2016) (What we need is not so much instruction for imams, but rather instruction for our ministers). In the final scene, Bobineau prepares his students for an examination, at the end of which he simulates scenarios with handshakes and greetings, correcting the strength of the handshake and the amount of eye contact used. For Franck Frégosi, specialist on the institutionalization of Islam in France, the scene elicits the following: “Ne sommes-nous pas davantage confrontés à un processus qui nous renvoie l’image de l’imâm assimilé à ‘l’individu à corriger’ pour reprendre une des figures de l’anomalie au XIXe siècle analysée par Foucault, que l’on devrait dresser ou en l’espèce domestiquer” (2014, 464) (Are we not seeing the imams here

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as an “individual in need of taming,” to return to one of the anomalous ninieteenth-century figures analyzed by Foucault—someone who needs to be groomed or domesticated). It is not surprising that he terms the undertaking “neocolonial.” Another critique of the program somewhat paradoxically comes from Bobineau himself: after having trained 90 imams, he now calls the program a failure—primarily because the instruction was so knowledgedriven that it failed to account for the social reality of its audience. Not only are imams prayer leaders, spiritual guides, and community leaders, but they have families and hold a job in addition to serving as imams. A university degree does not adequate: “Ce n’est pas en allant à l’université apprendre le droit et la sociologie que ça va les aider dans leurs relations avec ces fidèles, c’est à nous d’aller les accompagner et de voir quels sont leurs besoins, leur vécu, leurs réalités quotidiennes” (François 2020) (It’s not by going to university to study law and sociology that they’ll be helped in their relationships with followers; it’s up to us to understand what their needs, lived experience, and everyday lives). Here lies an admission that the curriculum failed to consider the everyday life experience as well as the many social roles and relationships its audience had. Les Imams vont à l’école does not provide an answer to the question alive for more than 30 years about who can and should qualify to serve as imam in France. But the film points to a set of paradoxes, all the while going further and deeper than the sorts of “reportages” on Muslims and Islam cited in the film as superficial, deficient, and ultimately harmful to Muslims in France. Ben Hania’s approach to filmmaking here seems to be “showing” and not “telling.” She steps back from her directorship—there is no voice-over, narrator, or orator—and allows the people she films, namely Yaniss, Hamid, and Mohammed, to tell the story. The voice of the film emerges from the perspective of the filmed subjects. In Introduction to Documentary, Bill Nichols discusses the variable relationships between “filmmaker, people, and audience,” the most common being “I speak about them to you” (2001, 13). Ben Hania has made a documentary of the following configuration—“It speaks about them to us” (38)— and, while Nichols does allude to this configuration, Ben Hania adjusts it: by removing her authority as filmmaker and neutralizing voice-over, the documentary becomes perspective-driven. In Nichols’s discussion, the following holds for Les Imams vont à l’école: “By speaking about an ‘us’ that includes the filmmaker, these films achieve a degree of intimacy

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that can be quite compelling” (39). Another adjustment to documentary film in Les Imams vont à l’école results from the opening scene and the scene at the film’s mid-point, both of which feature other cameras and crews. These scenes generate an embeddedness that can be likened to mise-en-abyme, a device related more directly to fictional filmmaking than to documentary, like the figured performative aspects of acting, playing roles, and stages. But, as discussed at the outset, Ben Hania knowingly and intentionally cuts across the properties of genres and forms, and the novelty of her filmmaking resides in it.

Conclusion To conclude, imams criss-cross Kaouther Ben Hania’s niche filmwork. In the fiction shorts, they are characters at the center of situational challenges, and, in the documentary, the imams in training reveal layers of social complexity around integration and the place of religion in social and public life. Though these films traverse fiction and documentary, short and long forms, Tunisia and France, they meet up through Ben Hania’s lens as perspectival filmmaking: role reversals in the fiction shorts and the performative aspect of the documentary underscore instances when roles of audience, lone viewer, and actor switch—all of which signify shifts in perspective. The film stills included in this chapter show these shifts: one shows Amira as the lone viewer separated from the audience of pupils looking on as the imam phones her mother to report that he has lost control and authority; another shows the imam in Les Pastèques du Cheikh as a lone viewer to an audience listening to Abdelhamid who figures the new religious authority; and the still from Les Imams vont à l’école shows the imams in training in Ben Hania’s film as “actors” in unscripted mainstream-media film and radio projects. Across the films, Ben Hania’s use of filmic properties and effects highlights perspective: she employs a wide range of shots that exemplify diversity in perspective—tracking shots, close-ups, extreme close-ups, overhead and over-the-shoulder shots, and panoramic shots; she draws on a palette of color in her short films, some of them produced through a light filter, that adjusts what we might otherwise see or perceive; through internal framing devices such as hallway shots, shots through windows, mirrors, etc., she creates perspective within the film itself. And so at the same time as Ben Hania excavates perspective-making and perspective-taking in cinematographically compelling and inventive ways,

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she heightens our attention as her audience to shifts in authority—generational shifts, ideological shifts, cultural shifts, suggesting their relevancy and complexity and that we take notice.

Notes 1. For more on this, see Meryem Belkaïd’s and my article in Expressions maghrébines, “Le cinema maghrébin transnational,” ed. Will Higbee, Vol 18 (1), 2019. 2. See my article in Expressions maghrébines, “Le cinema maghrébin transnational,” ed. Will Higbee, Vol 18 (1), 2019, pp. 81–98, for more on Ben Hania’s hybrid film Le Challat de Tunis. 3. In addition to Les Imams vont à l’école, other exceptions to this include another feature-length documentary, Zaineb Takrahou Ethelj [Zaineb n’aime pas la neige (2016)] which shuttles from Tunisia to Canada, and Ben Hania’s most recent film, a second fiction film, L’Homme qui a vendu sa peau (2020), set primarily in Lebanon and Belgium. 4. Other ways to render this would be “narrative audience” or “embedded audience,” and so, with film, there is an audience contained within the camera’s frame. 5. Peau de colle is a French-Tunisian co-production by Eléfanto Films and Paprika Films. It won Best Short at Rencontre des cinémas arabes AFLAM Marseille 2014, Festival du court-Métrage de Tétouan 2014, Cordoba African Film Festival 2014; and the Tanit d’or at Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage 2014. 6. In the same article, Rouxel pairs Peau de colle with Hors-je (Moufida Fedhila, 2014) and Pousses de printemps (Intissar Belaid, 2014). 7. For more on the complex politico-religious context in Tunisia since the Jasmine Revolution, and the opposing currents of thought that co-exist, see Amel Boubeker, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/ 13629395.2015.1081449 and Malika Seghal, https://dash.harvard.edu/ bitstream/handle/1/12724047/64185274.pdf?sequence=1. 8. Les Pastèques du Cheikh is produced by Tanit Films. It showed at the JCC 2018, 40th Annual Cinemed Festival, and 2nd Annual Gouna film Festival. 9. The basic obstacle is putting into place a narrative and dramatic trajectory in such little time: “In order to be successful, a short film has to build up characters and conflict within minutes, if not seconds. It’s what Nicole Grindle, the executive producer of Sanjay’s Super Team, calls ‘a storytelling puzzle,’ but while it’s extremely challenging, she says, it’s also ‘inspiring and rejuvenating for all involved’.” https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/

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11.

12.

13.

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02/are-short-films-still-relevant/470856/. For an interesting analysis of short films and also an examination of the lack of critical attention given to short film, see Cynthia Felando’s Discovering Short Films: The History and Style of Live-Action Shorts (2015). See, for instance, this report from 2016, https://www.senat.fr/rap/r15757/r15-757.html, where the terms of the debate and the institutions in question continue to figure prominently. See President Emmanuel Macron’s speech at Mulhouse in which he announces his plans to eradicate “le séparatisme islamiste,” https:// www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2020/02/18/proteger-les-libertes-enluttant-contre-le-separatisme-islamiste-conference-de-presse-du-presidentemmanuel-macron-a-mulhouse. Les Imams vont à l’école is a co-production by Whoz’Prod, 03 Produtions, and Dubai Entertainment and Medai Organization. The film was selected for: Open City London Documentary Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, Festival International du Film Oriental de Genève, Dubai International Film Festival, and the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam. See here for a description of the degree program at the Institut Catholique de Paris, https://www.icp.fr/formations/diplomes/diplomesuniversitaires/diplome-universitaire-interculturalite-laicite-religions. Ben Hania speaks about them using the lens of fiction: “J’ai commencé donc par rencontrer les personnages et pour installer une confiance. Auparavant, j’ai été à la Grande Mosquée de Paris durant six mois et sans caméra pour assister aux cours. J’ai pu ainsi choisir mes protagonistes” (L’Orient Le Jour) “I started by meeting the characters and establishing confidence with them. I had already been at the Grande Mosquée for six months, without a camera, attending classes. I was able to choose my protagonists.”

References AFP. 2018. Cinema Sees Revival in Post-Revolution Tunisia. https://www.ara bnews.com/node/1398066/art-culture. Alvi, Hayat. 2019. The Political Economy and Islam of the Middle East: Political Economy of Islam. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Article 1, Loi du 9 décembre 1905 concernant la séparation des Eglises et de l’Etat Law, https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do;jsessionid=4AD 0F2A397508C1DEAD8861C9B07B097.tplgfr30s_1?cidTexte=JORFTEXT0 00000508749&dateTexte=19051211, in translation, The Law of 1905, https://www.museeprotestant.org/en/notice/the-law-of-1905/.

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Article 2, Loi du 9 décembre 1905 concernant la séparation des Eglises et de l’Etat Law, https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do;jsessionid=4AD 0F2A397508C1DEAD8861C9B07B097.tplgfr30s_1?cidTexte=JORFTEXT0 00000508749&dateTexte=19051211, in translation, The Law of 1905, https://www.museeprotestant.org/en/notice/the-law-of-1905/. Balkis. 2020. Le Film tunisien La Belle et la Meute sur Netflix le 15 mai 2020, May 10. https://www.tunisienumerique.com/le-film-tunisien-la-belleet-la-meute-sur-netlfix-a-partir-du-15mai/. Barlet, Olivier. 2011. Le Cinéma tunisien à la lumière du printemps arabe. Africultures.com, January 19. http://africultures.com/le-cinema-tunisiena-la-lumiere-du-printemps-arabe-9909/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_med ium=email&utm_campaign=476#xd_co_f=NmIzZDc0MzItZDg4NC00N DYyLTg0MWEtOGNhMzNiOWMyOWMy~. Ben Hania, Kaouther. 2011. Les Imams vont à l’école. Dubai Media and Entertainment Organisation in association with Dubai Film Market (Enjaaz) and Who’Z Prod. ———. 2013. Les Pastèques du Cheikh. Tanit Films. _____. 2018. Peau de Colle. Paprika Films. François, Emmanuelle. 2020. Entretien. Olivier Bobineau, sociologue des religions: ‘Les formations des imams sont un échec’, February 21. https:// www.ouest-france.fr/societe/religions/entretien-olivier-bobineau-sociologuedes-religions-les-formations-des-imams-sont-un-echec-6747287. Frégosi, Franck. 2014. La problématique de la formation des cadres religieux musulmans en France: au croisement des logiques politique, académique et communautaire. In Droit et Religion en Europe, 443–467. Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg. Hammond, Andrew. 2011. ‘No God’ Film Angers Tunisian Islamists, July 6. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tunisia-islamists-tension/no-god-filmangers-tunisian-islamists-idUSTRE7652VZ20110706. Kuru, Ahmet. 2009. Secularism and State Politics Toward Religion: United States, France, Turkey. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press. Lepine, Cédric. 2018. Entretien avec Kaouther Ben Hania, pour Les Pastèques du Cheikh, October 31. https://blogs.mediapart.fr/edition/cinemas-dumaghreb-et-du-moyen-orient/article/311018/entretien-avec-kaouther-benhania-pour-les-pasteques-du-cheikh. Louati, Yasser. 2016. Formation des imams et ‘Islam de France’, December 13. https://blogs.mediapart.fr/yasser-louati/blog/131216/for mation-des-imams-et-islam-de-france. Macron, Emmanuel. 2020. Protéger les libertés en luttant contre le séparatisme islamiste: conférence de presse du Président Emmanuel Macron à Mulhouse, February 18. https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2020/02/18/pro

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teger-les-libertes-en-luttant-contre-le-separatisme-islamiste-conference-de-pre sse-du-president-emmanuel-macron-a-mulhouse. Nichols, Bill. 2001. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington and Indianapolis: University of Indiana Press. OLJ. 2011. Kaouther Ben Hania et Les Imams vont à l’école, March 31. https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/697410/Kaouthar_ben_Hania_et__% 253C%253C%2BLes_imams_vont_a_l%2527ecole%2B%253E%253E.html. Rouxel, Mathilde. 2017. Figures d’enfants, figures d’avenir dans le cinéma tunisien postrévolutionnaire. In L’enfance dans la culture arabe contemporaine, 357–369. Paris: Classiques Garnier. Schwab, Katharine. 2016. Why Short Films Are Still Thriving, February 26. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/02/are-shortfilms-still-relevant/470856/.

Representations of Radical Islam in Merzak Allouache’s Most Recent Films Nabil Boudraa

The 1990s generated one of the most tragic periods in Algeria’s history, known as the Dark Decade. It is estimated that as a result of the government’s cancellation of the national elections in 1992, which the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) was about to win, 200,000 people died and thousands were injured. As a retaliation against the government’s defiance, the Islamists of the FIS, AIS, GIA, and other groups took up arms and started a civil war that lasted until the early 2000s. Most victims were men, but many women, particularly those leading western lifestyles, suffered from rape, kidnapping, and murder. In addition, most of the men who died or disappeared during this decade left behind widows and children, most of whom were left without any resources or protection. This tragic decade had devastating effects on Algerian society, which unfortunately continue to this day, and most certainly in the future, as well. In Algeria, several filmmakers have depicted this tragedy on screen. Among the most acclaimed ones, one finds Salim Brahimi’s Let Them Come (2015), Karim Moussaoui’s Until the Birds Return (2017), and more recently Mounia Meddour’s Papicha (2019).

N. Boudraa (B) Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Mielusel (ed.), Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81234-8_3

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This essay focuses however on the aftermath of this tragic decade and examines its impact on Algerian society through the different representations of radical Islam in some of Merzak Allouache’s most recent films, namely The Repentant (2009), The Rooftops (2013) , Investigating Paradise (2016) , and Divine Wind (2018) . In this essay, I focus on political Islam, also known as radical Islam, and not on the ordinary religion that was practiced by most Algerians prior to the Dark Decade. The Algerian civil war of the 1990s is a case in point. These selected films serve as a reminder that this specter of radical Islam and its terrorist violence have not completely disappeared in the Algerian landscape. They have been dormant for a few years but ready to strike again at any moment and in different forms. Each of these films tackles a different (and yet related) aspect of radical Islam and its consequences on Algerian society since the end of the Dark Decade1 at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

The Repentant (2009): Do Terrorists Deserve Amnesty or Not? With the end of the civil war in the early 2000s, the then new president Abdelaziz Bouteflika imposed an amnesty, as part of his reconciliation policy, for most of the Islamist terrorists as long as they drop their weapons at the police stations. The concerned ones are called “les repentis” (the repentants). During a short visit to Algeria, Allouache found a story in a newspaper about a young couple whose daughter had been kidnapped and killed by the terrorists. When the amnesty began, one repentant contacted the parents and offered to show them their daughter’s burial place in exchange for money. This actual story inspired Allouache to write a script and depict this disconcerting topic of amnesty on screen. The film tells the story of Rachid, a young Jihadist, who has just left the mountains to return to his village, following the recent law “of pardon and national harmony,” decreed by then president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika. The film starts with Rachid running in a snow-covered plain. He is obviously fleeing something, which the viewer does not discover until Rachid arrives home and tells his parents about it. His next step is to surrender to the police and to give up his weapon. He thus receives amnesty and becomes a “repentant.” However, the weight of the past is still hovering over him. Society is not ready to accept him. His only option for survival is to leave quickly, but he has no money. The police found a small job

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for him in a coffee shop in exchange of routine reports on suspicious customers. As discomfort and pressure grew more and more, he designs an unusual plan to escape overseas. Interviewed by Tewfik Hakem for his radio show on France Culture, Merzak Allouache confessed that what drove him to make The Repentant (2009) was the silence around the whole issue of national reconciliation. The filmmaker seems to suggest that Algerians cannot just pretend as if nothing had happened. Algerians, Allouache believes, should also question this government’s Policy of Pardon and Reconciliation. In May 2012, he said: In 1999, when I returned to Algeria after seven years of absence, I found a country in the midst of an amazing, unreal, optimism. The violence was beginning to pull back. A policy of “civil concord” was put forward to the Algerian people, to allow, supposedly, a total end of violence. We learned through the press that secret contacts were made between the army and the Islamists, who were underground, that would quickly allow their return home and put an end to massacres, ambushes, and bomb attacks… The Algerians discovered a new word: “repentant,” which designated those who laid down arms and placed themselves under the authority of the state. With a wounded country, the state encouraged its people to forget, to reconcile… I wondered how the families of thousands of victims of horror would react to this new situation as, by the hundreds, terrorists left the underground claiming they did not have “blood on their hands.” As “good business” picked up… we were all becoming “brothers” again, as if by magic…. (“Note of intent” in film press kit, 1)

The Repentant helps us think about the questions around this policy of “civil concord.” How can one move from horrific violence to complete silence and pardon with a simple stroke of a pen? Can this law erase, and in such a swift manner, the memory of a tragedy, which has not quite ended yet? What about the families of the victims? How must both the state and the population deal with the instinct for revenge? Why should not the criminals be held accountable and face justice? Is healing from that tragedy possible, without using words to exorcise the violence? Clearly, Allouache’s objective with this film is to open a space for debate and dialogue in society, albeit unofficially. Allouache declares: “On a travaillé cette histoire en marge de cette culture officielle, qui est une culture de déni, une culture de la censure et du discours politique.”

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(Hakim 2013, n.p.) (We worked on this story on the margins of official culture, which is a culture of denial, a culture of censorship, and of political discourse). Consequently, the authorities put even more pressure on the media to avoid covering this “invisible war”2 (Stora 2001). This reaction raised a lot of suspicion among opposition leaders and human rights associations regarding the role of the state in some of the crimes perpetrated during this civil war. In fact, several journalists, historians, and even politicians asked questions about the disappearance of some agents who might have worked for both the authorities and the Islamic terrorists. In their book, Algeria: Anger of the Dispossessed (2007), Martin Evans and John Philips corroborated these suspicions and argued that: Theoretically, this amnesty was only extended to those not guilty of rape, murder or terrorism, but in reality, few questions were asked and there was little way of verifying the official figures. The whole process was deliberately opaque, partly, many suspected, because this allowed any double agents to disappear into obscurity. (264)

The Couple as a Microcosmic Representation of Algeria In the film The Repentant , the parents of the murdered girl, Lakhdar and Djamila, are separated, which is a consequence of their tragic loss. They had formed a successful and harmonious couple until the day terrorism destroyed their lives forever. Djamila, who still cannot let go of the past, blames Lakhdar for what happened to their daughter. Lakhdar blames Djamila for running away and leaving him after the tragedy. Lakhdar’s only comfort comes from alcohol and a strange Asian TV program. He, too, seems to be still in mourning. When Djamila asks him why he wants to go back to the past, he replies, “no need to go back, I’m still there [in the past].”3 From the very beginning of the film, an ominous atmosphere makes the viewer sense that the couple’s relationship is not ordinary. When Lakhdar is first contacted by the repentant, he immediately calls Djamila, who now lives and works as a doctor in another city. The viewer discovers the reasons behind her separation with Lakhdar only later in the film when she comes at his request. He apparently had something very important to tell her. The deferment of meaning also works well through characterization. Her knowledge about the repentant’s offer to show them their daughter’s grave is revealed slowly and in small pieces. At first, Djamila

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does not know why Lakhdar “summoned” her, but she takes some time off work and drives to her former home. After she arrives, the viewer gets a sense of Djamila and Lakhdar’s separation, first through their attitudes and then through their brief and cold conversations. It is during this sequence that the viewer discovers that Djamila had left Lakhdar after their daughter’s death. She apparently blames him for sacrificing their daughter by standing up to the terrorists when they had asked for medical help for their injured jihadist fighters. As for the character of Rachid, Allouache refuses to judge him. Instead, he places him in a context in which one is not born a terrorist, but becomes one. Allouache is obviously proposing to ask how and why these youths become terrorists, something that, unfortunately, both the authorities and the media chose to ignore. It is perhaps for this reason too that Merzak Allouache was harshly criticized for his depiction of Rachid. While this character doesn’t come off well in his film as he did horrific things, Allouache seems to suggest that he is just a pawn in the game. One has to reflect on the reasons that led to this generation of radicalized Islamists. For Remembrance, But Not Revenge Allouache also seems to condemn revenge. While he questions the government’s reconciliation policy and pardon, he refuses to overlook the issue of revenge against the repentants. Even though the law calls for punishing anyone who harms a “repentant,” some people took it upon themselves to carry out their own justice by killing repentants. In the film, we see Rachid attacked twice by a man from the same village, whose family was apparently killed by the terrorists during the civil war. While the family and the neighbors intervene to protect him during the first attempt, Rachid finds himself cornered, a second time in the middle of the night, by his assailant, whom he ends up killing in self-defense. Furthermore, just before this particular scene, Rachid’s father informs him that Saïd, another repentant in the village, had just been killed, at his home and in front of his wife and young children. This dialogue is not arbitrary in the film, and it should, in my view, be interpreted as a signal to stop the cycle of violence. The repentant’s spouse and children, after all, had nothing to do with this debacle. They are themselves victims of the tragic situation. The final scene, showing the few terrorists who remained in the maquis, illustrates that terrorism has not completely disappeared, despite

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the official end of the civil war. Some terrorists have indeed opted to stay in the mountains. The tragic ending of the story also hints at the inevitable failure of the government’s reconciliation policy. Allouache’s next film, Rooftops, deals with a more subtle danger of radical Islam, but with devastating effects on society. A lot of Islamists take advantage of radical Islam to make profits, through illicit and deceiving practices, such as drug dealings and religious charlatanism.

The Rooftops (2013): When Religious Charlatanism Is Scrutinized from Above The topic of religious charlatanism is not new in Allouache’s filmography. As early as 1978, Allouache exposed this vicious practice in his second feature film, Adventures of a Hero, which describes how a village in southern Algeria (as a microcosmic representation for the entire nation) was prey to both Muslim charlatans and corrupt politicians in the years following independence. In his seminal 2013 The Rooftops , the character of Sheikh Lamine is just another swindler who surfs on a wave of deceit sweeping across the country in recent years, whereby religion is presented as a healing tool. A specific practice, called roquia, consists of using the Qu’ran to exorcise the demons (djinns) from people in order to heal them. In this story, Sheikh Lamine is impatiently waiting for his client, who happens to be a veiled woman, apparently troubled by sexual problems in her marriage. She has come to talk to this religious “doctor” and receive counseling. While the sheikh abhors the pictures of naked women in the rooftop shed, which he is renting for his business, he orders his patient to undress and then beats her. Allouache uses this particular sequence to highlight another aspect of religious charlatanism. When the woman comments on his lamp, Sheikh Lamine tells her that he bought it in Pakistan’s city of Peshawar. Allouache does not insert references like this one without a reason. This is an allusion to the fact that the Middle East has become a landmark to many Algerians. In this particular case, this information would, in the charlatan’s mind, give more legitimacy to his status vis-à-vis the patient. The Rooftops is, without doubt, Merzak Allouache’s most interesting and most poignant film to date because it synthesizes everything that Allouache has been doing in his films for the past forty years. In this opus, he offers us a microcosmic representation of Algerian society and casts a critical eye not just on radical Islam and its new configuration in

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society, but also on other important social issues, such as class and gender inequality, poverty, corruption, misogyny, and falsified history. In addition, the cinematography, the writing, and even the acting in this film are more developed than in any of his other films. The Rooftops is structured as five separate short stories that happen in parallel within a twenty-four-hour cycle in five different neighborhoods of Algiers: Notre Dame d’Afrique, Bab el-Oued, the Casbah, Telemly, and Belcourt. The entire film follows the rhythm of the five calls for prayer in the background, which sets the tone and atmosphere. All the stories take place on rooftops, which allows Allouache to create dominant aerial and panoramic views of the capital. The setting is simply magical, especially with the sunlight over the city, so well described by Albert Camus in his lyrical essays on Algeria (1968). The sublime Mediterranean Sea is omnipresent, but it seems as if the inhabitants of Algiers have turned their backs to it. These five separate stories address some of the topics that became important in the years following the end of the Dark Decade, some of which are tackled at length in subsequent films by Allouache, such as poverty in Madame Courage (2015), gender issues in both Autumn Landscapes (2019) and Of Women (2020). This backdrop of religious dogma is noticeable in the film, especially in the portrayal of some characters. In fact, the very first scene is a perfect example of this paradox and sets the dark tone for the rest of the film. It features a man on the rooftop getting ready for his early morning prayer (fajr). Instead of approaching his prayer with spirituality and wisdom, this elderly man explodes with anger and shouts aggressively for no apparent reason. The Islamist, who chains his uncle in a doghouse, uses the rooftop to conduct his suspicious drug dealing under the cover of piety. For the Friday afternoon prayer, he invites a group of young followers to both pray and listen to a preacher’s sermon, which is reminiscent of the fanaticism that marked the early 1990s. Allouache seems to warn us that history always repeats itself, and that some people are still trying to jumpstart the specter of Islamic fundamentalism in Algeria, after the tragic Dark Decade. In addition, the advent of Internet has allowed for a faster and wider indoctrination. Videos sermons that originate in other countries and continents become instantly accessible to Algerian youths and cause immediate and incalculable damage to society. The next film highlights this phenomenon of indoctrination and radicalization.

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Investigating Paradise (2016): The Dangers of Delusional Beliefs One of the most tragic and saddening consequences of radical Islam today is the corruption of young people. This is the subject of Merzak Allouache’s latest documentary fiction, Investigating Paradise, which has won awards in film festivals around Europe, such as the Berlinale (Germany, 2016) and the Festival International des Programmes Audiovisuels (France, 2017), to name a few. Given the current political climate, not just in Algeria, but in most Muslim countries and beyond, this film could not have been more timely. It depicts the dangers of radical Islam and the ways in which Salafist preachers indoctrinate young people with tendentious ideas about Paradise, including the promise that each will have seventy-two houris (celestial virgins),4 once they arrive there. This belief has taken hold in Algeria, and in the rest of the Muslim world, in the past couple of decades. Investigating Paradise, which is part documentary, part fiction, follows the story of Nedjma, a young journalist who is working for an Algerian daily and investigating the depiction of Paradise by radical Islamists in the jihadist propaganda. Nedjma’s investigation starts with the video that her colleague, Mustapha, showed her on the Internet. This video, which has been circulating mostly among the youth, features a fanatical imam describing Paradise in a quasi-pornographic manner. Exploring their frustrations,5 these pernicious preachers deceive the youths with mindboggling visions of Paradise and with the promise that once arrived there, each of them will find the pleasures that they could not have during their life on Earth. Using this video as a springboard for their investigation, Nedjma and her colleague Mustapha travel across the country to conduct documentary-style interviews with various groups of people, including famous artists, political activists, former Salafists, feminists, psychiatrists, writers, film and television stars, intellectuals, and of course, the youth themselves. The two journalists begin in Algiers and end up in Timimoun, one of the largest cities in the Saharan desert, always asking the same questions: “What is Paradise?”, “How does one picture it?”, “Why seventy-two virgins for each man?”, “What awaits women over there?”, among others.

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Paradise: Believers Versus Nonbelievers In the various responses, the viewer easily sees the difference between two distinct classes with opposing views regarding representations of Paradise. On the one hand, the highly educated groups overtly criticize—often sarcastically—this fanatical depiction of Paradise, and the new dogmatic interpretation of Islam in general. The other group is comprised mostly of young men and women, who are completely lost in limbo and lead an ambiguous, if not schizophrenic, lifestyle. On the one hand, they seem in accord with modern life, and on the other, they believe in these superfluous descriptions of Paradise. These youths become easy targets for the Salafists, who use the Internet and satellite television to prey on them. The celebrated Algerian writer Kamel Daoud advocates that only culture can push back against these strong Islamist forces. For him, the concept of Paradise itself has done much damage to society because it removes any incentive to produce something positive in life. The video of the preacher describing the celestial virgin’s body is pure “pornoIslamism.” This sickness, in his view, is “tragi-comic” because “the idea of Paradise is a swindle” (une arnaque). While the Imam’s sermon is laughable, it also poses a grave danger to society, since the blind believer sees life simply as a temporary time–space, a waiting room for the real existence. In presenting their particularly alluring promise of the afterlife, Salafists not only undermine people’s efforts in their daily life, but also undervalue human existence itself. Those who fall victim to this ideology celebrate death and are willing to kill others in order to hasten their enjoyment of the glories that await them in Heaven. It is pure schizophrenia, whereby one must die in order to live. In one particular scene, a cybercafé owner expresses a different opinion. According to him, Algerians believe in a concrete and real earthly Paradise. For these youths, Paradise is to find, via chat rooms, a girlfriend overseas who might invite the boy to her country and then provide him with residence papers. The young men who come to his cybercafé cannot believe in odd affirmations, such as “the wine in Paradise is better than the one down here… There are rivers of buttermilk and honey.” While the café owner might be right to believe that clairvoyant and lucid youths exist, the three youngsters interviewed after him, and in the same location, proved him wrong. Each one shares what he thinks to be a truthful and sacred description of Paradise. These young men epitomize Algeria’s multiple contradictions. While they enjoy rap and hip-hop music, video

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games, romantic online chats, and movies, they also believe in the fanatical references in Sheikh Chemsou’s TV sermons.6 In another scene, the Algerian actress Biyouna reminds us of the Bentalha massacres in 1997, when 450 people, including women and children, were slaughtered in one night. She connects this tragedy to the dangerous radical preachers who indoctrinate the youths, who in turn commit all kinds of crimes. In fact, these young men, Biyouna argues, have already started their moral judgments on their elders, and push for the adoption of new codes and practices, based on religion. It is a shame, she adds, to desire Paradise just to find 72 virgins. Paradise is the ultimate phase, when one has already accomplished good deeds in life and deserves the reward in the afterlife. It is also the viewpoint of the feminist activist Samia Zennadi, who says that Islam has become a business. She explains that if you tell someone: “Sabah El-Kheir” (“Good morning”), for example, they would reply: “Salaam Alaikum” (“May Peace be upon you”). This formal religious reply will pay dividends, compared to the traditional forms of politeness. She then brings up the controversial fatwa, imported from Egypt, about the breastfeeding of grown men by women as a sign of community bond, because, in their view, a woman’s milk fosters the link between the “Muslim brothers.”7 Fortunately, she says, Algerian imams intervened and warned of its danger, because according to them, it was this kind of fatwa that led Algerians to kill each other during the Dark Decade. Zennadi then concludes, by warning that these “fatwas are preparing a new wave, a new generation of terrorists… Globalization has its first effects in this regard… [because] in addition to the global market of products, there is also a market of religion, and we are aligning ourselves with that.” To accentuate his criticism of the Salafist-tinged form of Islam, Allouache also wanted to incorporate the opinion of Sufi imams, so his protagonist goes into the Algerian desert to interview Hadj M’hamed wald Safi, from the Zaouïa of Timimoun, and Hadj Moussa Ben Brahim, from the Zaouïa of El Wajda. Both Imams distance themselves from these new Salafist interpretations of the Qu’ran and highlight the importance and primacy of an earthly Paradise, in which one must first accomplish his or her religious duty, based on the true teachings of the Qu’ran. The celebrated writer Boualem Sansal believes that the situation is so serious that a reform of Islam is necessary. With a three-minute video, he argued, a radical preacher “will spoil several millions of kids … because it [this video] is shared on the Internet and it snowballs.” This is indeed

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what has created the cancer of Salafist ideology, which affects most of the Muslim world. In a France Culture radio interview in 2017, Allouache himself described this situation when he said: “Today, Paradise is used by extremists as a weapon of mass destruction” (La Grande Table, n.p.). For the psychoanalyst Mahmoud Boudarène, faith should be the spirit of religion, and spirit is all about doubt and questioning. Even the word “Ijtihad,” from the Qu’ran, refers to that constant fight within oneself to find the best. Boudarène blames the educational system. The “école républicaine” (“the republican school”) that he attended as a child and as a teenager does not exist anymore, he says. That type of school taught him the values of tolerance, of exchange, and of citizenship. In his view, parents are also to blame for this discrepancy, because they failed to “provide the balance … to correct things. In fact, children now have the upper hand over their parents.” He concludes by reminding us of the 1990s, when children were spying on their parents, to see if “they drank wine, if their mothers smoked or wore makeup. They became inquisitors. Algerian school produced inquisitors.”

Divine Wind (2018): Residual (But Still Lethal) Terrorism The January 2013 terrorist attack of a gas plant in In Amenas (southeast Algeria) was another reminder to both Algerians and the international community that terrorism is still well and alive. The various attacks organized by AQMI (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) in the previous years were obviously known to all, but this time, the action takes place in the south, in the heart of the Saharan desert. In his book, Between Terror and Democracy. Algeria Since 1989, the American historian, James Le Sueur, explains how the Algerian GSPC (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat) had teamed up with al-Qaeda as early as September 11, 2006, and thus “transcended its national boundaries to become key players in the Salafist global jihadist campaign” (2010, 160). Things became worse after the so-called Arab Spring in 2011. The subsequent internal conflicts in Tunisia, Egypt, and especially Libya paved the way to a proliferation of jihadist cells in the Algerian south. Moreover, with the current conflicts in Syria, this Islamist violence gained a more transnational dimension. Unlike the 1990s when the Islamist terrorists were mostly Algerians, the jihadists now come from different parts of the world, mainly from Europe and the Middle East. Nour, one of the two principal characters in Divine

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Wind is a bi-national. Her French (hence European) passport reveals her double identity: French and Algerian. It is worth noting here that the Islamists in this context believe in the Ummah (a transnational community of Muslims or an Islamic caliphate), and not in the nation. In other words, for the jihadists, who now include women, the fight is for a larger cause, which is that of a utopian Islamic empire. French youth (most of whom of Maghrebi origin) would go to the Middle East or to the Maghreb in order to fight alongside their “brothers” and “sisters.” This age of social networking and technology facilitates this global jihad.8 This is the context for Allouache’s latest film, Divine Wind, which serves as reminder that the specter of radical Islam, and especially terrorist violence, have not completely disappeared in the Algerian landscape. They have been dormant for a few years, but ready to strike again at any moment and in different forms. Individual and small group actions supplanted the guerrilla tactics of the 1990s. Similar to Investigating Paradise, Allouache once again chose the Algerian desert as the main setting for his film. From his very first feature film Omar Gatlato (1976) to Madame Courage (2015), Allouache was mostly a city filmmaker. The setting for most of his films is either Algiers or the other coastal town of Mostaganem. With Investigating Paradise, Allouache expands his horizons and looks at the hinterland. In Divine Wind, he also kept the color technique of black and white to attenuate the distracting light of the desert in favor of a concentration on the topic at hand. The story focuses on a young man, Amine, and his daily routine in a small and isolated village somewhere in the Algerian desert. The only contact he has with the outside world is his cell phone and the few Internet connections in a local “cybercafé.” All we know from his brief phone conversations is that his father is worried and does not know where his son is. Amine ended up ignoring his father’s calls altogether. As for the Internet, one can only guess that Amine regularly checks his email for updates and instructions from his superiors. The days are simple and even monotonous, filled with Amine’s suspenseful wait, his regular prayers, and his multiple silent readings of the Qu’ran. An older woman, whom he calls “Hadja,”9 brings him soup in a complete silence, similar to the deafening natural silence of the surrounding desert. We learn later on that the “hadja” works for the police. While Amine shows gratitude and respect for her, it is not the case with most Islamists, who usually insist on the insignificance of human beings, to which they oppose the omnipotence of Allah. This aspect is perfectly illustrated by the second

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protagonist in the film, Nour. Unlike Amine, Nour is not only ungrateful but also very rude to the hadja, who reserved the same hospitality for her. In one instance, Nour even breaks the satellite dish to prevent the older woman from watching TV, the only pastime available for the poor lady. It is certainly not a coincidence that Allouache includes such scenes in his film. He is criticizing this new attitude among radical Islamists, whereby only their codes of ethics and civility are tolerated. The ordinary secular expressions of politeness, for example, are not accepted. The jihadists operate in an Orwellian atmosphere. They follow, unquestionably, the orders of their emirs and behave like zombies, spending most of their time praying and reading the Qu’ran. This blind submission obliterates their most basic human social skills, such as politeness, gratitude, and respect. Ironically, it was only in her tormented sleep that Nour seems normal. When Amine checks on her during her nightmare, he hears her say “laissez-moi” (leave me alone). In other words, her conscience, and hence her resistance, works only during her sleep. Interestingly enough, the only moment when Nour uses French is during her nightmare. Otherwise, like most Islamists, she uses classical Arabic and not derja, the colloquial Arabic that most Algerians use in their daily life. For the Islamists, classical Arabic is sacred as it is the language of the Qu’ran, compared to derja and Berber, perceived as worthless and profane “dialects.” Interestingly enough, both characters find no contradiction between abhorring the West and all its representations and the use of western products such as the Internet to communicate with their superiors or subordinates. In their eyes, all means are allowed as long as they are convinced that their cause is a “just” one. In short, this film examines the radicalization of the youth and the swift leap they make toward terrorism.

Conclusion These filmic representations illustrated how radical Islam has been a disaster for Algerian society even after the tragic decade of the 1990s. From brainwashing and recruiting youngsters, to swindling innocent people and exerting violence, the films show how radical Islamists have been active and sometimes with the help of the regime, which uses them as scarecrows in order to remain in power. Simply put, Allouache’s films try to suggest that, the authorities constantly inflate the specter of radical Islam whenever necessary in order to force the population into a position

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where it has to pick its poison: either an authoritarian regime or radical Islamists. In other words, the regime seems to tell the population that they are better off with it than with the Islamists. The best solution envisioned by intellectuals and activists such as Allouache would actually be “not a police state, nor a fundamentalist state,” as the late great political activist Hocine Aït Ahmed used to advocate in the 1990s. The population, which has for a long time been squeezed between these two evil forces, will indeed be much better off by discarding both sides. Fortunately, the Hirak movement which started in February 2019 in Algeria indicated that the majority of the population seem to have awakened to this reality and becomes willing at last to take control of its own destiny. This peaceful popular revolt might bring about change in Algerian society, in which ordinary Algerians, particularly marginalized minority groups, such as women and Berbers, can have a better place in this Algerian nation, which, as Kateb Yacine put it very well in his opus Nedjma, “has not come into the world yet.”

Notes 1. I explain the genesis of the Dark Decade in detail in my recent book, Algeria on Screen: Society, Politics and Culture in the Films of Merzak Allouache, Cambria Press, NY, 2020. I go in depth about how the Islamists laid the ground for this dominant radical Islam since the 1970s and how they managed to impose their political agenda. I also showed how they connived with the authorities in the 80s for their mutual interests, to the detriment of the democratic and secular opposition. 2. This title is from Benjamin Stora’s book title: La Guerre Invisible: Algérie, années 90 (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2001). 3. All translations from the films are mine unless otherwise stated. 4. This concept of 72 virgins, known as houris, is not new. It is to be found in the Koran and stipulates that each male believer will be rewarded by 72 beautiful celestial virgins in their afterlife, as a reward for their piety. 5. The very first scene of the film is revealing. One of the two young men interviewed by Nedjma says: “What we have not had here in this life, we will discover in Eternity … in Paradise.” 6. Sheikh Chemseddine is a religious conservative Imam, who often appears on religious TV channels in Algeria and beyond. 7. This fatwa of adult suckling, which calls on women to “breastfeed” strange men, raised a controversy in Egypt in 2013.

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8. Rachid Bouchareb’s feature film, Road to Istanbul (2016), investigates this manipulation of the European youth by the Islamists. Elodie, the young Belgian woman who leaves her country to join the Islamic state in Syria, represents this new category of European “whites,” who after their conversion to Islam, become totally brainwashed and “forced” to sacrifice their lives for the Islamic jihad. 9. The word “Hadj” for a man, and “hadja” for a woman, is used to designate those who did the pilgrimage to Mecca. It is also used as a term across the countries of the Maghreb to show respect for the elders.

References Filmography Allouache, Merzak. 2009. The Repentant. JBA Production, TV5Monde. _____. 2013. The Rooftops. JBA Productions. _____. 2016. Investigating Paradise. Les Asphofilms, Baya Films (DZ). _____. 2018. Divine Wind. Baya Films, Les Asphofilms.

Additional Filmography References Allouache, Merzak. 2015. Madame Courage. Baya Films. Neon Productions. _____. 2019. Autumn Landscapes. Les Asphofilms. _____. 2021. Of Women. Les Asphofilms (in post-production). Brahimi, Salim. 2015. Let Them Come. K.G. Productions, Battam Films, Agence Algérienne pour le Rayonnement Culturel (AARC). Meddour, Mounia. 2019. Papicha. The Ink Connection, High Sea Production, Tayda Film. Moussaoui, Karim. 2017. Until the Birds Return. Les Films Pelléas, NiKo Film, Prolégomènes.

Other References Allouache, Merzak.“Note of intent” in film press kit. http://www.maghrebde sfilms.fr/IMG/pdf/le_repenti__dossier_de_presse.pdf. Accessed August 24, 2020. Camus, Albert. 1968. A Summer in Algiers. In Lyrical and Critical Essays, 80– 92. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. La Grande Mosquée d’Alger: Un projet pharaonique qui couterait au moins l’équivalent de 20 hôpitaux. In Chouf Chouf , November 6, 2017. http:// www.chouf-chouf.com/actualites/la-grande-mosquee-dalger-un-projet-pha

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raonique-qui-couterait-au-moins-lequivalent-de-20-hopitaux/. Accessed December 15, 2017. Philips, John, and Martin Evans. 2007. Algeria: Anger of the Dispossessed. New Haven: Yale University Press. Stora, Benjamin. 2001. La Guerre Invisible: Algérie, années 90. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Sueur, James D. Lee. 2010. Between Terror and Democracy. Algeria Since 1989. London: Zed Books. Tewfik, Hakim. 2013. “Un Autre Jour est Possible” a podcast show. Une histoire des papes/Film : Merzak Allouache. France Culture. April 10. https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/un-autre-jour-est-possible/unehistoire-des-papes-film-merzak-allouache. Accessed August 24, 2020.

De-westernizing the Gaze on Islam and the Veil in French and Franco-Algerian Films Delphine Letort and Abderrahmene Bourenane

Western cinema has rarely contributed to improving the knowledge of Muslim culture and many observers have even conflated Islam with terrorism since 9/11 (Mansouri and Akbarzadeh 2006, 7). Hollywood cinema, along with Western media, all too often promotes a negative perception of Arab Muslims as “malevolent stereotypes equating Islam and Arabs with violence” (Shaheen 2012, 3). On the contrary, French cinema avoids foregrounding Muslim characters all together for fear of alienating some groups of the audience (Cadé 2012, 49), while Algerian cinema has confronted radical fundamentalism by celebrating the resistance of Algerian women fighting for their rights during the dark decade—a conflict that caused more than 100,000 deaths in Algeria (Stora 2001, 7). The aim of this chapter is to compare the representations of Islamic fundamentalism in films made on both sides of the Mediterranean, which evoke periods (1990s Algeria and 2010s France) when the veil took on distinct connotations. Although the four films in this analysis present radical Islamic terrorism in different contexts, they all portray moderate

D. Letort (B) · A. Bourenane University of Le Mans, Le Mans, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Mielusel (ed.), Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81234-8_4

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Muslims as victims of Islamic extremists. Analyzing the performance of Islam in the films reveals various ways of practicing religion that contribute to de-westernizing the gaze by undermining prejudices such as the ones on the veil. We argue that film analysis may foreground “new methodologies that will lead to an alternative ‘un-centered’ version of knowledge that gives credit to multiple viewpoints in order to arrive at original and innovative ways of studying film history, theory and practice in a globalized context” (Bâ and Higbee 2012, 13) by adopting a comparative approach that allows for the recognition of diversity among Muslim cultures and women. The portrayal of Islamic terrorism in cinema may take different forms depending on the time frame, the society, the type of radicalized individuals, their goals, and ideology. However, a parallel between some French and Algerian films shows that the question of gender is central to the process of (de)radicalization as well as to its impact on society. This chapter therefore looks at gender as a theoretical approach to films that aim for a more complex representation of Islam and Muslim characters in the context of terrorism. Two French films, Made in France (Nicolas Boukhrief, 2015) and Le ciel attendra (Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar, 2016), show that radicalization is a gendered transformation, affecting boys’ and girls’ everyday behavior differently. French cinema seeks to describe the adoption of Islamic radicalization as an individual process alienating both males and females from their socioeconomic and political environment. It also unfolds the different paths these individuals may follow to achieve their fanatic and illusory objectives. Gender is also of primary concern in Franco-Algerian films dealing with the dark years of 1990s Algeria. Films like Rachida (Yamna Bachir-Chouikh, 2002) and Papicha (Mounia Meddour, 2019) adopt their female protagonists’ viewpoints in a context where Islamic fundamentalists thrive through terror oppressing females and empowering patriarchy. Algerian cinema celebrates girls who resist Islamic fundamentalists’ values and constraints by symbolically rejecting the veil and claiming their status as feminists and Muslims. The female characters, despite their origins, challenge their environment and evoke Fairclough’s definition of social agency, according to which “people are not only pre-positioned in how they participate in social events and texts, they are also social agents who do things, create things, change things” (Fairclough 2003, 160). Discussions of radicalization in French cinema raise the notion of female agency in opposition to blind commitment—a debate which

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Dounia Bouzar frames as “freedom of conscience vs. captured consciousness” in Le ciel attendra. The right to choose one’s clothing epitomizes this argument, which Algerian cinema complexifies by evoking the different meanings of the veil. From tradition to politics and religion, the veil is a multiple signifier which the films explore at different levels and occasions to foreground its unstable perception and status. It is yet a bone of contention in Algerian films memorializing the Dark Decade, a metaphor for the gender power struggle that Islamic fundamentalists aim to win through violence.

Freedom of Conscience or Captured Consciousness? Le ciel attendra may be seen as a response to the increasing visibility of “radicalized girls” in Western countries. Psychologists made similar observations when considering the singular experience of girls willing to commit themselves to a patriarchal system designing strict gender roles in a country at war (Duhamel and Ledrait 2017). However, Le ciel attendra favors a sociological approach that reflects Dounia Bouzar’s de-radicalization program which she experimented in France between 2014 and 2016. This process will be seen in the two main characters’ (de)-radicalization in the film, Sonia and Mélanie. Bouzar, a social worker and anthropologist of religion who has abundantly written about radicalization, shares her expertise through conversations with parents and young radicalized women in the film. Le ciel attendra was conceived as an educational film and Bouzar develops a didactic discourse guiding her listeners (including the audience) to a better understanding of how ISIS recruiters manage to attract French individuals. The filmed conversations provide self-reflexive sequences, for Bouzar verbally deciphers the visual signs of radicalization. Her voice is instrumental to the narrative: not only does she comment on the detailed steps of radicalization that parents might misread, but she also deconstructs the reifying gaze which Western media articulate on radicalized girls. Bouzar raises awareness to the (not always) visible changes caused by enrollment, turning the young radicalized into gullible victims of propaganda and active agents of its wider dissemination. The film opens with a sequence where parents speak about their estranged radicalized children, foreshadowing the debatable nature of the film that presents unprecedent and various cases of radicalization.

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Whether they have left for Syria or been arrested at the frontier, sons and daughters leave their parents in complete disarray. One mother in the film explains to the others present “She’s not my daughter anymore. She’s become a ghost.” (« C’est plus ma fille. C’est un fantôme. »),1 whereas one father argues that he feels betrayed by his son fleeing for Syria. The close-ups emphasize their isolation until Bouzar explains how the young men and women were manipulated by ISIS recruiters. The film offers a visual and aural platform to challenge ISIS propaganda disseminated through videos that are easily accessible online (Comolli 2016). During the second extract of her discussion with the concerned parents, she ponders the difference between “freedom of conscience” and “captured consciousness” that opposes a willful conversion to radical Islam. The film illustrates Bouzar’s theory of a “captured consciousness” in which the radicalized girls are trapped, a system that crushes their idiosyncrasies and turns them into jihadist combatants—who, “as righteous victims themselves, fight a divinely-commissioned war, like the martyrs, over against the oppressive, ‘demonic’ enemies” (Hodge 2020, 81). Le ciel attendra uses editing to alternate from Sonia’s de-radicalization, a program imposed on her after she is arrested in the middle of the night, to Mélanie’s progressive undetected radicalization told in flashbacks embedded in the narrative of her mother’s devastating realization that she neither noticed Mélanie’s transformation nor anticipated her disappearance. The distance between mother and daughter is aptly signified by the brutal cuts to black screens at the end of the flashbacks. The dual narrative construction captures the pressure exercised by ISIS recruiters to gain control of their preys: Sonia’s voice is lost in verbal attacks targeting her parents, signifying her familial alienation as the ultimate outcome of her radicalization, whereas Mélanie’s texting with an individual ironically named “Epris de Liberté” (In Love with Freedom) keeps increasing after her grandmother’s death. Mélanie’s new Facebook friend draws the girl away from engaging with the world around her as signified by her growing absorption in social media, including in class. A medium close-up on Mélanie’s phone shows that Epris de Liberté has changed his name to Mehdi and the latter’s texts are now more intimate: “I’m sure your skin is soft. I like your white color. I wish it was just for me, that no other man could touch it, look at it.” (« Je suis sûr que ta peau est douce. J’aime ta couleur blanche. Je voudrais qu’elle ne soit que pour moi, qu’aucun autre homme ne puisse la toucher, la regarder. ») Several voices are mixed on the soundtrack during this scene, but Mehdi’s

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overlaps all the others, intruding into the girl’s everyday life and stifling her conscience with love words, accelerating the process of her radicalization and accentuating his total control over her mind as well as of her body. Le ciel attendra thus shows that Mélanie’s radicalization is linked to her encounter with a man who invades her life through his omnipresence via the social networks to which she becomes addicted. Sonia and Mélanie follow opposite directions as Sonia progressively learns to reconnect to the material world, hugging her mother for the first time during an encounter animated by Dounia Bouzar, whereas Mélanie watches more and more propaganda videos on her own. The director uses mainly two types of shots when filming Sonia and Mélanie: close-ups on their faces underline their total devotion to prayers and their hectic engagement with videos they watch on their computers or their phones, whereas medium shots emphasize their passionate commitment to two activities that increase their distance from reality as they are withdrawing into the “Other’s world.” Mélanie sits in the hall of the school when she watches a video sent by Mehdi and does not realize that the other students have entered the class. The lingering camera points out that she marginalizes herself from the other pupils as she exchanges more frequent messages with Mehdi. The sequence where Mélanie maintains her balance walking on the beam in the gym class cuts to a propaganda video planting the seeds of disbelief in the girl’s mind, metaphorically representing the moment when she loses grasp with Western values. Moreover, close-ups on her finger clicking for more videos which build conspiracy theories denote their influence on the girl who is manipulated away from socializing with her friends. Le ciel attendra tackles French prejudice against the hijab by making the girls’ decision to wear a hijab a symbol of alienation, echoing the Orientalist binaries which have thrived in post-9/11 culture. Maryam Khalid comments on the perception of the burqa as a signifier of threat in Western democracies: The burqa again has come to symbolize the non-European ‘Other’ which must be excluded, and the danger this ‘Other’ poses to liberal democratic notions of society, and to ‘our’ civilization, where freedom and gender equality is valued. These discourses rely on long-held assumptions about the helplessness of ‘Eastern’ women and the misogyny of ‘Eastern’ men. (Khalid 2011, 21)

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While Bouzar explains the political role of the hijab that ISIS promotes to erase individuality and foreground group identity, Le ciel attendra offers another interpretation through the radicalized girls’ understanding of the hijab: Sonia expresses the sense of freedom that she feels when hiding her body in the dress which she compares to a protecting “bubble,” allowing her to feel empowered as a member of a specific community. Mélanie appears as a backlit shadow even before she starts wearing the hijab in public, metaphorically evoking her internal transformation as a radical Muslim. These female voices challenge the colonial discourses that construct the veil as a tool for “Muslim women’s oppression” (Bullock 2010, 4 ). The film nuances this distorted belief, showing that the veil is being instrumentalized by Islamic fundamentalists and Western politicians alike. Clothing is a central element in the performance of gender and political Islam in the films that deal with radicalization both in France and in Algeria. Tension crystallizes around the young women’s ability to choose what to wear for themselves and the films explore attitudes to clothing that question female political agency, Islamic radicalism, and the cultural construction of gender in these societies.

Living Womanhood in the Dark Decade Rachida (Yamna Bachir-Chouikh, 2002) and Papicha (Meddour, 2019) are two films that recall the tragic Dark Decade ravaging Algeria between 1992 and 2002, when radical Islamist fractions perpetrated bloody terrorist acts all over the Algerian territory to intimidate the government after cancelling the March 1992 election. For fear of a victorious Islamic Salvation Front (Front Islamique du Salut or FIS) that would establish an Islamic state and rule instead of the democratic republic, the government dissolved the FIS which reemerged into a multitude of terrorist factions spreading death across the country. The films give a sensitive image of this decade by reconstructing the experience of the dark years seen through the point of view of women, in this case through the gaze of Rachida, Wassila, Samira, and Nedjma. The two films portray diversity among Muslim women who, despite the illegal political and military pressure exerted by the terrorists surveilling the streets, perform their religion and their femininity differently. Islam does not destine women to the radicalized vision promoted by the Islamic State or the Islamic fundamentalists. The protagonists of Rachida and Papicha embody a more nuanced

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version of Islam than the radicalized girls in French cinema as they reconcile their religion with their professional and personal aspirations and their performance of gender. Rachida opens with Algerian-Andalusian music that underlines the optimistic character of the woman who is putting on lipstick and styling her hair while breaking a pretty smile. She is introduced through several close-ups (of the lipstick in her hands, of her colored lips, of her brown hair) that provocatively emphasize her femininity in times of repression. Another woman calls her name and Rachida joins her pupils for a class photo. The group photo testifies to Rachida’s belief in education as a teacher who chooses to stand by her pupils and to expose herself bare-headed despite the risks entailed by her daring attitude. Her veiled colleague would rather remain off screen and invisible in the class picture, for fear she might be killed by Islamist fanatics: “I don’t want my kids to become orphans for a photo. I’m lucky my husband even lets me work,” she says. This statement is to be understood as an expression of fear in the face of cultural coercion for the woman to submit to patriarchal norms and to obey the radical Islamic diktat as regards dress codes, but it is also a negative judgment on Rachida’s appearance, for her refusal to cover her abundant hair may be seen as a provocation. Florence Martin, however, sees Rachida’s unveiled body as a symbol of resistance: “bareheaded Rachida refuses to reduce herself to an agent of fitna (i.e., the sin of temptation, seduction)” (Martin 2011, 105) and to give in to the fundamentalists’ injunctions. Rachida’s attitude in refusing to place a home-made bomb on the school grounds reflects a humanist spirit for she would rather die than kill children. She proves to be a Muslim despite her refusal to cover herself. For example, when a local woman in the village where she has found refuge after her near-death experience questions her Muslim identity because of her not wearing the hijab, she proves that she is literate in the Qu’ran’s teachings by referencing it while answering back. Other women in the village welcome Rachida without judging her, showing that their Muslim faith does not preclude tolerance. Their wearing the veil does not stand as a barrier between themselves and others, for the women do not view it as a religious symbol that would deny their liberty and agency, but as an empowering tool that allows for an easy integration and a smooth performance in a patriarchal society. Fatima Mernissi explains the utility of the veil: “The veil means that the woman is present in men’s world, but invisible” (Mernissi 1975, 84). Rachida expresses her

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Muslim identity in her own way, by being peaceful, loving, caring, and attentive to the people around her. The film ends with a shot of Rachida looking straight at the camera, transcending fiction to position herself as a figure of resistance and Algerian feminism. Papicha is a word from the Algerian dialect that refers to a sexy young girl, generally an adolescent who is beautiful and attractive. During the Dark Decade, the same word denoted young working-class women who adopted “behaviors that flouted the order imposed by the Islamists. They shamelessly wore make-up and walked around wearing miniskirts and tight pants” (Hadj-Moussa, 2008, 195). Wassila and Nedjma are identified as papichas in the opening sequence of the film as they sneak out of the dormitories of their school to go to a nightclub and put the veil to protect themselves from the Islamist threat, which they nonetheless confront to join their friends and sell the dresses that Nedjma sows for them. Papicha describes stolen moments of pleasure by filming the girls’ bodies in close-ups. The camera comes close to their faces as they are dancing to music in the nightclub, the red light reflecting on their skin to heighten the intensity of the instant. Close-ups once again capture the faces of the girls but the focus is on Samira as her voice dominates the trio singing a rap song in their dorm room. Samira may wear the veil but her voice stands out when she sings the words that resonate with her experience of womanhood: For you I want justice, try to take away my rights, everywhere you see, the crowd is talking about me. I’m coming down from the so-called bad neighborhoods where police squads spend three-quarters of the day. I’m tired of all this. I’m sick of this life, and I’ll do anything to get out of this impasse. (« Pour toi je veux la justice, essaie de me prendre mes droits, partout où tu vois la foule, c’est qu’on parle de moi. Je descends des quartiers soi-disant mal fréquentés où la PJ passe les trois quarts de la journée. J’en ai marre de tout ça. J’en ai marre de cette vie-là et pour sortir de cette impasse, je ferai n’importe quoi. »)

The final shots show her take off the veil and let her long black hair loose, yet the backlit sequence suggests that this act is expected to remain private and she has donned the veil again to walk around school, a practice that confirms Mernissi’s vision and consideration of the veil as a cultural construct that would allow women to penetrate male zones without being

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harassed or noticed (Mernissi 1975, 84–85). Close-ups focus on the naked skin of the girls as they are rubbing their shoulders, pouring water on Nedjma’s hair in the hammam, reconnecting with the materiality of their bodies after the radicalized girls of the school have humiliated them. More close-ups are used when the girls go to the beach and playfully bury their legs in the sand and run in the waves, conveying the sensory experience they indulge themselves in. Close-ups even capture the girls’ smiling faces as they stand side by side to gaze at the sea, offering an image of female solidarity and friendship based on sharing complicity. As suggested by Kaya Davies Hayon, the emphasis on the female sensuous experiences might be read as resistance to the ocular-centric trend of Western cinema where the female body is to be looked at as the object of the gaze. She contends that “filmmakers in and from the Maghreb might invoke the multi-sensuous as a means to subvert the dominance of visuality and destabilize hegemonic hierarchies of visual power” (Hayon 2018, 19). This phenomenological strategy might also be read as a path of resistance against Islamist codes. Papicha shows indeed that the terrorists of the 1990s aimed to silence women by denying them the freedom to dress and enjoy their bodies. Papicha and Rachida are films in which “the emphasis is put on Algerian women being in the world through their bodies” (Bélot 2016, 64). The camera is relentlessly drawn to the girls’ bodies as they put on bracelets around their wrists or make-up on their faces, which the female filmmakers Mounia Meddour and Yamna Bachir-Chouikh seem to turn into political acts in opposition to radicalization. Both celebrate the women’s acts of independence (i.e., Nedjma’s illicit clothing-making business) and expressions of desire (i.e., kissing a boy) that engage in a direct confrontation with the political paradigms of radical Islam. Nedjma dreams of becoming a fashion designer and acts out against the radical Islamic dress code by buying colorful fabrics to make dresses that underline the female body shape in counterpoint to the drawings of faceless women, veiled from head to toe, visible on the posters that are glued to the walls of the city, signifying a political and cultural campaign led by fundamentalists against women. The posters placed on the inner and outer walls of the campus, the leaflets distributed on the bus Nedjma is riding, call on girls to wear the hijab to “protect themselves.” Throughout the film, tension builds around Nedjma because she refuses to cancel the fashion show she is preparing. Her sister, a journalist investigating the murders, is killed before her eyes like many other journalists who lost

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their lives due to their profession in the Dark Decade (Leperlier 2016, n.p.). Papicha de-westernizes the gaze by portraying Muslim girls who do not fall into the Western stereotypes: Samira may be forced by her family to marry a man she does not love, but she is pregnant by the man she is in love with and hopes to work once she has her degree. Her example demonstrates that the veil is a tradition that she negotiates with modernity, for her pregnancy goes against the social and religious values that govern Algerian society, to the extent of questioning her religious integrity and faithfulness despite the veil she puts on. Both Rachida and Papicha use the haïk, an Algerian traditional white veil, as a symbol for the regenerative power of traditions that aim to protect women and not subjugate them: an elderly woman covers Rachida’s wounded body with a haïk after she is shot in the womb, whereas Nedjma uses the haïk to create new dress patterns after the radicalized girls destroy all the dresses she has designed for her fashion show. The haïk thus links traditional and modern female resistance.

Performing Masculinity Through Islamic Terrorism Both Rachida and Papicha climax into a sequence of collective killing perpetrated by radicalized terrorists. When they interrupt the fashion show organized by Nedjma in Papicha, the terrorists first turn off the light to plunge the stage into darkness. The men shoot randomly at the crowd even though they know some of the girls (Wassila’s boyfriend is one of them). In Rachida, the terrorists arrive at nightfall and interrupt the wedding to steal the bride. They shoot indiscriminately at those standing in their way before the children’s eyes. The performance of Islamic terrorism is then associated with darkness and chaos, denoting the psychological and mental instabilities of these terrorists who are disoriented and lack legitimacy due to the absence of a higher authority. They seize the darkness of the night to hide and act, following animal instinct which thrives in the shadows of the night. In these Algerian films, the men have no motivation but the quest for power. Religion is therefore used as an excuse to maintain the patriarchal order and the hegemony of the group through fear, murder, and ruthless cruelty. They do not try to rally people to join their cause, nor show devotion and religious signs; they are perceived as criminals, armed with

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guns and heavy weapons, imposing their law and order under the pretext of Sharia (radical Islamic rules). The films explicitly present a clash of genders in a patriarchal society, leading to acts of violence perpetrated by men who exploit the sociopolitical instability to achieve power. Their goal is to silence the rest of society as Yamna Bachir-Chouikh observes when commenting on the scene where a father repudiates his daughter after she was kidnapped and raped by the terrorists in Rachida: This man has been emasculated by other men; they have damaged his honor. He is incapable of protecting his daughter, and his honor is passed on through her. He is incapable of defending his conception of the code of honor. He is also a victim of a society, of traditions and rules that he himself has put in place and which other men have broken. I tried not to judge but to show the paradoxes and the rifts in these people, who are torn between tradition and their desire to survive. (Interview, Hillauer 2005, 281)

Contrary to these Algerian films where radicalization seems to be an anarchic and unorganized phenomenon, French cinema present French male terrorists driven by a clear ideology and concrete objectives, organized to implement a program to follow. Made in France (Nicolas Boukhrief, 2015) delves into a small network of terrorists whose main objective is to move the “holy war” to the European cities and create chaos within French society in the name of their religious beliefs. Made in France reflects this fascination for terrorist figures by presenting different profiles and personalities as terrorists who would, to some extent, mimic real cases. The film opens with a black screen which draws attention to the tone of anger in the voice of an imam preaching radical Islam: Here in France, pornography is everywhere. It’s in everyone’s head. It’s in every picture. In advertisements. On television. […] And worst of all: the Internet. In the West, they tell you that the Internet is a tool for freedom. They tell you the Internet is a tool of progress. No, not at all... The Internet is the place of all vices. It is decadence. (« Ici, en France, la pornographie est partout. Elle est dans toutes les têtes. On la voit dans toutes les images. Dans les publicités. A la télévision. […] Et le pire de tout : Internet. En Occident, ils vous disent qu’Internet est un outil de liberté. Ils vous disent qu’Internet est un outil du progrès. Non pas du tout… Internet c’est le lieu de tous les vices. […] C’est de la décadence. »)

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The first images situate the scene in a clandestine mosque in a Parisian suburb. The camera follows a young man who finishes his ablutions and enters the mosque as if he is running late and here is attracted by the preacher’s speech. He joins the men who sit on the floor and humbly look up at the preacher like a teacher whose “knowledge” is to be respected and assimilated. Yet the imam’s quick-paced speech leaves no time for reflection. The mise-en-scène accentuates the authority of the imam, the source of “knowledge” who indoctrinates the crowd with his ideas, which are amplified by an expressive body language that suggests his total engagement and his excitement. He ironically appears as a luminous figure in opposition to the dark colors of the worshipping figures whose faces are blurred suggesting their absence and ignorance. This sequence not only identifies the source of Islamic radicalization by accusing the fraudulent presence of this “imam” as a spiritual guide, but also demonstrates the submissive and ignorant nature of the audience who are passively manipulated and influenced. The film then explores the links between these radical Islamic preaches and the resistance to the Western values that may result in terrorist acts. Made in France centers the narrative around the character of a young freelance journalist, Sam El Kansouri, who infiltrates a local terrorist group to write an investigative book. Sam strikes friendships with three young men (Christophe, Driss and Sidi) who attend the same mosque. He gradually gains their trust and becomes part of their daily meetings by debating different issues related to the Qu’ran and to his knowledge of Arab and Muslim culture. The passive nature of the group is awakened by the arrival of the leader known as Abu Hassan. Abu Hassan’s imprisonment motivated his conversion to radical Islam and gave him a certain authority among the other members, revealing a manipulative and extremely violent personality. It is he who prepares the group to carry out orders received during his (fictitious) trip to Afghanistan and then to Waziristan, where he claims to have been in charge of waging “holy war” in Western cities. In addition to his arrogant and egocentric character, his ignorance of the Arabic language and the Qu’ran is a source of an inferiority complex that he tends to cover up with violence. The end of the film shows that Abu Hassan is an impostor who has no connection with the Islamic State and whose real name is Laurent Pelletier. Driss, the most indoctrinated, met Abu Haasan in the prison where he was convicted of drug offences and where he converted to radical

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Islam. Both characters highlight the role of prisons in the construction of Western radical individuals, a phenomenon that motivated French authorities to take different measures, including the isolation of such prisoners to avoid the propagation of radical ideologies (Ireland et al. 2017, 353). Abu Youssef, whose real name is Christophe is a rich bourgeois Catholic, recently converted to Islamic fundamentalism. Unemployed, he lives in his grandmother’s big house with his father’s money. His convictions and faith are clearly unstable, suggesting that he participates in the group out of boredom and idleness. His character illustrates the profile of “Some terrorists [who] ‘drift’ into terrorism for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with ideology or radical views. Some simply find it fun, or adventure, or to escape boredom, or a way to get employment” (Bjorgo and Horgan 2008, 40 cited in Majeed 2016, 233). Sidi, a Franco-Malian who still lives at his mother’s house with his four siblings, works as a security guard in a private car park and dreams of becoming a fighter out of idealism, but also to avenge the murder of his cousin by a French soldier in Mali. The male characters of Made in France break with the Western stereotypes of the Arab immigrant who becomes a terrorist, because in this case, four young Frenchmen of different social and racial backgrounds come together to foment a terrorist project. Made in France uses fiction to reveal a long-neglected reality about French terrorist organizations. Isabelle Regnier explains as follows: The composition of the terrorist group reflects a more complex reality, representative of the landscape of French jihadism as it has emerged since January 2015: the candidates for jihad have various geographical and social backgrounds, there are multiple channels of radicalization (the Internet, prison, Salafist mosques...) and motivations (humanitarian, political, “resentment”, purely criminal, all crystallized in a common adherence to radical Islam), a mixture of more or less marked amateurism and an expertise in the handling of weapons... (Regnier 2016, n.p.) (« La composition du groupe terroriste reflète une réalité plus complexe, représentative du paysage du djihadisme français tel qu’il se précise depuis janvier 2015 : pluralité des origines géographiques et sociales des candidats au djihad, multiplicité des canaux de radicalisation (Internet, prison, mosquées salafistes...) et des motivations (humanitaires, politiques, « ressentimentales », purement criminelles, toutes cristallisées dans une commune adhésion à un islam radical), mélange d’amateurisme plus ou moins marqué et d’une expertise dans le maniement des armes... »)

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Made in France focuses on individual paths within a group to show that French terrorists are not all and always marginal. Sam, for example, continues to see his family discreetly and attends his son’s first day at school. Christophe enjoys a glass of champagne with his aristocratic family, while Abou Hassan spends several intimate moments with his wife. This portrayal of radicalization de-westernizes the gaze on Islam by suggesting that most terrorists do not act out of religious conviction; unlike the radicalized girls mentioned earlier, these men take full advantage of their social and patriarchal status. The radicalization of these men allows them to create a role for themselves in society; they are in charge of enforcing a patriarchal order, of which women are the first victims. Women in Made in France are presented in two different ways: Sam’s wife, Laure, is westernized and unveiled, her religious affiliation is not mentioned in the film; however, the Arabo-Islamic name of her son, Malik, suggests her tolerance to Islam if she is not herself Muslim. Laure’s bare head proves her husband (Sam)’s moderate Islam and de-westernized image of the Muslim man’s wife who should be veiled, oppressed, and submissive. On the other hand, Abu Hassan’s white, Zora, is fully dressed and veiled even in the home; her humble entrance to the living room and serving the tea suggest her devotion as well as her total submission and silence. Zora, who questions Abu Hassan’s activities, is savagely killed for disobeying her fanatic husband’s patriarchal ideology. While Made in France conveys the individuality of the males, who are motivated by different reasons to convert to radical Islam, Rachida and Papicha identify male radicalization as a mere manifestation of a continuous quest for patriarchal hegemony.

Conclusion Cinema has built different images of Islamic radicalism and points to its multifarious forms in societies with distinct religious and gender codes. Algerian and French films also develop specific strategies to counter Islamic fundamentalist propaganda. Algerian cinema celebrates the feminist and humanist agency of the Algerian women Rachida and Nedjma who physically face Islamic fundamentalists while embodying a moderate version of Islam. The female directors endorse their fights by filming the women’s bodies in close shots that challenge the reification process incipient in the male gaze. French cinema represents radicalized girls as active agents who join ISIS to contribute to the spread of its ideologies in the

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case of Le ciel attendra. Its didactic narrative testifies to a distinct filmic strategy, calling for reason instead of the senses as a de-radicalization path. Films made on both sides of the Mediterranean show that male radicalization fills a psychological need for men’s performance of masculinity, using the religious rhetoric to strengthen the patriarchal order, while for women, the religious impositions of Islamic fundamentalism are perceived as constraints on their bodies and lives. Made in France undermines the mythology of the terrorist as an indoctrinated young man and describes terrorism as a means to compensate for different types of frustration. While fascination for the real-life terrorists motivated the director to pursue the Made in France project, the film challenges the existing stereotypes of Islamist radicalized Arabs by diversifying their origins, backgrounds, motives and performances. This gallery of radicalized characters helps de-westernize the gaze that has long stigmatized and othered Muslims on both sides of the Mediterranean.

Notes 1. All translations and transcriptions are our own.

References Bâ, Saer Maty, and Will Higbee. 2012. De-Westernizing Film Studies. New York: Routledge. Bélot, Sophie. 2016. Bourdieu and Images of Alergian Women’s Emotional Habitus. In New Uses of Bourdieu in Film and Media Studies, ed. Guy Austin, 51–69. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books. Bjorgo, Tore, and John G. Horgan. 2008. Leaving Terrorism Behind: Individual and Collective Disengagement. New York: Routledge. Bouzar, Dounia. 2018. Le processus de radicalisation «jihadiste» : une triple dimension émotionnelle, relationnelle et idéologique. Les Cahiers de l’Orient N° 130 (2). Centre d’études et de recherches sur le Proche-Orient: 147–166. https://doi.org/10.3917/lcdlo.130.0147. Bullock, Katherine. 2010. Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical and Modern Stereotypes. Amman: International Institute of Islamic Thought. https://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/pub licfullrecord.aspx?p=5852873.

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Cadé, Michel. 2012. Hidden Islam: The Role of the Religious in Beur and Banlieue Cinéma. In Screening Integration: Recasting Maghrebi Immigration in Contemporary France, ed. Sylvie Durmelat and Vinay Swamy, 41–57. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. Comolli, Jean-Louis. 2016. Daech, le cinéma et la mort. Lagrasse: Editions Verdier. Duhamel, Cindy, and Alexandre Ledrait. 2017. Djihad au féminin: Promesse d’une solution aux éprouvés pubertaires. [Jihad for adolescent girls: Promise of a solution to the trials of the pubertary.]. Revue Adolescence 35 (2). France: L’Esprit du Temps: 413–432. https://doi.org/10.3917/ado.100.0413. Fairclough, Norman. 2003. Analysing Discourse. London: Routledge. Hadj-Moussa, Ratiba. 2008. Marginality and Ordinary Memory: Body Centrality and the Plea for Recognition in Recent Algerian Films. The Journal of North African Studies 13 (2). Routledge: 187–199. https://doi.org/10.1080/136 29380801996513. Hayon, Kaya Davies. 2018. Sensuous Cinema: The Body in Contemporary Maghrebi. New York: Bloomsbury. Hillauer, Rebecca. 2005. Encyclopedia of Arab Women Filmmakers. New York: American Univ in Cairo Press. Hodge, Joel. 2020. Violence in the Name of God: The Militant Jihadist Response to Modernity. New York and London: Bloomsbury. Ireland, Jane L., Carol A. Ireland, Martin Fisher, and Neil Gredecki. 2017. The Routledge International Handbook of Forensic Psychology in Secure Settings. Oxon: Taylor & Francis. Khalid, Maryam. 2011. Gender, Orientalism and Representations of the ‘Other’ in the War on Terror, Global Change. Global Change, Peace & Security 23 (1): 15–29. Leperlier, Tristan. 2016. Journaliste dans la guerre civile algérienne : Une profession intellectuelle entre littérature et politique. L’Année du Maghreb, no 15 (décembre). CNRS Éditions: 79–96. https://doi.org/10.4000/anneemagh reb.2810. Majeed, Khader. 2016. Combating Violent Extremism and Radicalization in the Digital Era. Pennsylvania: IGI Global. Mansouri, Fethi, and Sharma Akbarzadeh, eds. 2006. Political Islam and Human Security. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press. Martin, Florence. 2011. Screens and Veils: Maghrebi Women’s Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Mernissi, Fatima. 1975. Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in a Modern Muslim Society. New York: Wiley. Regnier, Isabelle. 2016. «Made in France», plongée au cœur d’une cellule djihadiste, est limité à la VOD. Le Monde.fr, janvier 29. https://www.lem

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onde.fr/cinema/article/2016/01/29/made-in-france-plongee-au-c-ur-dune-cellule-djihadiste-est-limite-a-la-vod_4855711_3476.html. Stora, Benjamin. 2001. La guerre invisible Algérie, années 90. Paris: Presses de la fondation nationale des sciences politiques. Shaheen, Jack G. 2012. Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs After 9/11. Massachusetts: Interlink Publishing.

Nicolas Boukhrief’s Made in France: Nuancing the Mediatized Approach to Islamic Terrorism Patrick Saveau

In “Hidden Islam” (2011), Michel Cadé reviews the representation of Islam in beur and banlieue cinema from 1985 to 2007. He points out that Islam in general up to the 2000s is absent, except for a few religious signs and symbols, because Islam, as a marker of difference, antagonizes the desire to promote and encourage a “cinema of integration” (Cadé 2011, 50). When Islam is more visible, it is not tied to the beur and banlieue paradigms, but is featured in films where religion is represented outside French borders, such as in François Dupeyron’s Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran (2003) or Ismaël Ferroukhi’s Le grand voyage (2004). Cadé finally sees a change toward a more in-depth and less monolithic representation of Islam in two recently released films by the time he published his essay, Philippe Faucon’s Dans la vie (2008) and Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche’s Dernier maquis (2008). He concludes that the “two films do not foretell how Islam will be represented in the future, but they indicate nonetheless a new attention to an important aspect of the Maghrebi-French community” (Cadé 2011, 53). In Post-Beur Cinema. North African Émigré and Maghrebi-French Filmaking in France since

P. Saveau (B) Franklin University Switzerland, Lugano, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Mielusel (ed.), Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81234-8_5

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2000 (2013), Will Higbee explores the cinematic representation of Islam in “Screening Islam,” but out of the three films he chooses to closely analyze, two were already the objects of Cadé’s own essay, namely Le grand voyage and Dernier maquis. The analysis of the third film however, Rachid Bouchareb’s London River (2009), draws me closer to what I want to explore in this essay when thinking about the representation of Islam and Muslims in French cinema, namely Islam and terrorism, since the movie locates “its narrative in the aftermath of the bombing of the London transport network in July 2005 by a group of radicalized British Muslims” (Higbee 2013, 170). Nonetheless, the chapter leads Higbee to confirm Cadé’s remark which pointed out that, in order to show Islam in a salient fashion, films needed “to take place beyond French borders” (Cadé 2011, 50), so as not to ring too close to home. Cadé’s and Higbee’s studies happened to be published just when a shift in the representation of Islam took place in French cinematic productions. First, Philippe Faucon’s La désintégration (2012) was released. Depicting the radicalization process of three friends in the banlieue of Lille, a city in the north of France, this film foreboded the murder of seven people by Mohamed Merah in March 2012.1 Second, Nicolas Boukhrief’s Made in France foreshadowed the terrorist attacks against Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 and a few months later, the quasi-simultaneous attacks outside the Stade de France, in the Bataclan theater and at terraces of bars and restaurants in November 2015.2 The year before these events took place, Nicolas Boukhrief was indeed shooting a movie about a jihadist cellpreparing to commit a terrorist attack that was to be the first one in a series of many according to its self-appointed leader, Hassan. In order to cancel any malevolent comment, the final cut of the film starts with an intertitle that states: “Ce film a été tourné avant les attentats de janvier 2015” (This film was shot before the January 2015 terrorist attacks), bringing out, by the same token, the power of fiction that precedes reality. A few months later, as Boukhrief was getting ready for the release of his movie scheduled for the beginning of 2016, he gave an interview. It was introduced by an intertitle that states: “Interview tournée avant les attentats du 13 novembre 2015” (Interview shot before the November 13, 2015 terrorist attacks).3 As a result of these tragic events, the film was never released in public theaters and only restricted to personal screening via DVDs and VODs.

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In this essay, I would like to examine Made in France as a (non-) representation of Islamic terrorism. I intend to point out how the cinematography both reinforces and undermines a ready-made representation of Islam and calls attention to the way the French Republic, through the BRI,4 is confined within a frozen discourse and strategy when thinking about Islamic terrorism. In other words, this essay aims to demonstrate how Made in France nuances the audience’s expectations of terrorism when it relates to Islam. Before doing so, I wish to explain the mediacapital that spectators carry with them consciously or unconsciously when they think of Islam and how it may affect the way they watch this movie. Several books have pointed how Islam and the way it is perceived, talked about, and represented is the result of a fabrication, has become a collective obsession, and has turned into a myth that has hardly anything to do with reality. Raphaël Liogier explains that the image of Islam radically changed after the Iranian revolution in 1979, “perdant presque totalement sa charge esthétique orientale” (Liogier 2012, 38) (nearly losing its entire Oriental aesthetic charge), giving way to images of delirious crowds, furious predicators, men inflicting violence upon women, terrorism, etc., and resulting in the following dichotomy: “dans la lumière les masses hystériques et, dans l’ombre, les attaques terroristes qui se trament contre le ‘monde civilisé’” (Liogier 2012, 38) (hysterical masses in the light, terrorist attacks organized against the “civilized world” in the dark). He adds that in the twenty-first century, the Muslim figure has become “la figure centrale de l’altérité indésirable, inassimilable, et par surcroit douée du désir d’anéantir l’Europe” (Liogier 2012, 33) (the central figure of the undesirable other, moreover gifted with the desire to annihilate Europe). Thomas Deltombe, a journalist who conducted an extensive study on the way Islam is portrayed in the media, points out the essentialist discourse that considers Islamic terrorism as a banlieue phenomenon, perpetrated by youth who have been marginalized and have been forgotten by the French Republic. He views Islam and terrorism as “deux phénomènes contigus” (Deltombe 2005, 285) (two contiguous phenomena) that cannot be dissociated. Abdellali Hajjat and Marwan Mohammed demonstrate how the construction of the “problème musulman” (Muslim problem) is propagated by “experts” whose knowledge of Islam is shoddy and oriented at best.5 As they are often invited in the media to give their opinions about

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Islam-related issues, they propagate ideas that become part of the dominant doxa. How does Made in France contribute to reinforce or deflate this doxa when talking about Islam and terrorism? When Nicolas Boukhrief, in the interview featured on the DVD, states that Made in France is not about Islam, he certainly intends to say that it does not represent the religion himself and a great majority of Muslims are familiar with. However, the very first establishing shots seem to focus on the aspects of religion that are systematically emphasized by the “experts” and constantly make the media headlines. The viewer is exposed to a stereotypical assembly of men listening to an imam who violently criticizes the decadence of the Western world, first by denouncing the internet which is “l’endroit de tous les vices” (the place of every vice), second by condemning women who mingle with men in public places and are guilty of zina, namely fornication and adultery. As the faithful exit the prayer room, which is located in a non-descript place that points to the lack of mosques in France and the development of clandestine prayer rooms in desolate areas, a medium shot isolates three of the main characters allowing the spectator to eavesdrop on what they are discussing, namely what the Qu’ran allows as far as sexuality is concerned. This scene is crucial because it signals a rupture with the opening scene that showed a community of Muslim men. From this scene onward, the main characters will not be considered as part of a collective entity within which each individual Muslim is undistinguishable from the other, “dépourvu de spécificités régionales, sociales, économiques et finalement personnelles” (Liogier 2012, 118) (deprived of regional, social, economic, and finally personal characteristics). Here, Made in France commits itself to deconstruct the idea that “les musulmans seraient toujours et seulement mus par leur appartenance religieuse” (Todorov 2008, 166) (Muslims would only be driven by their religious belonging), that contrary to other human beings, they never act for any other reasons. As they each go their separate ways, a tracking back shot enables the hero to introduce himself: “Je m’appelle Sam El Kansouri. Je suis né à Paris en 1984 dans une famille ouvrière d’un père algérien et d’une mère française. Je suis journaliste et fort de ma culture musulmane, j’ai pris le risque il y a six mois d’infiltrer les mosquées clandestines de la banlieue parisienne.” (My name is Sam El Kansouri. I was born in 1984 in Paris, from an Algerian father and a French mother. I am a journalist and using my Muslim background, I have taken the risk six months ago to infiltrate clandestine mosques in the Paris banlieue). The film the spectator

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is about to watch is not about the radicalization process of some youth, it is a thriller, a genre Nicolas Boukhrief is familiar with, since three of his earlier films—Le convoyeur (2004), Cortex (2008), and Gardiens de l’ordre (2010)—are thrillers.6 In his declaration of intent, he stated that resorting to this particular genre to talk about terrorism was a way for him to target another audience, an audience that does not necessarily watch intellectual debates about radical Islam, nor reads Libération or Le nouvel Observateur (Hervaud 2016). As a thriller, Made in France revolves around a planned terrorist attack that a bi-cultural man, Sam, will be in charge of thwarting. In line with the rules of the genre, a superior authority—the B.R.I. in this case—entrusts the hero with such a mission. Furthermore, the contract that links the hero with such an authority usually turns out to be fragile, so much so that his life will be at risk (Vanoncini 1993). As we can expect it, such a film genre is supposed to thrill the viewer, yield some suspense, and feature some unexpected twists. These twists allow for the narrative of the film to move beyond the way in which radical Islam is represented. If Philippe Faucon’s La désintégration portrays Maghrebi-French youth who, despite all their efforts to “integrate” to French society, are unable to find a job, have been ignored by the society, and end up turning to radical Islam to be someone,7 Madein France, on the contrary, shows characters who do not come from a homogeneous social milieu and who are for the most part integrated—they all have a job except for Christophe. As Isabelle Regnier points out, “Ici, la composition du groupe terroriste reflète une réalité plus complexe […]: pluralité des origines géographiques et sociales des candidats au djihad, multiplicité des canaux de radicalisation (Internet, prison, mosquées salafistes…) et des motivations (humanitaires, politiques, « ressentimentales », purement criminelles, toutes cristallisées dans une commune adhésion à un islam radical)” (Regnier 2016) (Here, the make-up of the terrorist group reflects a more complex reality […]: the geographical and social origins of the jihadists are plural, the radicalization channels (Internet, prison, Salafist mosques…) and the motivations (humanitarian, political, “resentmental,” criminal, all crystalized in a common adhesion to radical Islam) are manifold). The characters in Made in France are much more diverse than those in La désintégration, and the film director deconstructs the usual narratives about terrorism we are being served in media discourses. Out of the five main characters, Sam is the only character who benefits from an in-depth presentation that is due to his role as the hero in

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charge of forestalling the terrorist act. While a voice-over explains who he is, a slow lateral tracking shot presents the viewer with pictures of his family, his parents, his wife, his child, the diploma he received from the CELSA,8 a journalism school, then shows him typing at his computer, feeding his child, and explaining to his wife why he needs to infiltrate this cell further if he wants to finish writing his manuscript. Sam defeats all the clichés that are usually associated with radical Islamists. He is educated, has a prestigious job, is married to a non-Muslim, a taboo for any jihadist, speaks Arabic, and is the only one who has an extensive knowledge of the Qu’ran—the others turn to him when they want to know what the holy book says about a particular topic, such as sexuality between husband and wife. The other characters do not benefit from such a formal introduction. The viewer is given bits and pieces about them throughout the film. Driss is the most prone to adopting the culture of violence embraced by radical Islamists. Although he works as a bartender in a discotheque, Driss checks all the boxes of the stereotypical disenfranchised young Maghrebi-French male whose profile is more often than not portrayed in the media: he lives in a stereotypical high-rise banlieue building, has been to prison where he met Hassan, has kept ties with the underworld, and is angry at France, in particular its institutions such as the police or the army. Sidi is the youngest of them all and is seen as having doubts about his commitment to the cause. When Sam asks him why he wants to wage jihad, he answers, “J’avais un cousin dans ma famille au Mali, c’était comme un frère pour moi […]. L’année dernière, un soldat français lui a collé une balle en pleine tête. Il était même pas un djihadiste” (I had a cousin in Mali, he was like a brother to me […]. Last year, a French soldier shot him in the head. He was not even a jihadist). Then there is Christophe, a Frenchman who converted to Islam because Catholicism was boring to him, the only reason he is able to give Sam when asked why he became a Muslim. And finally, there is Hassan whom we know nothing about,9 but who is the leader because he went to Pakistan to train and make contacts, which will turn out to be a lie. His arrival constitutes the beginning of the thriller since he is going to tell his friends that he has been asked to organize terrorist attacks on the French soil. Made in France, from then on, becomes a huis clos that obliterates all the discourses that invade our mental scape about Islam to concentrate upon five characters who are lost and in search of a warped ideal. It is epitomized by their first meeting at Christophe’s house. As Hassan

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enters the house, the camera pans out on a quiet residential street where we only see a couple running down and another walking up the street. This camera movement is important because it stands in stark contrast with the way the film director chooses to frame most of the scenes of his movie, namely as medium close-up shots that dominate and epitomize the mental and physical prison the characters have created for themselves. This overall paranoid, claustrophobic ambience is reinforced when Hassan, before starting his meeting to explain what he did in Pakistan and ask his friends if they want to follow him in his preparation of terrorist attacks, draws the curtains, thereby blocking all natural light from entering the house and replacing it with low key lighting characterized by dark colors dominating the scenes each time they have a group discussion. In addition to pointing out that terrorist cells do not necessarily flourish in the banlieue plagued by unemployment, poverty, drug-dealing, and violence as media reports insist upon, the film shows that they can develop anywhere, in posh bourgeois neighborhoods, but more importantly “challenges conventional understanding of terrorism as a networked, transnational conspiracy, suggesting rather how terrorism can have local roots” (Boutouba 2019, 225). They are isolated, unseen, and invisible to those in charge of dismantling terrorist networks.10 This isolation produces “un Islam sans Islam” (Khosrokhavar 1997) (an Islam without Islam), characterized not by a religious practice and a thought process, but by a form of radical violence that is best illustrated by Driss’ motto: “Ne jamais réfléchir” (Never think). However, this refusal to question does not apply to all characters. They are not all monolithic, but for Hassan who is a convert and the most fanatic of all about this terrorist project. Sam’s actions and reactions in the following sequences divert the narrative from being exclusively about Islamist radicalization but, on the contrary, orient it so that it fulfills the codes of the thriller. When the group goes to a scrapyard to meet with some of Driss’ friends who can provide them with weapons, Sam is the only one who tries to stop Hassan from executing the three men who just sold them the ammunition, an action Hassan will disapprove of. When they rob a factory making fertilizers, Sam refuses to run over a policeman as they drive away, a decision that infuriates Driss, all the more so since it gives the policeman the opportunity to shoot at Sidi who will die shortly after. When Driss tries to strangle Hassan to death, Sam intervenes, causing the death of the former. Finally, when Hassan decides to behead him after finding out he is working undercover, he is savvy

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enough to save his skin. These four sequences are not really part of a film that “adopts a socio-realist approach to reveal a dark subtext filled with ambiguous characters, complicated personal stories, a fragmented sense of nation, social breakdown and troubled citizenship” (Boutouba 2019, 216) as the critic states.11 More simply, they are part of the codes of a genre whereby the hero, who happens to be a Muslim, must overcome obstacles in order to achieve his mission, dismantle a group that could be a threat to national security, and restore order. This is achieved through plot twists and framing. Frames are what Judith Butler calls “operations of power” (Butler 2009, 1) in the sense that they delimit what the authorities controlling the frames want us to see and to feel. In other words, they include and exclude.12 In the sequences mentioned above, framing allows the film director to channel the affect for each character and ensure we, as spectators, identify with the hero while disidentifying with the others. In order to do so, we need to look for details and not just the plot at large. In the first sequence I mentioned in the previous paragraph, although all the characters are filmed in medium close-up and close-up shots, only Sam is seen as standing in opposition and in contrast with the others who are fascinated by the act of violence they are performing, in particular Christophe who films the whole event and “displays a morbid attraction for ‘terrortainment’” (Boutouba 2019, 229) as he cannot help filming all that leads to the preparations of the scheduled terrorist act.13 As theorized in Simulacres et simulation by Jean Baudrillard, the image goes through a series of transformations whereby it is being stripped of its reality to become a simulacrum. The importance that Christophe gives to the image not only de-substantializes the actions the terrorist group is perpetrating, but also reduces his religious practice to a video game or a blockbuster that simply provides him with some excitement. The close-up shots of his radiant smile when he films are quite revealing in the sense that he seems unaware of what is happening in front of his eyes. As a matter-of-fact, he is a spectator. After this first act of violence, Sam, in a state of shock, has no alternative but to contact the B.R.I. whose views of the cell are totally in line with the idea that terrorism can only be a transnational phenomenon with a chain of commands, and not a local and isolated one: “Votre Hassan a forcément des supérieurs. Cette filière est probablement en train de créer d’autres cellules sur le territoire. On ne bougera pas tant qu’on ne saura pas qui donne les ordres” (Your friend Hassan must have superiors. This network is most likely creating other cells on the national territory. We

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won’t make a move as long as we do not know who is giving orders). The sequence ends with a high angle shot where Sam is the only one facing the camera while his interlocutors turn their back to it. The camera angle is an operation of power that crushes Sam and shows who gives orders and who must submit. Sam will have to cooperate or the authorities will not consider him differently from the others. The second sequence shows how framing excludes Sam from the burglary and from the cell. While the camera pans in and out to follow Hassan and Driss who are first gagging the security man, then passing bags of fertilizer to Sidi so that he can put them in the trunk, it focuses on Sam in a close-up medium shot. His immobility contrasts with the movements of the other adrenaline-driven characters. The soundtrack reinforces the overall ambiance of the sequence and contributes to the tension that accompanies a thriller, leaving the spectators wondering if they are going to succeed and making them forget about the cell’s ultimate goal.14 As they escape, Sam refuses to run over a cop which allows him to shoot at Sidi. As a victim, Sidi’s life as a terrorist is nonetheless not easy to forfeit. Presented up until this scene as a quiet kid, who looks after his siblings, preys with his rosary, he is finally shown as someone who is closely tied to his family when he asks his friends to bring him back to his mother’s as he feels death approaching. Later on, Christophe is seen watching a video where Sidi explains he wants to have lots of children. His death is the first of a series of four that aims at showing that the cell’s own enemies are not coming from the outside, but are spreading inside like cancerous cells. In other words, “a community is always open to its own undoing, to an undoing that may happen from within, without enemies outside” (Boutouba 2019, 221). The violence that was supposed to target people who are foreign to the cell turns against the members of the cell itself. With these deaths, Boukhrieff deconstructs the idea that Muslims think as one, that there can be no divergence within this community. The cell is not a unified group. It is made up of different individuals who have embraced radicalization in different ways and, accordingly, can only be in disagreement with each other. In the third sequence, Driss who claimed to never think, is seen arguing with Hassan about the Champs-Élysées as the chosen target of the terrorist attack, objecting to the idea that innocent victims will be killed. Driss wants the cell to target institutions such as a police station, an army barrack, a government department. He wants to be a soldier, not a barbarian. The scene isolates Hassan whose

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interpretation of what Allah wants is scoffed at by Driss. The quietist and political dimension of Salafism is unknown to Hassan who only sees violence as the answer: “On est en guerre, et dans toute guerre, il y a des victimes civiles. Ça te va comme explication?” (We are at war, and in every war, civilians are dying. Is this explanation ok with you?). On the contrary, for Driss, innocent lives cannot not be forfeited. His reasoning will cost him his life as Hassan will shoot him in the back and then knifed him. As a prolepsis of who will be the next victim, Christophe’s face is splattered with blood whose color contrasts with the dark lighting in the room. One of the codes of the thriller is to bring together in a final showdown the hero and the villain, and more importantly, confront two visions of the world, in this particular case, two approaches to Islam. This is the object of the fourth sequence that allows to tie loose ends. It begins with a long shot of the street that opened up the movie. The car passes by the mosque, then turns on a vacant lot. Hassan, as he is about to kill Sam, tells him how he learnt that he was not who he claimed to be: “si t’avais été celui que tu prétends être, jamais tu aurais osé te retrouver seul avec la femme d’un autre” (if you had been who you claim you are, you would never have found yourself alone with the wife of another man). This situation ties in with the imam’s sermon at the beginning of the movie, brings back the spectator to the stereotypical views of Islam that forbid women to have a social life when their husbands are not in their presence. Then, in answer to Sam who wants to know who gives orders, Hassan reveals that when he went to Pakistan, he did not meet with any warlords, did not become part of a network, thereby deconstructing the idea that terrorism can only be part of a networked and transnational organization and not stem from the fanaticism of a single individual who acts alone. Made in France refuses to give in to essentialist views of radical Islamas they are broadcast by the media. The film demonstrates that Islam, even within a terrorist cell, brings together individuals who do not always see eye to eye. It further makes evident that Islam as a violent construct is seen as a dead-end since, out of the five members of the cell, Sam is the only survivor. Partisans of jihad as portrayed in Made in France belong to the category of what Hans Magnus Enzensberger calls the “Schreckens Männer,” in other words, the radical losers.15 As he explains, the radical loser “devient invisible, cultive ses obsessions, accumule ses énergies et attend son heure. Le perdant radical est difficile à repérer, il se tait et il

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attend. Il ne laisse rien paraître. C’est pour cela qu’on le craint” (Enzensberger 2006, 12) (becomes invisible, nourishes his obsession, accumulates his energy and bides his time. The radical loser is difficult to locate, he keeps quiet and waits. He does not let anything show. This is the reason why he is feared). This description is, in all respects, the situation Hassan builds up for the cell he has created. He insists upon them being invisible, embraces discourses that demonize the West, objectify women, and justify violence while he hardly knows anything about the Qu’ran. The last scene however offers a view of Islam that embraces ethnic and religious diversity. Sam is seen praying in the background of a close-up shot that focuses on the face of his wife who is rereading his manuscript. A voice-over gives the viewer a definition of what Islam is and should be about, something Sam learned from his father, the film insisting here on the importance of transmission from generation to generation: “la foi ne doit jamais nous pousser vers les ténèbres. Elle doit bien au contraire nous faire aimer et respecter la vie” (faith must not push her toward darkness. It must on the contrary make us love and respect life). The film ends with a medium shot showing Sam holding his child in his arms, sitting next to his wife who is peering at his manuscript, a far cry from the images of Muslims the media wallows in.

Notes 1. The terrorists’ target in La désintégration is the headquarters of NATO in Brussels. One month after the release of the movie, on March 11, 2012, Mohamed Merah killed Master Sergeant Imad Ibn-Ziaten in Toulouse. Four days later, he killed two other soldiers in Montauban. In an interview with the daily newspaper Le Monde, Philippe Faucon surmises that Merah’s idea to target the army originated when he was told that NATO forces in Afghanistan were killing his brothers. 2. Other movies about radical Islam were released around this period but do not focus on organizing a terrorist attack within French borders as these two specific films do. They instead follow fathers or mothers who decide either to try everything to prevent their sons and daughters to leave the French territory such as Xavier Durringer’s Ne m’abandonne pas (2016) or who look for their daughters or sons who have converted and left the French territory to become jihadists, such as Thomas Bidegain’s Les Cowboys (2015) and Rachid Bouchareb’s La route d’Istanbul (2016). 3. This interview is featured on the DVD.

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4. The BRI is the acronym for Brigade de Recherche et d’Intervention, a unit of the French police. Nicolas Boukhrief met Christophe Molmy, chief of this brigade, who advised him on the role of Sam El Kansoury. He will be a journalist when in the original version, he was an undercover cop trying to infiltrate this jihadist cell, something that is forbidden by the French Penal Code. 5. The authors make a distinction between the scholars, the half-scholars, and the experts. The half-scholars and the experts are those who monopolize discourses on Islam and appear the most often in the media. 6. Since Henri-Georges Clouzot with Le Corbeau (1943), the thriller has always been an important genre in French cinema. Among the most salient film directors who authored thrillers, let us mention René Clément with Plein soleil (1960), Jean-Pierre Melville with Le samouraï (1967); Claude Chabrol who directed so many thrillers since Que la bête meure (1969) that it would be fastidious to name them all, Georges Lautner with Mort d’un pourri (1977), Henri Verneuil whose filmography includes quite a few thrillers such as with I… comme Icare (1979) and Le corps de mon ennemi (1976), and more recently Guillaume Canet with Ne le dis à personne (2006), François Ozon with Dans la maison (2012), Arnaud Desplechin with Roubaix, une lumière, etc. Boukhrief is definitely part of this tradition. 7. The polysemy of La Désintégration refers to the physical destruction of the terrorist attack at the end of the movie, the mental destruction of the characters who become asocial, and most of all, to the failure of French politics toward its immigrant population. 8. The CELSA (Centre d’Etudes Littéraires et Scientifiques Appliquées) or Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication, depends on University Paris IV-Sorbonne, and trains future communication professionnals in communication and journalism. 9. A scene explaining why Hassan became a jihadist was removed from the final cut. Disincarnated, without his own story and past, he does not allow the spectators to identity with him. 10. Choosing to isolate the terrorist cell in a bourgeois neighborhood confirms that a terrorist group counts on “l’invisibilité et la clandestinité, moyens nécessaires à la réalisation de leurs desseins” (Deltombe 2005, 224) (invisibility and clandestinity, necessary means to realize their goals). 11. The italics are mine. 12. Judith Butler in Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? reflects on how war is framed and presented to us by the authorities and the media. In an article about Butler’s argument, Kate Kenny explains that during a war, “framing styles and norms ensure that [the lives of particular groups] are not quite lives, not really worth grieving and therefore easy to forfeit” (Kenny 2010, 462). The way the viewer feels toward the victims of war is

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“amplified and heightened on behalf of some groups, and foreclosed and prevented on behalf of others. In this way, affect is regulated” (Kenny 2010, 462). In Made in France, the victims of terrorism are the terrorists themselves. However, framing allows the spectator to make a distinction between the hero whose practice of religion is non-violent and the other characters whose practice of Islam is reprehensible. Boukhrief, bound by the codes of the thriller, but also his own personal beliefs and values, frames the characters so that the spectator feels for the hero and not for the other members of the terrorist cell, in particular Hassan who is the head of the cell and a cold, emotionless murderer. 13. Boutouba borrows this term from Tony Shaw (2015). 14. The soundtrack was written by ROB who has worked with Phoenix, Sébastien Tellier, and Daft Punk among other bands of the French house music movement. The electronic music that ornates Made in France, and in particular this scene, does not correspond to the usual soundtrack that accompanies movies about terrorism, but certainly fits with the thriller genre and with its repetitive and hypnotic loops. 15. Enzensberger’s book has not been translated into English to my knowledge. I am translating “Schreckens Männer” into English from the French translation.

References Baudrillard, Jean. 1981. Simulacres et Simulation. Paris: Galilée. Boutouba, Jimia. 2019. Through the Lens of Terror: Re-imaging Terrorist Violence in Bourkhrief’s Made in France. Studies in French Cinema 19 (3): 215–232. Butler, Judith. 2009. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? London: Verso. Cadé, Michel. 2011. Hidden Islam. The Role of the Religious in Beur and Banlieue Cinema. In Screening Integration. Recasting Maghrebi Immigration in Contemporary France, ed. Sylvie Durmelat and Vinay Swamy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska. Deltombe, Thomas. 2005. L’islam imaginaire. La construction médiatique de l’islamophobie en France, 1975–2005. Paris: Éditions de la découverte. Enzensberger, Hans Magnus. 2006. Le Perdant radical. Essai sur les hommes de la terreur. Paris: Gallimard. Hajjat, Abdellali, and Marwan Mohammed. 2013. Islamophobie. Comment les élites françaises fabriquent le “problème musulman”. Paris: Éditions de la découverte. Hervaud, Alexandre. 2016. ‘Made in France’, thriller sans excuse. Libération. https://www.liberation.fr/cinema/2016/01/29/made-in-france-thrillersans-excuse_1429921/. Accessed 1 october 2021.

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Higbee, Will. 2013. Post-Beur Cinema. North African Émigré and MaghrebiFrench Filmmaking in France Since 2000. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Kenny, Kate. 2010. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? Journal of Power 3: 459–466. Khosrokhavar, Farhad. 1997. L’Islam des jeunes. Paris: Flammarion. Liogier, Raphaël. 2012. Le mythe de l’islamisation. Essai sur une obsession collective. Paris: Seuil. Regnier, Isabelle. 2016. ‘Made in France’, plongée au cœur d’une cellule djihadiste, est limité à la VOD. Le Monde. https://www.lemonde.fr/cinema/ article/2016/01/29/made-in-france-plongee-au-c-ur-d-une-cellule-djihad iste-est-limite-a-la-vod_4855711_3476.html. Accessed 14 July 2020. Shaw, Tony. 2015. Cinematic Terror. A Global History of Terrorism on Film. New York: Bloomsbury. Todorov, Tzvetan. 2008. La Peur des barbares. Paris: Robert Laffont. Vanoncini, André. 1993. Le roman policier. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Veiling, Islamic and Artistic Symbols and Far-Right Politics in Literary Representations of Islam and Muslims

Jeux de rubans (2011) by Emna Belhaj Yahia or the (Un)Veiling of Modern Tunisia Sabrine Herzi

The diverse representations of the veil and of Maghrebi women’s statusin society have been omnipresent themes in French and Francophone literary and artistic productions and essays, especially in the Frenchspeaking feminine Tunisian literature written by Olfa Youssef, Hélé Béji, Sophie El Goulli and Emna Belhaj Yahia.1 This interest can be seen more predominantly after the events that took place in the last decade in the Arab World—namely the Syrian civil war against the Ba’athist regime led by President Bashar al-Assad or the Egyptian revolution which led to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak—and to the liberalization of the regime, particularly within Maghrebi societies, such as the storming “Arab Spring” and its aftermath in Tunisia.2 This chapter’s aim is to shed light on the current status of modern women in Tunisia, which is exceptional as far as women’s achievements are concerned. However, their status is marked by certain contradictions and paradoxes related to the cohabitation between modernist and Islamist trends in society. Emna Belhaj Yahia sees this reality as a two-sided coin, both as a form of regression for Tunisian women and as an expression of female emancipation during the post-Arab Spring era. Consequently,

S. Herzi (B) University of Jendouba, Jendouba, Tunisia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Mielusel (ed.), Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81234-8_6

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in Jeux de rubans , Belhaj Yahia is highly engaged in depicting new feminine figures whose destiny is filled with signification. The characters in the novel are examples of autonomous, strong, and revolutionary women fighting against a fate that seems to be dictated in advance by tradition, customs, or moral and social prejudice. The purpose of authors like Belhaj Yahia is also to shed a different light over the representation of Islam. The writer considers that the veil is not the best way to represent the voice of Islam. The female veil is in contradiction with the universal aspect of this religion, a form of confinement and a kind of sexual imprisonment which reduces its followers to their female nature by making them subjects to desire and victims of male instinct. The veil can be seen, above all, as an avatar of Islam because veiled women in Tunisia nowadays have lost their agency and the inner depth that Islam promotes, favoring a public display of their belief. In fact, there are two distinct points of view in today’s society referring to the representation of the Islamic headscarf: the veil is either seen as a religious prohibition and therefore a negation of the female’s body or, on the contrary, as a social affirmation of a person’s religious identity. It should be noted that the wearing of the veil is a practice that preceded Islam. It was perceived as a symbol of modesty but, above all, as a way to claim the women’s belonging to the aristocratic class. (Nassim Aboudrar 2014) This custom of covering the woman’s face and/or head “est en usage dans l’Arabie ancienne, et aurait été la prérogative des femmes de rang” (Lagrange 2008, 136) (existed in ancient Arabia and would have been the prerogative of women of rank). Throughout history, with the evolution of Islam and the spread of the Qu’ran, the meaning of the veil (and of the term hijab) is to be understood in the sense of a curtain, a protection, and separation of the sexes. However, this imposition of strict segregation concerns only the wives of the Prophet. From there, the term hijab underwent an important semantic evolution in the twentieth century to designate the separation of the sexes. At the same time, the veil is meant to cover the hair, the neck, and even the face of the woman. Between its condemnation by the republican secular thinkers and its imposition by the new Islamic proselytism, Belhaj Yahia urges the readers to look for different significations of the veil used by Tunisian women. The author also deciphers the message given by the adepts of the veil in reference to the relationships which women have with their bodyand the

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different public perceptions of the veiled body. The body has an important role in the Muslim doctrine. Indeed, this body, which prays five times a day, fasts during Ramadan (holy fasting month) and performs the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) is intended to carry within it the Muslim philosophy and to represent the soul of the Muslim who is witness to the transformations of the social body: […] les gestes et les techniques, […], les habitudes culinaires et vestimentaires, […] les couleurs et les ornements du corps […] permettent d’identifier des paramètres spécifiques qui donnent à lire une singularité propre aux différents groupes sociaux, notamment au Maghreb. (Lachheb 2012, 15) […] the gestures and techniques, […], culinary and dressing habits, […] the colors and the ornaments of the body […] allow the identification of specific parameters which interpret a singularity unique to the various social groups, particularly in the Maghreb).

These different bodily manifestations are therefore closely linked to education and to the social, political and cultural fluctuations experienced in the Maghreb and which determine social relations. Throughout her book, written in a series of monologues in which each character delivers his/her vision of the veiled body, Belhaj Yahia describes the malaise behind the veil—seen as oppression and as a failure of modernity. She sees in the former the sign of a certain subjectivity and a complex relationship with modernity which, at the same time, has revived the tradition and blocked individual access to certain liberties and rights. De facto, the events of 14 January 2011, commonly known as the “Jasmin Revolution,” have led to major changes in the country, notably the rise of political Islam on the social and political scene.3 In Jeux de rubans , published in the last quarter of 2011, Belhaj Yahia presents the shock produced by two cultures, two worlds, and two ideologies that are visible through different passionate reflections of the characters in the novel. The question of the veil perpetrates the entire novel and is of interest to all the characters whose different visions admit no intersection and no possibility to meet any agreement, as Samia Kassab Charfi admits about Jeux de rubans :

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[…] C’est par le biais de cet objet symptomatique que deux périodes sont confrontées : celle du dévoilement, correspondant à l’époque de la grandmère, […] et celle du revoilement, incarné par la jeune Chokrane […] Ce sont ces deux repères inverses d’une société en proie au tragique paradoxe de la liberté qui constituent les points forts de l’œuvre. (Samia KassabCharfi and Kheder 2019, 275) […] It is through this symptomatic object that these two periods are confronted: one of the unveiling, corresponding to the era of the grandmother, […] and the other one of the re-veiling, embodied by the young Chokrane […] These are two opposite landmarks of a society plagued by the tragic paradox of freedom that constitute the strengths of the work.

The universe outlined in Jeux de rubans is a world where the differences collide and where each of the characters exhibits his or her own point of view on the veil. In order to understand the complexity of this situation, we need to look at the historical context for possible explanations.

The Context for the Revival of the Islamic Religion in Tunisia Maghrebi (particularly Tunisian) women have gradually started to reclaim control over their bodies by expressing themselves as they feel suited and therefore by no longer assuming the role that men and the classic text of the Maghrebi literature have assigned them for centuries. They have been described either as a reproduction machine or a source of pleasure. According to Mondher Jabberi, this feminist trend in the Tunisian society is a salutary action that leads women to “s’émanciper d’un pouvoir et d’un regard machistes” (Jabberi 2012) (liberate themselves from a masculine power and gaze) by purifying the female body of its reproductive and subjugating defects. Indeed, the standards which the female body has obeyed are relative and negotiable and the traditions to which they refer are subject to reinterpretation and reorganization. There have been several elements that have caused changes in these perceptions. On the one hand, there were positive actions like the rise of the feminist movement of the 1970s and the Jasmine Revolution, which marked key demands for new liberties such as the freedom of expression. On the other, the rise of Islamism in the 1980s has re-introduced old trends in society such as the covering of the body in the name of religion.

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Feminist demands have thus focused on improving the status of women through the liberation of the body from all socio-cultural constraints, prejudices, taboos, and traditions—such as the preservation of one’s virginity until marriage as a proof of the woman’s chastity. The laws promulgated by Habib Bourguiba4 in 1956, known as the Code of Personal Status, contributed to a social and cultural liberation of Tunisian women that rendered them the most emancipated women of all the Arab countries. In addition to the institutionalization of the legal age of marriage (18 years for men and 15 years for women) and the granting of civil marriage and divorce rights to women through the Code of Personal Status, Bourguiba was the president of the first Arab country to abolish polygamy and encourage women on the streets of Tunisia to remove their veils in public. In addition, another great reformer and political leader, Tahar Haddad5 (1978) also contributed considerably to women’s emancipation and to the instatement of gender equality in Tunisia. He was convinced that religion should not be seen as an infringement of women’s rights in society but that it should guide the spirit of social reform, as he stated: “La religion musulmane ne s’oppose à rien qui puisse améliorer la condition humaine; bien au contraire, c’est une source de réforme sociale” (1978, 19) (Islam does not oppose anything that can improve the human condition; on the contrary, it is a source of social reform). The success of the reform can therefore be attributed to Islam, which saved Muslim woman from the condition of oppression and marginalization. In Haddad’s opinion, Islam should be exercised and enjoyed with the freedom granted before the decline of the Muslim world, which has no causes other than the superstitions and customs to which it is attached: S’il est vrai que la religion musulmane avait énoncé, dans de nombreux versets du Coran, l’existence d’une différence entre l’homme et la femme dans des cas bien précis, il n’en est pas moins vrai qu’elle ne rejette point le principe de l’égalité sociale entre les deux sexes chaque fois que les conditions s’y apprêtent avec l’évolution du temps. Puisque la loi musulmane vise dans son esprit à atteindre l’égalité et la justice, la doctrine musulmane a choisi d’instaurer ses lois d’une manière progressive, par paliers successifs et acceptables. (1978, 49) If Islam had really stated, in many verses of the Qu’ran, the existence of a difference between man and woman in very specific cases, it is no less true that it does not reject the principle of social equality between the two sexes each time the circumstances permit it with the evolution of

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time. Since Muslim law aims in its spirit to achieve equality and justice, Muslim doctrine has chosen to introduce its laws in a progressive manner, in successive and acceptable stages.

However, the atmosphere in Tunisia, as in the entire Arab world, is not always favorable to the liberation of women and to the recognition of their rights. In fact, the Islam of tolerance, justice, and reform described by Haddad has become the victim of its own paradox, especially with regards to the female condition and to the perception of the female body. Does the Muslim faith nowadays need to cover the woman’s body with a full veil? Is it so hostile to the face, the female body, the beauty, and freedom of women? Does it consider the woman as a fitna (“temptation, trial; sedition, civil strife, conflict”), a danger, and a source of social disturbance? In Islam d’interdits, Islam de jouissance (2008), Frédéric Lagrange defines the term fitna as follows: Le terme fitna […] désigne à la fois le désordre politique, susceptible de mettre en danger la communauté, et le désordre moral que suscite l’objet de désir sexuel et fait risquer au croyant son salut. (Frédéric Lagrange 2008, 129) The term fitna […] designates both the political disorder, likely to endanger the community, and the moral disorder which is subject to sexual desire and makes the believers risk their salvation.

From this point on, some Muslim societies, in the name of religion, aim to subjugate the woman and inhibit her rebellion. The woman must limit her appearance in public spaces where she may cause trouble (fitna). When in the public sphere, the woman finds herself forced to hide from the male’s voyeuristic gaze and to protect him from being seduced by concealing her face and the details of her body, in other words, by clothing herself, in particular, with the full veil(voile intégral ), as Abdelwaheb Cherni explains: […] le voile semble renvoyer à une vision où l’on situe le corps par rapport à l’espace et surtout par rapport à la séparation établie entre le monde des hommes et celui des femmes. La religion […] laisse entendre un effet de distinction sui generis : la visibilité des femmes pose problème dans l’espace public, d’où le recours au voile. Il s’agit d’une transaction symbolique qui permet de concilier la règle religieuse reposant sur la décence et

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la pudeur, d’une part et la manifestation publique des femmes, comme exigence sociale, de l’autre. (2014, 157–158) […] The veil seems to refer to a vision where the body is positioned in relation to space and especially in relation to the separation established between the world of men and that of women. Religion […] suggests a sui generis effect of distinction: the visibility of women poses a challenge in the public space, hence their resorting to the veil. On the one hand, it is a symbolic transaction that allows reconciliation between the religious rule based on decency and modesty and the public manifestation of women, as a social requirement, on the other.

However, if, at the beginning of Islam, this dress code imposed itself as a way of regulating social interactions, modern contexts favor the interpretation of this garment in terms of an emancipator. According to those in favor of the veil, it should be seen as a means of communication and social integration for Muslim women. On the contrary, after the events of 9 September 2001 in New York and after the fall of Baghdad in 2003, contemporary consciousness can no longer separate the Islamic veil from terrorist threats, as the veil has become the symbol of radical Islam in Western eyes. From now on, as Hélé Béji affirms in her essay Islam pride. Derrière le voile, “L’islam […] ne parvient pas à cacher les ombres criminelles jetées sur lui par les organisations terroristes, les guerres civiles et les attentats” (2011, 71) (Islam […] does not manage to hide the criminal shadows cast on it by terrorist organizations, civil wars, and attacks). Hélé Béji strongly believes that these events and these crimes succeeded in dismantling the spirit of Islamic reform. The return of the veil in the public sphere seems to obstruct this reform in Islamic countries such as contemporary Tunisia. In fact, the resurfacing of the veil has generated great controversy and even opposed visions and ideologies in Tunisia, especially after the revolution, which provides a favorable atmosphere for the rise of the Islamist political movement and the massive return to the veil. Unfortunately, Tunisian society was not spared by the influence of the rise of political Islam, especially after the advent of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. These changes in the 1980s forced the Tunisian government to take action against the Ennahdha movement.6 The rise in political Islam in Tunisia under the echo of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the 1980s was, in fact, the trigger for strong political and social reforms in the

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country. Therefore, the veil disappeared from the public sphere and the ban took violent forms in Tunisia. Later on, in the 2000s, the wearing of the veil in public places made a gradual return. More so in the aftermaths of the Jasmine Revolution, Tunisians witnessed a real phenomenon of massive veiling. Some of the women even abandoned the traditional veil inherited from their mothers and grandmothers in favor of the niqab, a new garment covering their faces and bodies entirely, as a sign of a chosen and assumed choice according to the first readings and understandings of the Qu’ran. In the context of the increase in the number of veiled women on the streets of Tunis, two novel trends curiously arose: the adoption of the veil by educated, young, and emancipated women who devote themselves to wearing it by choice and their remarkable visibility in public spaces. The representation of the veiled female body seems to change its meaning for these young, educated women who do not necessarily see it as a regression in their rights or as a cultural restraint. In addition to the large number of veiled women in public spaces, several “feminist” speeches and public behaviors germinated as well. With these fluctuations in society and these attitudes of new generations of women, Tunisian feminists, especially writers, are worried about the condition of women, their ideology and their vestimentary behavior. In Emna Belhaj Yahia’s Jeux de rubans , the veil is analyzed in depth as a way to problematize the dual visions in contemporary society, a duality noticed by the writer herself in her daily life. This symbol of representation of the status of Tunisian women in the current cultural and political context takes on a particular meaning in the novel through its adoption and rejection. The wearing of the hijab does not seem to express only a religious trend and a simple quest for identity but, rather, a deep societal unease which will be the subject of the next part of this study.

Problematizing the Veil in Emna Belhaj Yahia’s Novel Jeux de Rubans By closely reading Jeux de rubans by Emna Belhaj Yahia, one discovers images reminiscent of Tunisian daily life and the reality as well as the social and political identity that the body reveals through the experiences that characters have with the veil and their opinions concerning this issue. The author carefully depicts the two sides of the same coin by presenting the

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strong arguments of two of the main characters in the novel—Frida and her son Tofayl—who symbolize two opposing points of view on the veil. Frida, the first character around whom the narrative framework is built, is the perfect embodiment of a certain reality in post-2011 Tunisia. A divorced academic, mother of a university student—Tofayl—Frida is seen as an emancipated and modern woman, satisfied with her situation and the achievements that the late President Habib Bourguiba bestowed on Tunisian women. She is proud to have been raised in the principles of the postcolonial generation; a generation of daring and determined women like her old mother, Zubayda, who, even after abandoning the veil at the age of 35, did not lose faith in Islam and its noble principles as she confesses: Chaque jour, ma mère fait ses prières et récite les plus longues sourates avec la même ferveur. Le fait qu’elle quitte le voile n’y modifie rien. C’est pourquoi, aujourd’hui, je ne réussis pas à voir dans sa réapparition le signe d’un essor religieux. Il m’est avis qu’il s’agit d’autre chose. Mais quoi? (2011, 24–25) Every day, my mother prays and recites the longest Surahs (chapters) with the same fervor. The fact that she takes the veil off does not change anything. This is why, today, I cannot see its reappearance as a sign of a religious upturn. In my opinion, it is something else. But what?

Referring to this generation of women, Rabia Redouane sees the postcolonial Tunisian woman as a person who. a toujours maintenu sa foi de femme musulmane avec ses valeurs sacrées enracinées d’un monde qui favorisait le développement d’un islam de prière, de droiture, d’harmonie et de piété. Un islam de pratiques réelles, non d’apparences ou de croyance idéologique fanatisée. (Redouane 2015, 168–169) has always maintained her faith as a Muslim woman with her sacred values rooted in a world that promoted the development of an Islam of prayer, righteousness, harmony and piety, an Islam of real practice not of appearance or of fanatic ideological beliefs).

Frida, therefore, has a great respect and admiration for her mother’s courageous acts in facing all the constraints that may have infringed on

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her freedom and happiness. This vision contrasts with the austerely veiled women that she sees on the streets of her city. Scarves, long skirts, and wide dresses covering the women’s bodies are all unfamiliar and foreign dress codes to her upbringing and familiar traditions. This destabilizing view perturbs her and makes her question this situation, while confessing to Zaydûn, who accompanies her in her journey through the streets of Tunis: Mais pourquoi faut-il que le changement soit vécu à travers la façon dont elles habillent leurs corps? Comment s’habituer à ces nouvelles robes qui leur arrivent à la cheville, à ces métrages sur leurs cheveux ? Que veulentelles dire par là ? Les femmes seraient-elles le support d’un texte qui se balade? (Belhaj Yahia 2011, 97) But why must the change be experienced through the way they dress their bodies? How do they get used to these new ankle-length dresses and to these veils on their hair? What do they mean by it? Are women the supporters of a message that wanders around?

As an open-minded woman, Frida struggles to explain to Zaydûn (and to herself) the women’s renouncement of their long-acquired liberties. She recalls that, at the beginning, they were not a great number whereas, at present, they can no longer be counted—they are everywhere. Frida is shocked to realize that these women, who know very well the price paid by their ancestors to emancipate themselves, would voluntarily and without any external pressure, be veiled. She feels an immense resentment rising in her as she observes the brutal change overflowing the public space which manifests itself by this covering, like a mask, that is more revealing than hidden. Being visible, for these women, is more important than being “invisible” to the public eye. Hélé Béji (2011, 34–35) also highlights this fact that, in recent decades, Tunisian Muslim women wear the veil to attract attention and to be noticed with the purpose of emphasizing the new taste for the extreme, expressed by Tunisians as “La nudité est devenue banale; mais le voile intégrale, ça c’est le scoop original” (Nudity has become trivial; but the full veil, that is the original scoop). The street becomes a public stage where the veil is depicted as a second skin and as a “constructed” identity marker intended to hide the body under this appearance and it only reveals what is permitted and authorized by society. These attitudes are even more shocking from a religious point

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of view; they are melted in the interiority and the morals of the being, in defiance of clothes, appearances, and words, as Frida argues: Le problème, c’est que chaque femme porte ainsi sur sa peau comme une étiquette, une marque de fabrique. N’importe qui peut dès lors s’adresser à elle sur cette base. Cela s’appelle la religion de l’extérieur. Il n’y a rien de bon à en entendre, sinon de la contrainte, de l’hypocrisie et des jeux de masque à n’en plus finir. (2011, 104–105) (The problem is that every woman thus wears on her skin a sort of a label, a trademark. Anyone can therefore refer to her on that basis. This is called the exterior religion. Nothing good is heard about it except hypocrisy and endless mask games.)

She believes that the veil is present on the heads of those who seek to attract attention and want to be noticed or those who want to show themselves as saints in order to find a husband. This garment then becomes a seduction device that multiplies the chances of these women not remaining a spinster. Frida ridicules men who are fooled by the tricks of veiled women, who are seen as pure and virtuous thanks to this scarf— which hides their hair—and these clothes which envelop their bodies, as she admits in her heated discussion with her son Tofayl, who is in love with a young veiled girl: “Ces femmes me dérangent parce qu’elles portent leur foi comme un panneau, une affiche publicitaire” (2011, 146) (These women bother me because they wear their faith as a billboard, an advertising poster). Frida is worried about the current situation as she realizes that women are becoming divided over the issue, blaming each other and turning the guns against themselves. In so doing, women once again give men the opportunity to regain their strength and exploit this ideological twist as a result of the rivalry between the followers of the veil and the feminists. This dispute over the veil is an infringement of universal female freedom and equal rights between men and women as well as a loss of compassion for its own sex. By noticing that these women obey and submit themselves to the global Islamic movement, Frida is worried because “rien ne garantit que, plus tard, les partisans de ce mode vestimentaire ne chercheront pas à l’imposer à tout le monde” (2011, 161) (there is no guarantee that, later, partisans of this way of dressing will not try to impose it on everyone). The nonsensical words, in Frida’s opinion, are uttered by these women,

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who have not learned “à penser et à parler, sauf d’une manière convenue et selon des moules” (2011, 107) (to think and speak except in agreement and according to convictions) transforming them into females attached spiritually to a religion that is only concerned with their appearances. In consequence, when she comes across “strangely dressed” Ismahene (2011, 76) or her son’s girlfriend, Chokrane, Frida reacts with fury and rejects Tofayl’s choice of partnership with a veiled woman. Her reaction engenders conflicts and arguments between her and her son, culminating in the split between them over the veil argument and his choosing Chokrane over his mother. From this perspective, the last part of this study takes another look at the meaning and representation of the veil as a way of communication, access to public space and social regulation.

The Reclaimed Veil: An Expression of Feminine Emancipation and a Means for Integrating Public Space? Tofayl, in opposition to his mother’s vision of the veil, defends his belovèd and brings his own point of view on the question of the veil in the novel. Unlike his mother, who sees in this manner of dressing a regression of the Tunisian woman and a betrayal of feminine emancipation, the young man finds in the veil “un acte libre et qu’il faut admettre en tant que tel, dès lors qu’il ne porte pas atteinte à une autre liberté” (2011, 161) (a free act that must be admitted as such, as long as it does not infringe any other freedom.) For him, his grandmother and his fiancée both succeeded in transgressing social and moral norms and codes by emancipating themselves and making their choices, each one in her own way: one by abandoning her headscarf and the other one by veiling herself. If Frida rejects the veil that she equates to a “commercial strategy,” “a poster,” or even “a billboard,” Tofayl does not find in this piece of clothing a form of oppression or simply a religious symbol. He considers that the two acts of un/veiling are, rather, an affirmation of a certain human individuality as he reveals while addressing Chokrane: […] Zubayda décide de laisser tomber le drap blanc ou beige clair qu’elle a toujours glissé sur elle avant de sortir de la maison. Et elle se met à sortir comme ça […] sans poser de questions, sans chercher de réponses, tout comme toi. (2011, 153)

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[…] Zubayda decides to drop the white or light beige sheet that she has always slipped on before leaving the house. She starts going out like that […] without asking questions, without looking for answers, just like you.

The young man admits that, while the wearing of the veil is, for some women, a personal and assumed choice, for others it is a means “pour mieux s’adapter et se protéger contre les incessantes agressions des hommes” (175) (to better adapt and protect themselves against constant attacks from men). Partisans of the veil find in this outfit a total protection—even a “pledge of respectability” (2011, 175). Convinced by some of her son’s arguments, Frida agrees that the headscarf can bring, in certain situations, “protection and invulnerability” (2011, 148) for women who struggle to provide for their families and that it can protect them from men who imagine that a woman who walks in the street is there to be harassed: Je revois à l’instant toutes celles […] que j’avais déjà remarquées bien des fois et qui, dans les quartiers populaires, ont sauté sur cet habit pour pouvoir exercer tranquillement leur métier d’aide-ménagère […] à la fois énergiques et menacées, elles ont trouvé dans ce foulard […] et ces quelques centimètres de plus dans la longueur des jupes, une aide précieuse. A l’homme qui, sous prétexte qu’elles quittent le domicile, aurait envie de jeter sur elles le soupçon, leur nouvel habit est là pour dire : attention, pas touche ! Je suis une femme honorable et je sors gagner ma vie et celle des miens. (2011, 88–89) I see, at this very moment, all those […] who I had already noticed many times and who, in the working-class neighborhoods, used this veil in order to be able to quietly perform their job as housekeepers […] at once energetic and threatened, they found in this scarf […] and these few centimeters more in the length of their skirts, a precious help. To the man who, on the pretext that these women are leaving home, would like to cast suspicion on them, their new clothes are there to say: “Be careful, don’t touch me! I am an honorable woman and I go out to earn a living for my family”.

However, for her what is striking in the practice of wearing the veil are the individual experiences through which the process of differentiation is expressed via imitation. Indeed, Chokrane uses this dress code to escape the vulgarity of the words addressed by the men in the street. At first, it was her neighbor who advised her to wear a veil, as Chokrane admits:

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Oui, Dalel, une voisine de mon âge, me l’avait conseillé après avoir essayé elle-même. Alors j’ai fait comme elle. Sans poser de questions, sans chercher de réponses. Comme ça, juste parce que j’en avais assez. (2011, 147) Yes, Dalel, a neighbor of my age advised me after she tried the veil too. So, I did like her without asking questions, without seeking answers. Just like that, because I have had enough.

The young woman then continues to wear the headscarf because she really wants to. At one point, Chokrane, who adopted the veil by simply imitating her neighbor, begins to seek distinction and differentiation. She manages to find comfort and her own model of veiling that is adapted to her daily life as a student and a modern woman, as Khaoula Matri explains: La quête d’un modèle conforme à la manière de penser se développe et s’élabore au fur et à mesure de l’expérience et de la pratique. Au début l’imitation aide l’individu à trouver ses repères. La convertie dispose de modèles de comportement établis. Elle teste les différents types de sousmodèles, pour arriver à trouver un modèle qui correspond à ses attentes et à son choix. (2015, 240) The quest for a model that conforms to one’s way of thinking is developed according to experience and practice. At first, imitation helps the individual to find her way. The converted woman can make use of established models of behavior. She tests the different types of sub-model, to find a pattern that meets her expectations and her choice.

Despite the fact that it is a new way of standing out in the crowd and of reinstating diversity, the veil for young Chokrane is neither contradictory to her freedom as a woman nor to fashion and beauty, as Frida thought; she provokes the young lady by asking why she wears long dresses and a scarf on her head. Chokrane replies that the veil does not bother her at all and that she can, on the contrary, adapt to different situations and different places. She exclaims: […] je porte aussi un jeans et des baskets. Là, regarde, j’ai deux grosses bagues en argent, un sautoir. Mon chemisier marron, en coton, est plutôt sympa, tu ne trouves pas ? Et les chaussures sont de la même couleur. (Belhaj Yahia, 2011, 147)

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[…] also I wear jeans and trainers. Look! I have two big silver rings and a long necklace. My brown cotton blouse is pretty cool, don’t you think? And the shoes are of the same color.

Chokrane is astonished to be regarded and judged as a submissive woman or as a traitor to female emancipation. She is the example of the veiled woman who went out, took to the street and mingled with active individuals, to show that it is indeed the street, the university, and the public space—and not the house—that constitute her new kingdom. Chokrane explains that women who adopt the veil nowadays are not prisoners of this dress code. Adepts of the veil are, rather, emancipated women who enjoy legal freedom, equality, and all the rights which they ardently claim. However, whatever the reasons given to justify its reappearance in the public sphere, for Frida the veil flourishes and invades post-revolutionary Tunisia thanks to the reign of political Islamism and under the pretext of freedom of expression. She finds excuses for women who have resorted to such an outfit to protect themselves from harassment and gain respect but, at the same time, denounces the phenomenon, which is indicative of the unease in current Tunisian society and which undermines individual freedom. Freedom gives birth to its own disturbances and new chains of dependence.

Conclusion Emna Belhaj Yahia confirms, with the novel Jeux de rubans , that she is one of the daring voices in the Tunisian feminine literature who takes a closer look at the female status in an Islamic country, Tunisia, particularly through the perception of the female body and especially the veiled body. The relationship with the body is no longer a discursive taboo. In societies troubled by civil war or even revolutions (like the Arab Spring), women are sacrificed in a dream of emancipation. This goal is difficult to achieve because, of course, little prosperity reigns and freedom of expression is no longer confiscated but new standards and ideological currents that restrict women’s freedom, in particular Islamist ideology, are building up. In fact, the combination of the terms Islam and sexuality or even Islam and terrorism strikes public discourse. Submission of the body to divine order is a reality lived in contemporary Tunisia as it is seen as a quest for a certain enjoyment and transgression of prohibitions. From this point of view, Frédéric Lagrange

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can see society’s struggle to combine and accept these two perspectives as he states: “[…] les sociétés musulmanes ont vu se tendre, puis se radicaliser les tensions entre le discours de la loi et celui de la foi populaire, entre norme sacrée et norme vécue” (2008, 215) ([…] Muslim societies have seen the tensions between the discourse of the law and that of popular faith, between the sacred standard and the lived standard, stretched then radicalized.) The result is a proliferation of different conceptions and representations of Islam and the veil “qui tentent de concilier le désirable et le possible” (2008, 215) (which attempt to reconcile the desirable and the possible) and becomes an important theme for contemporary French and Francophone literature.

Notes 1. Jalila Hafsia is considered one of the pioneers of feminine literature in Tunisia with her novel Cendre à l’aube in 1975. 2. The Tunisian Revolution, also called the Jasmine Revolution, was an intensive 28-day campaign of civil resistance. It included a series of street demonstrations which took place in Tunisia and led to the ousting of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. 3. After the revolution, Ennahdha, the party in power currently, did not hide the fact that they are favorable to the idea of imposing Sharia law and of establishing a religious state following the model of the Caliphate. 4. Habib Bourghiba was a Tunisian leader who had led the country from 1956 to 1987. He first served as the second Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Tunisia before proclaiming the Republic of Tunisia in 1957 and thus becoming its first president. 5. Tahar Haddad was a Tunisian author, scholar, and reformer. Public notary by profession, he abandoned this career to become a member of the AlDestour political party. 6. The Ennahdha Movement (Mouvement Ennahdha), also known as the Renaissance Party, is a self-defined “Muslim democratic” political party in Tunisia. It was first founded as “The Movement of Islamic Tendency” in 1981 and gained more international attention after the Jasmine Revolution when it won the national elections.

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References Belhaj Yahia, Emna. 2011. Jeux de rubans. Tunis: Elyzad. Beji, Hélé. 2011. Islam Pride. Derrière le voile. Paris: Gallimard. Chouikha, Larbi. 2005. La question du hijab en Tunisie: Une amorce de débat contradictoire. In La politisation du voile en France, en Europe et dans le monde arabe, dir. F. Lorcerie, 161–179. Paris: L’Harmattan. Cherni, Abdelwaheb. 2014. Ce que porter le hijab aujourd’hui veut dire: Usages et transactions symboliques. In Muqàbasàt. Tunis: Publication périodique de l’Institut Supérieur des Sciences Humaines de Tunis. Haddad, Tahar. 1978. Notre femme, la législation islamique et la société. Tunis: MTE. Hafsia, Jelila. 1975. Cendre à l’aube. Tunis: Maison tunisienne de l’édition. Jabberi, Mondher. 2012. Jeux de rubans, rubans de vie détressés. Lettres tunisiennes, January 29. Online at http://www.lettrestunisiennes.com/index. php/notes-de-lecture/34-articles-de-lecture/154-jeux-de-rubans-rubans-devie-detresses-. Kassab-Charfi, Samia, and Adel Khedher. 2019. Un siècle de littérature en Tunisie 1900–2017 . Paris: Honoré Champion. Lagrange, Frédéric. 2008. Islam d’interdits, Islam de jouissance. Tunis: Cérès. Lachheb, Monia. 2012. Le corps pluriel. In Penser le corps au Maghreb. TunisParis: IRMC-Karthala. Matri, Khaoula. 2015. Le port du voile au Maghreb: l’exemple tunisien. Casablanca: Fondation du Roi Abdul-Aziz. Nassim Aboudrar, Bruno. 2014. Comment le voile est devenu musulman? Paris: Flammarion. Redouane, Rabia. 2015. Jeux de rubans d’Emna Belhaj Yahia ou l’univers féminin en confrontation. In Les espaces intimes féminins dans la littérature maghrébine d’expression française, ed. R. Elbaz and F. Saquer-Sabin, 167–185. Paris: L’Harmattan. Samandi, Zeineb. 1999. Le Hijâb révolutionnaire contre le Hijâb traditionnel. Le corps de la femme et l’ordre social. In Revue Tunisienne des Sciences Sociales 119: 39–47. Sellami, Mariem. 2012. Usage du voile et statut du corps chez les adolescentes tunisiennes. In Penser le corps au Maghreb, dir. LACHHEB Monia. Paris: Khartala-IRMC.

Eclipsing the Sun in Amira-Géhanne Khalfallah’s Le Naufrage de La Lune: Re-Appropriating Islamic Power Dynamics Through Allegory and Self-Representation Pamela A. Pears

Algerian author, Amira-Géhanne Khalfallah’s 2018 historical novel, Le Naufrage de La Lune [The Shipwreck of The Moon], is set immediately before, during, and fifteen years after French King Louis XIV’s1664 naval attack on the northeastern Algerian coastal city of Jijel (formerly Gigérie).1 With the help of forces from Malta, the Netherlands, and England, the French sought to overtake the corsair stronghold on the so-called Barbary Coast (Chatelain 1708). At the time, both Algiers and Tunis were under Ottoman control; therefore, Gigérie’s location between the two would give the French an important foothold along the Mediterranean trade route. The French arrived with almost five thousand soldiers and quickly captured the city, forcing the Gigérians to turn to the Ottomans for help. With their aid, the Gigérians began to dominate. Historical accounts show that the French expedition was poorly managed, that at least part of the fleet was old, and that sailors and soldiers were ill prepared. Additionally, reinforcements and supplies were slow to arrive.

P. A. Pears (B) St. Andrew’s School, Middletown, DE, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Mielusel (ed.), Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81234-8_7

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Both climate and geography were inhospitable, and as heat and famine began to take their toll, French troops allegedly began to openly discuss converting to Islam and joining the Ottoman janissaries. Ultimately, Louis XIV’s fleet retreated in defeat, and as one of the ships, The Moon, returned to France carrying about one thousand men, it sank off the coast of Toulon (Bachelot 2014; Guérin and Jouon 2013; Luneau 2012). It is from this shipwreck that Khalfallah’s novel gets its name. Although the historical episode that serves as the framework for the novel occurs more than 150 years before France’s 130-year colonization of Algeria, Khalfallah writes the novel in the present tense, suggesting contemporary relevance. In fact, she notes: “… même si cette histoire n’est pas connue… elle est très présente en Algérie d’où l’utilisation du présent dans ma narration” […even if this story is not well known…it is very present in Algeria, thus the use of the present [tense] in my narration] (https://www.reporters.dz/amira-gehanne-khalfallah-auteure-duroman-le-naufrage-de-la-lune-si-je-devais-resumer-ce-livre-en-un-motce-serait-quiproquo/).2 Furthermore, the battle of Gigérie is also a harbinger of the colonialism to come,3 and its documentation or lack thereof is emblematic of the ways in which History has been written from a Euro-centric point of view. In recounting this particular event in a contemporary novel, Khalfallah brings it into the present, rewrites it, ultimately representing it from a Maghrebi perspective that revalorizes local heritage through self-representation.4 Moreover, using a seventeenthcentury historical episode enables her to re-establish a positive representation of Muslims and Islam in North Africa, counteracting pervasive, contemporary, negative images. As a francophone Maghrebi author, Khalfallah continues the tradition of authors such as Assia Djebar, who re-appropriate historical narratives and write against western notions of Islam—especially with regard to women. In Khalfallah’s writing, Islam is not associated with reductive connotations of fundamentalism, terrorism, or veiling; instead, it is linked to knowledge, life, and powerful femininity. Islam and conversion from Christianity figure prominently in the text, implicitly recalling French colonial policy preventing citizenship to indigenous Algerians who were Muslim5 but also putting into question what it means to be faithful. Pointedly, In Le Naufrage de La Lune, one French royal subject intentionally converts to Islam, but is mocked for being without true faith; while the other does not explicitly choose Islam—it is chosen for him—yet he gains the respect of the Gigérians because he appears to respect their beliefs. Khalfallah explains: “La

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religion musulmane se base beaucoup plus sur la profession de la foi mais qui peut savoir quelle est la foi de quelqu’un? Qui peut sonder de l’autre?” [The Muslim religion is based primarily on the profession of faith, but who can know what someone’s faith is? Who can know the intentions of another?] (https://www.reporters.dz/amira-gehanne-kha lfallah-auteure-du-roman-le-naufrage-de-la-lune-si-je-devais-resumer-celivre-en-un-mot-ce-serait-quiproquo/). This focus on faith intentionality calls to mind contemporary discussions on what it means to be Muslim in the Maghreb in the twenty-first century. Khalfallah exploits this question using historical facts and the evocative symbolism of France’s Louis XIV, the Sun King, losing a ship called The Moon, following a failed attempt to conquer a city along the northern coast of Africa. Through an allegorical interpretation of the sun and the moon, their significance in Christianity and Islam, to the French monarchy and the Ottoman empire, and by extension, to France and Algeria, she confronts important questions of faith and self-representation. An extended metaphor that employs, as Maureen Quilligan defines it, “polysemy… [m]eaning multiple things simultaneously with one word” (Quilligan 1992, 26), allegory has a long global literary history, particularly in association with both the Middle Ages and Christianity. As Edward Saïd demonstrates, its use in the Western literary tradition has helped to strengthen Christian apprehension of Muslims and has “…turned Islam into the very epitome of an outsider against which the whole of European civilization from the Middle Ages on was founded” (Saïd 1979, 70). One of the most enduring examples of this is Dante’s Divine Comedy, which uses allegory to “… seamlessly combine… the realistic portrayal of mundane reality with a universal and eternal system of Christian values” (Saïd 1979, 68). Significantly, in the hierarchy of the circles of hell depicted in the Inferno, the prophet Mohammed appears in the eighth of nine, meaning his crimes are very near to those of Satan himself. In addition to its association with Christianity, allegory, in post-colonial theory, acts as an example of counter-discourse that “…contests and disrupts the narrative assumptions of colonialism, the dominance of the chronological view of history, [and] the Euro-centric view of ‘the real’.” (Ashcroft et al. 1998, 10). In Le Naufrage de La Lune, the extended metaphor of the sun and the moon re-appropriates and inverts both the Euro-centric power dynamics between Islam and Christianity, and those between the colonized (Algeria) and the colonizer (France).

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The novel tells the story of Jean-François, a French naval officer, who is part of the failed invasion of Gigérie. The French fleet has been gone for several months when Gigérian residents, Aïcha and Mohamed, find Jean-François, alone and badly injured, still in his military uniform. The couple renames him Mahmoud and decides not to turn him into Ottoman authorities, opting instead to secretly enslave him. However, unable to properly care for him, they eventually turn to Thiziri, the marabout’s daughter, for help. Thiziri nurses Mahmoud back to health, and although she knows he is both a Frenchman and a Christian, she chooses to hide him and even help him plan his escape. She provides Mahmoud with a map outlining an escape route to reach Algiers, where The Moon will carry survivors back to France. But, this escape plan will be thwarted by a significant secondary character, a former French soldier, whose name, certainly not coincidentally, is Christian. Angered over the loss of a friend in battle and over his treatment by the French, he converts to Islam, joins the Ottoman army, and changes his name to Othmane.6 It is Othmane, who, as part of a patrolling janissary unit, sees Mahmoud, identifies him as the French naval officer, Jean-François, and arrests him. With the help of both Thiziri and her aunt Neffa, Mahmoud escapes yet again, eventually becoming Muslim and marrying Thiziri. He will live out his days as a respected fisherman in Gigérie, while Christian/Othmane will become the laughingstock of the village.7 Beyond the names of Louis XIV’s ships, the significance of the sun and the moon is based in a long history of these symbols. The Ottoman Empire embraced the crescent moon as a dominant emblem in the fifteenth century, and the star and crescent moon together is one of the most widely used pairs of images throughout the Islamic world (Chwalkowski 2016). Today, the national flag of Algeria, adopted in 1962, prominently features a red crescent and star in the center. By contrast, in the seventeenth century, King Louis XIV of France selected the sun, symbol of the Greek god, Apollo, as his personal motif. Its form dominates the château and grounds of Versailles, where the king famously moved his court from Paris. Louis XIV wanted to emulate Apollo,8 god of light, art, and peace, but beyond that, he also created a highly regulated and ritualized court culture at Versailles, where every activity revolved around him, the way the earth revolves around the sun (Burke 1992). As sovereign of France, Louis XIV was Catholic, therefore the sun also calls to mind both the association of the moon with Christ and the creation of light that appears in the Book of Genesis. In Christianity, the light

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of the day comes from the sun, whereas the light of the night comes from the moon (May 1939). Although the sun does have significance in Islam, as both the “supreme cosmic power” (Weightman 1996, 60) and the “all-seeing and all-knowing eye of Allah” (Weightman 1996, 60), it is the crescent moon “that stands for divinity and sovereignty” (Weightman 1996, 61). Of the two symbols, the moon appears first in the narrative. As the story opens, Raïss [Captain] Mahmoud is fishing off the coast, reflecting on the landscape of Gigérie: “La première fois que je l’ai vue [cette terre], il y avait des restes de lune, comme ce matin” [The first time that I saw it [this land], there were traces of the moon, like this morning] (Khalfallah 2018, 12). In this way, the reader’s first view of Gigérie comes through the eyes of a Muslim fisherman in the early morning moonlight, where he does not mention the sun or the sunrise. Since, in Islam, the calendar is lunar, the moon determines the beginning and end of each month; and here, in Mahmoud’s prioritizing of it, the moon, rather than the sun, marks the beginning of a new day and the ending of the previous. Significantly, it is the light of the moon that is the guiding light, echoing imagery throughout the Islamic world. Subsequently, in the chapters where Jean-François is the central character at Versailles, Khalfallah uses sun imagery in a way that is contrary to expectations. Rather than associating it with the brilliance of Louis XIV’s palace, she uses it to demonstrate Jean-François’s lack of enthusiasm for the court. At Versailles, he perceives the lack of sunshine and the coldness: “À peine naissant, le soleil, épuisé, se retire de la froide journée” [Barely dawning, the sun, spent, retreats from the cold day] (Khalfallah 2018, 24). Here, the sun is not bright and hot, rather it is exhausted and barely providing warmth. And, earlier in the same description is the following: “Le soleil d’avril aussi rare que le silence se brise dans le jour” [The April sun, as rare as the silence, breaks into the day] (Khalfallah 2018, 24). Again, the sun is fighting to be barely seen—certainly not the image normally associated with Louis XIV’s bright, vibrant source of light and vitality. Additionally, the comparison to the sun being as rare as silence is striking, since between the ongoing construction of the king’s castle and his love of music and dancing, life at Versailles is anything but quiet. The sun should be the ever-present symbol of the orgiastic, decadent feasts that carry on all through the night, ending at dawn. Instead of glorious illumination, as the sun rises, it shines a feeble light on the detritus from the night before.

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Jean-François’s perception of the sun acts as a metaphor for his intolerance of court society, while his praise of the moon mirrors his preference for the “Orient.” A former doctor, his belief in the theories of Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek and his questioning of accepted medical practices in Europe have not endeared him to court society.9 After his perceived failures as a doctor, he adopts the sea as his patient, focusing on the similarities between its unknown depths and those of the human body. The narrative refers to the Mediterranean Sea as his “bien-aimée” [beloved] (Khafallah 2018, 23). Additionally, following a trip to Southeast Asia, he praises that region’s history, architecture, and light, inserting familiar exotic tropes into the text, including vibrant colors, as well as mysterious, ancient traditions and beliefs. As he thinks about the light of the “Orient,” he notes the lack of shadows and reflection, seemingly contrasting this to Versailles, where servants hide desperately in the shadows so as not to disturb the image of the perfect feast or ceremony. Khalfallah’s use of light and shadows, along with Jean-François’s familiar exoticization of the so-called “Orient” reminds the reader of the place of travel in seventeenth-century Europe. It is through exploration that Europeans began to catalog the rest of the world (Ashcroft et al. 1998). Jean-François’s “discovery” of the “Orient” is a reiteration of the myths associated with what Edward Saïd has shown to be the “…self-containing, self-reinforcing… closed system” of Orientalism (Saïd 1979, 70). These references help set up the allegorical reading and Jean-François’s place in it. As a French naval officer, his appreciation of the “Orient” is based upon it being the exotic other and on his exploratory travel that will re-affirm its difference from Europe. Later, as his illusions about the “Orient” fall away in the midst of the losing battle against the Gigérians, Jean-François will admit that everything he learned in France has no place in his life anymore. When the Sun King sends two ships, The Moon and The Sun, to rescue the defeated French troops after the humiliating loss in Gigérie, their departure from the North African coastline is depicted as follows: Au crépuscule, Le Soleil lève l’ancre et entre dans la nuit. La Lune le suit de près sans le rattraper. À son bord, trois cent cinquate marins et quatre cent cinquante soldats. Les bateaux glissent vers la tempête qui les attend en mer. L’un à côté de l’autre, mais l’un sans l’autre. Fragile et vieille, La Lune lourde, malade, porte des hommes encore plus malades et désespérés. Des centaines de blessés sont abandonnés. Personne ne parle. L’horizon est absent. La tempête est impatiente. Les Gigériens n’ont pas

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vu partir les Français. Mais la lune est montée dans le ciel pour dénoncer leur retraite précoce. [At twilight, The Sun raises anchor and enters into the night. The Moon follows it closely without catching up to it. On board, three hundred fifty sailors and four hundred fifty soldiers. The boats glide toward the storm that awaits them at sea. One next to the other, but one without the other. Fragile and old, The Moon, heavy, sick, carries even sicker and more desperate men. Hundreds of injured are abandoned. No one speaks. The horizon is absent. The storm is impatient. The Gigérians did not see the French leave. But the moon has risen in the sky to denounce their hasty retreat]. (Khalfallah 2018, 112–113)

In the first sentence of this paragraph, Khalfallah uses the literal ship name, The Sun, to create an allegorical scene, where both the sun and The Sun pass beyond the horizon at twilight.10 The fading light from the setting sun is ahead of the moon in the natural order of the daylight. This presents a contrast to the opening passage of the novel, analyzed earlier, where Mahmoud introduces Gigérie in the morning prioritizing the traces of the moon in the sky. In that passage, the moon appears first and there is no mention of the sun. Instead, here, as the day is ending, there is still a glimmer of sunlight. In addition, this passage depicting the departing ships comes at the end of “Book I,” framing out the first half of the narrative, and serving as a conclusion to the battle. In a reversal of signs, “Book I” begins with the moon, but ends with the sun, implying that the moon is associated with beginnings and the sun with endings. By extension, then, it is the Gigérian moon that dominates in victory while the French sun retreats in defeat. Nevertheless, in the imagery of the departure of Louis XIV’s fleet, The Sun leads the way; everything and everyone must revolve around the central figure of the sun, so The Moon is compelled to follow. Furthermore, The Sun represents youth, while The Moon is the older, more troubled ship, encumbered with the sick and wounded. The age of the two ships is not incidental in the metaphorical reading, because Louis XIV, as a young man himself, placed importance upon the image of youth. His infamous parties at Versailles were designed to celebrate life and display the vitality of the new king (Burke 1992). Moreover, part of the motivation for the Gigérian expedition was to prove his power and make his mark as a young king (Bachelot 2014).

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While the two ships depart together, The Sun pulls ahead of The Moon, demonstrating its dominance. As both ships head toward an ominous storm at sea,11 Khalfallah alludes to the shipwreck of The Moon, but also to the personified sun leaving behind the personified moon. As Brigitte Le Juez and Olga Springer explain in their work on the shipwreck motif in literature, “[t]he shipwreck, as an image and symbol, is intimately connected to the symbolic potential of the ship and of life as a ship voyage” (1). To use Le Juez and Springer’s analytical approach, the symbolic potential of The Sun is tied to its name and its provenance. That the ship belongs to Louis XIV, and, more importantly, bears his personal device’s name leaves no doubt that it will survive. However, The Moon, near death from the outset, unsurprisingly, will be the victim of the storm. The implication follows that the life associated with The Moon will be cut short. In this way, the shipwreck can, in fact, foreshadow the French colonial dominance over Algeria. Furthermore, the fact that the wreckage of The Moon sat undisturbed for hundreds of years eerily echoes the French government’s unwillingness to confront its colonial past, epitomized here by the literal burial of its failure (Guérin and Jouon 2013; Stora 2001). In the final lines of the passage, the surreptitious withdrawal of the French from the Gigérian coast is depicted as cowardly, which the narrator underscores in the last two sentences. Although the people do not witness the ships slinking away, the Gigérian moon casts an accusing eye over the French retreat. The passage is framed by the twilight at the beginning and the rising moon at the end. The French Christians present the face of a battle victory with the first image being the sun, but the truth is that they have lost, and the king is humiliated. Nonetheless, in the returning ships, defeat is entirely relegated to The Moon, which they will sacrifice. This is a point made in the novel by Othmane, who says: “Le Roi Soleil a fait couler La Lune… Le soleil a tué la lune, le soleil veut tuer la lune…” [The Sun King has made The Moon sink… The sun has killed the moon, the sun wants to kill the moon] (Khalfallah 2018, 172). Othmane directly accuses Louis XIV of having sabotaged one of his own ships, claiming that the king caused The Moon to sink. Bachelot, in his historical account of the actual event, explains that the ship’s poor condition was likely to blame, but at the time, multiple versions of the story were recounted (Bachelot 2014). Othmane believes that the French would rather sacrifice their men “…qu’annoncer la défaite d’un roi” [than announce the defeat of a king] (Khalfallah 2018, 166). Othmane then moves from the literal to the figurative. He spells out the allegory of the sun and the

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moon, accusing the sun, representing the king, Christianity, and France, of killing or wanting to kill the moon, representing Islam, Gigérie, and the Ottomans. The sun’s desire to kill the moon is the French desire to attack Gigérie, but also the Christians trying to overtake the Muslims, and eventually the Ottomans, in North Africa. So, on the French side of the Mediterranean, The Sun survives, even though they have lost the battle. On the Gigérian side, however, the literal setting of the sun and rising of the accusatory moon shows a change in dominance. In Louis XIV’s fleet, The Sun may be the stronger vessel, but the fact that the moon remains the stronger force in Gigérie, demonstrates the ways in which the French have underestimated its strength. This inversion of force—where the moon is more powerful than the sun—is also reinforced through Mahmoud’s relationship with his pregnant wife, Thiziri, whose name means “light of the moon” in the native Berber language. In the literal language of the text, Thiziri despises the sun, avoiding its rays as much as possible. When the sun does appear she “…redoute ses rayons…” [dreads its rays] (Khalfallah 2018, 30). Further exploiting the prioritization of the moon over the sun in Gigérie, Thiziri’s cousin-in-law, Malika, wonders why the sun takes liberties to shine all over her entire body without consulting her: “ ‘Pourquoi n’est-il [le soleil] pas discret et doux comme la lune qui observe de loin?’” [‘Why isn’t it [the sun] discreet and gentle like the moon that observes from afar?’] (Khalfallah 2018, 176). The sun is invasive, just as the French and their king have been, while the moon is restrained and prudent, just as the Gigérian women are. In this figurative language of the masculine French sun and the feminine Gigérian moon, it recalls the sexualized language of conquest seen throughout narratives describing the European “taking” of North African land.12 Khalfallah inverts this by highlighting women’s power to give birth.13 When Thiziri was a child, her mother sang her a lullaby, in which she encouraged her to emulate the moon “… qui se transforme, toujours belle, jamais pareille… qui nourrit la fleur et fait monter la sève” [… that transforms itself, always beautiful, never the same… that nourishes the flower and makes the sap rise] (Khalfallah 2018, 36). The ode to the moon personifies its qualities, and because the noun is feminine in French, the personification easily elides to a description of femininity. In the lullaby, the moon is capable of providing light, just as the sun is, but because it can transform, as a woman can, while pregnant, and in giving birth, she is actually capable of more than the sun/man. In a clear reference to fertility, the last line of the song notes that it is

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the moon that sustains and makes the lifeblood rise. This line is all the more relevant since Thiziri is pregnant—her rounded stomach is depicted as having the shape of the moon.14 Her pregnancy makes her even less tolerant of the sun. In a scene with her husband, as she seeks out shadows where she can comfortably rest, Mahmoud teases her, saying “Il [le soleil] finira par te rattraper” [It [the sun] will end up catching you] (Khalfallah 2018, 62), but Thiziri replies: “Le soleil et la lune ne peuvent pas se rencontrer, tu le sais bien” [The sun and the moon cannot meet one another, you know that] (Khalfallah 2018, 62). As the sun approaches her shady spot, Thiziri simply moves, but her steadfast avoidance of it, and this conversation with Mahmoud, highlight the important symbolism in this scene. Mahmoud believes the sun, representative of France and Christianity, will eventually reach Thiziri, who is the embodiment of the moon, Gigérie, and Islam. In the logic of the allegory, Mahmoud’s declaration can be read as a foreshadowing of the French colonization of Algeria. Thiziri’s firm belief that the two can never meet reads as a warning, supported by Thiziri’s recurring nightmares portending some disastrous event. Again, this can also be interpreted as a foreshadowing of the colonization to come. The difference in their symbolic eventualities is that Mahmoud sees the inevitable arrival of the French, Christian sun, and Thiziri believes that even if the two attempts to come into contact, the Gigérian, Muslim moon will never allow that sun to remain. Furthermore, there is an ominous undercurrent to the union between Thiziri and Mahmoud. Although this is her eighth pregnancy, only three of the children, all boys, have survived. Currently, one of their three sons, Mekki, who is described as “un grand soleil” [a big sun] (Khalfallah 2018, 36) is sick and not eating well. As the moon begins to rise, and as she is preparing to give birth, Thiziri notes that Mekki is getting sicker and sicker. There is an implied dichotomy here between sun and moon: the boy, associated with the sun, suffers more as the moon takes hold. When the moon has fully appeared in the sky, Thiziri gives birth to a daughter, Fanny, further emphasizing this distinction between the masculine sun and the feminine moon. Finally, Thiziri’s aunt Neffa compares the newborn girl’s skin color to the whiteness and purity of the moon. She also sings a lullaby: “Au croisement du jour et de la nuit; La lune est apparue…” [At the crossing of the day and the night; The moon appeared…] (Khalfallah 2018, 206). Neffa’s lullaby highlights the link between day and night as the point at which the moon will appear,

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bringing lifeblood. As in the opening pages of the novel, when Mahmoud describes the days beginning and ending with the moon, not the sun, the moon remains the dominant symbol in Gigérie. Here, the moon brings the birth of a female child, further underscoring the feminine qualities of the symbol. Neffa promises to do everything she can to protect the baby from the sun’s “rayons de malheur” [rays of misfortune] (Khalfallah 2018, 206), implicitly re-enforcing the sun’s association with the French and with Christianity. As the novel comes to a close, it is immediately after the birth of Fanny that the new father, Mahmoud, goes out to sea for what will be the last time: La mer lape le ciel et le soleil monte doucement sur l’eau. La lune résiste et le suit. De Près. De très près. Le soleil et la lune côte à côte jusqu’au moment où la lune rattrape le soleil, le couvre de son corps, et de son ocelle, obsurcit son ciel. La nuit qui pousse dans le jour, a emporté Raïss… [The sea laps up the sky and the sun gently rises over the water. The moon stands firm and follows it. Closely. Very closely. The sun and the moon side by side until the moment when the moon catches the sun, covers it with its body, and with its eyespot, obscures its sky. The night that pushes into the day has carried the captain away…]. (Khalfallah 2018, 207)

This scene echoes that of the departing, defeated French ships, The Sun and The Moon, but this occurs fifteen years after the battle, after Mahmoud’s conversion, and after building his life in Gigérie with Thiziri. Like the historical episode, this is also the story of a boat that disappears off the coast. However, this passage sets up a contrasting scene. When The Sun and The Moon left Gigérie, it was at twilight, and there was no visible horizon. In this final scene of the novel, it is dawn, and the horizon is depicted in the first line of the passage: the sea drinks up the sky so that the sun rises directly upon the water. As the sun is rising, the moon refuses to yield. The narrator repeats twice that the moon is following closely. The short staccato of the adverbs in isolation underscores the determination and proximity of the moon. Unlike the situation with the departing French ships fifteen years earlier, the closeness here between sun and moon lasts merely for a moment until the moon overtakes the sun. This eclipse, bringing the night into the day, renders the light of the sun invisible behind the moon, effectively turning the dawn

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into the night. The fact that this occurs just after Thiziri has given birth to Fanny implies the power of the moon’s association with fertility and life. The child, a girl, re-affirms the power of the feminine, and the power of the moon. In the French fleet, it was The Sun that arrived safely back in France, while it was The Moon that sank. Although the French lost that battle, they sacrificed the ship whose symbolic life was less important to them. This Gigérian fishing story, which will become legend, rewrites, through association, the historical episode. The literal moon overtakes the literal sun, in a passage whose style echoes the earlier passage and placement in the text: The departure of The Sun and The Moon concludes the first half of the book, while the legend of Mahmoud’s disappearance occurs on the final pages of the novel. The clear parallels between the two episodes underscore their importance, and remind the reader that Mahmoud, the former Jean-François, will leave Gigérie in the same way that he arrived—by sea. Though converted to Islam, in this metaphorical reading, he still represents France and the sun. His disappearance is proof of Thiziri’s affirmation that the sun and the moon can never meet. When they come close, the moon dominates, and in this legend, will carry Mahmoud away. Narrating this conclusion in a similar way to the passage at the end of Book I brings together the rich symbolism throughout the novel. The moon’s literal eclipsing of the sun metaphorically redirects the focus of the historical narrative of a little-known seventeenth-century battle between a European, Christian power and a North African, Islamic one. While the retelling of the story portends the colonial occupation to come, Le Naufrage de La Lune also reverses the power dynamics between Christianity and Islam, between Europe and North Africa, and between France and Algeria. Writing this particular counter-discourse allows Khalfallah, a contemporary Algerian writer, to re-appropriate the narrative of colonialism and lay claim to allegory as a tool to undo centuries of Christian literary domination. Mining the polysemy of the symbols enables Khalfallah to go beyond a mere fictional retelling of a historical episode. It also allows her to place the fishing story, a local legend, on equal footing with a global historical narrative, explicitly putting into question what—or who—constitutes History. The images of the moon and sun first appear in relation to the two geographical locations: Gigérie and Versailles, then in the names of Louis

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XIV’s ships, as feminine versus masculine forces, but ultimately as representative of Islam and Christianity. Through her use of allegory, Khalfallah portrays Islam, as well as North African Muslim women, in a way that has nothing to do with negative stereotypes or current political debates. Her text ignores contemporary, prevalent notions of terrorism, veiling, or farright politics, enabling her to effectively write against what Saïd describes as “… negative images of Islam … that … correspond not to what Islam ‘is’ … but to what prominent sectors of a particular society take it to be” (Saïd 1997, 144). Le Naufrage de La Lune presents Islam by way of the moon as a symbol of learned, life-giving femininity that rises above the frivolous, destructive, masculine sun that symbolizes Christianity. This prioritizing of Islam ultimately gives voice to an Algerian view of colonial history. In 1830, the French, under yet another king, Charles X, will arrive in Algiers and fight the Ottomans again. Their successful attack will give the French control of Algeria until 1962. However, just as the French were defeated in Gigérie, they will eventually lose their colony in Algeria. It will take 300 years, but the moon will rise again, eclipsing the sun, off the Mediterranean coast of North Africa. Acknowledgements All my gratitude to Amy Lynelle, Kim Middleton, and Aparna Nayak for their invaluable feedback on this work.

Notes 1. Amira-Géhanne Khalfallah is an Algerian-born biologist, journalist, playwright, and filmmaker who currently lives in Morocco. Le Naufrage de La Lune is her first novel. 2. All translations from French are my own. 3. Historian Bernard Bachelot notes that when they invaded again in the nineteenth century, the French military discovered some of their own artillery buried in the sand at Gigérie (Bachelot 2014). 4. In the promotional blurb on the back cover of the book, it reads that “… ce premier roman [est] très personnel, celebrant la richesse de notre patrimoine et de notre histoire locale…” [this first novel is very personal, celebrating the richness of our heritage and of our local history]. 5. Although Algeria was governed as an overseas department of France, French Muslims were refused citizenship unless they converted to Christianity. For more on French colonial policy, see Benjamin Stora. 6. The two characters’ new names are also indicative of the ways in which the narrative will frame them: “Othmane,” clearly derivative of Ottoman

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7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

means powerful—Othmane will be perversely obsessed with this power; “Mahmoud,” from Mohammed, means praiseworthy—and Mahmoud will be respected by the majority of the Gigérians. Additionally, it is important to remember that the Gigérians were forced to ask for help from the Ottomans. Although they are allied in their fight against the French, the Berber people of Gigérie are wary of the Ottomans. Othmane has, thus, not endeared himself to the Gigérians. When Othmane acts as Mahmoud’s captor, Thiziri prepares a hallucinogenic fish couscous dish that he hungrily devours. In a state of delirium afterwards, he staggers and speaks nonsensically, drawing crowds, and providing enough of a distraction for Mahmoud to escape. The Gigérians ridicule him for being gullible enough to eat the fish couscous, and the children make up a song in which they give him the name of the fish, “Tchelba.” Eventually, calling someone “Tchelba” becomes the worst insult in the town. The mocking lyrics of the song include a nod to his biggest error: He is “… un musulman sans foi” [a Muslim without faith] (Khalfallah 2018, 184). On the other hand, Mahmoud, while he is not the most devout convert, he “… affiche tous les signes extérieurs d’un bon musulman…” […displays all the outward signs of a good Muslim…] (Khalfallah 2018, 191). In Peter Burke’s study, he shares images in which the king is depicted as the god, Apollo. These include Joseph Werner’s 1664 painting, Triumph of Louis XIV (Burke 1992, 30) and a depiction of an anonymous costume design from 1654, Louis as Apollo (Burke 1992, 46). Leeuwenhoek is considered the father of microbiology. His theories also contribute to Jean-François’s understanding of the sea. For more on Leeuwenhoek, see Jantien Backer and Lesley Robertson. “Crépuscule” can be translated as either “dusk” or “twilight,” but in English, these two words provide distinct understandings of the quality of light: In dusk the sun is below the horizon and provides no more light. Twilight is between sunset and dusk, when there is still light in the sky. Thus, in this particular passage, twilight seems to better convey the author’s meaning. Khalfallah’s allusion to the storm at sea recalls one of the justifications for the loss of The Moon, but Bachelot points out that there is: “… aucun rapport de l’époque, aucun journal de bord ne parle d’une quelconque tempête” [no report from the time, no logbook [that] speaks of any storm] (Bachelot 2014, 87). For more on the sexualized language of colonial conquest, see Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, especially their entry on “exploration and travel” (Ashcroft et al. 1998, 95–98). For a literary example, see Assia Djebar’s description of the French attack on Algiers on June 13, 1830, in L’Amour, la fantasia (Djebar 1995, 14–17).

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13. Another significant source of Thiziri’s power is knowledge. For more on learned women throughout Islamic history, see Assia Djebar’s Loin de médine and Lamia Ben Youssef Zayzafoon. 14. Although the moon is more closely linked to Islam, in Christianity, it is also often perceived as a life-nourishing feminine force (Weightman 1996, 61).

References Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffins, and Helen Tiffin. 1998. Key Concepts in PostColonial Studies. NY: Routledge. Bachelot, Bernard. 2014. L’expédition de Gigérie, 1664. Un échec de Louis XIV en Algérie. Clermont Ferrand: Lemme. Backer, Jantien, and Lesley Robertson. 2016. Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek: Master of the Minuscule. Leiden: Brill. Burke, Peter. 1992. The Fabrication of Louis XIV . New Haven: Yale University Press. Chatelain, Henri Abraham, Cartographer. 1708. Vue de Tunis d’Alger & de Gigeri avec quelques particularitez curieuses touchant les moeurs de leurs habitans & de quelques autres pleuples de barbarie. Source gallica.bnf.fr/BnF. Chwalkowski, Farrin. 2016. Symbols in Arts, Religion and Culture: The Soul of Nature. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Djebar, Assia. 1995. L’Amour, la fantasia. Paris: Albin Michel. Djebar, Assia. 1991. Loin de Médine: Filles d’Ismaël. Paris: Albin Michel. Guérin, Pascal, and Herlé Jouon. 2013. Opération lune: l’épave cachée du RoiSoleil. Paris: Arte, DVD. https://www.reporters.dz/amira-gehanne-khalfallah-auteure-du-roman-le-nau frage-de-la-lune-si-je-devais-resumer-ce-livre-en-un-mot-ce-serait-quipro quo/. 13 November 2018. Khalfallah, Amira-Géhanne. 2018. Le Naufrage de La Lune. Alger: Barzakh. Le Juez, Brigitte, and Olga Springer. 2015. Introduction: Shipwrecks and Islands as Multilayered, Timeless Metaphors of Human Existence. In Shipwreck and Island Motifs in Literature and the Arts, ed. Brigitte Le Juez and Olga Springer, 1–13. Leiden: Brill. Luneau, Aurélie. 2012. L’épave de la Lune. La Marche des sciences. France Culture, July 12. May, Herbert Gordon. 1939. The Creation of Light in Genesis 1:3–5. Journal of Biblical Literature 58 (3): 203–211. Quilligan, Maureen. 1992. The Language of Allegory. Ithaca: Cornell University Press (Original work published 1979). Saïd, Edward. 1979. Orientalism. New York, NY: Vintage (Original work published 1978).

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Saïd, Edward. 1997. Covering Islam. New York, NY: Vintage (Original work published 1981). Stora, Benjamin. 2001. Algeria, 1830–2000: A Short History. Trans. Jane Marie Todd. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Weightman, Barbara A. 1996. Sacred Landscapes and the Phenomenon of Light. Geographical Review 86 (1): 59–71. Zayzafoon, Lamia Ben Youssef. 2005. The Production of the Muslim Woman: Negotiating Text, History, and Ideology. Lanham, MD: Lexington.

In Praise of the Transgressive Muslim Body: Portraits of Moroccan Chikhates Mary B. Vogl

In 2019, as the world anticipated entering a new decade, already dubbed the ‘Roaring 2020s,’ news media in Morocco and France seemed almost to be celebrating chikhates (singer-dancers) as the flappers of the new era. Headlines kept popping up: “The Hymn to Chikhates;” “An Ode to Liberated Women;” “A Great Tribute to Chikhates;” and “In Morocco, Chikhates are a model of feminist emancipation” (Hatim 2019; Euzière 2019; Amraoui 2019; Lahlou 2019, all n.p.). It was also the year that marked the publication of Mahi Binebine’s novel Rue du Pardon and the opening of Fatima Mazmouz’s “Raw Queens” exhibit, both focusing on the transgressive status of these performers. In press interviews, Binebine characterized them as “activists, rebels” and “feminists before their time” (Lahlou 2019, n.p.). Mahmouz represented them in her photographs “as unruly and disobedient women, both free and disturbing” (Mazmouz

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Ramona Mielusel for her helpful input and patience and to Anita Alkhas for her thoughtful comments and precious editing. M. B. Vogl (B) Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Mielusel (ed.), Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81234-8_8

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2019, n.p.), a description amplified in a press notice titled “The Chikha is above all a warrior” (Firdaous 2020, n.p.). Chikhates and their performances had previously garnered attention in academic circles, but this resurgence of interest is broader in scope, as evidenced by an array of news articles with catchy titles like “Chikhates and Insubmissive Women” (Kabbal 2018, n.p.) and “Chikhates, Spurned Women: They are free, they entertain, and they perturb” (Nigrou 2016, n.p.). Chikhates1 have clearly captured the popular imagination and many contemporary Moroccan creative writers, visual artists, musicologists, and filmmakers have championed them, told their stories and sung their praises. Their changing status can be seen as a manifestation of social transformations in the Maghreb that are both reflected in, and driven by, cultural mediation (La aïta entre déclin et regain d’intérêt 2009, n.p.). This chapter explores the roots of this phenomenon and its recent representations in the work of Mahi Binebine and Fatima Mazmouz. Binebine and Mazmouz are artists whose principal subject matter is the marginalized human body. Their works explore topics related to the body that are taboo to speak about in Moroccan society, such as sexuality, pleasure, incest, abortion, prostitution, clandestine immigration, incarceration, and torture. Their appropriation of the ambiguous figure of the chikha allows them to push boundaries with Moroccan audiences while also intriguing French and Franco-Maghrebi viewers and readers. As Rachid Mountasar observes, “La pratique spectaculaire des cheikhate correspond à ce qu’on pourrait considérer comme une mise en pratique collective du non-dit (sexuel, religieux, politique, social).” [The chikhates’ performance practice speaks the unspeakable, breaking sexual, religious, political and social taboos] (Mountasar 2016, 75). The beauty and transgressionof chikhates are refracted in these artists’ verbal and visual representations. Mahi Binebine has received acclaim for his literary and artistic achievements. His paintings and sculptures have been exhibited in Casablanca, Marrakesh, and Rabat, New York, Paris, and the Venice Biennale, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York houses his paintings in their permanent collection. Most of his visual art represents semi-abstract anonymous male figures, solo, in duos or small groups, locked in struggle, bound by cords, or boxed in. The figures are typically silhouettes rendered in neutral colors, sometimes contrasted to a bright background. His literary creation that includes eleven novels in French, published in France as well as in Morocco, has won numerous prizes and his fictionalized account of the

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Casablanca bombings, Les Etoiles de Sidi Moumen (2010) was made into the 2012 film Horsemen of God. Binebine’s protagonists are marginalized figures, including poverty-stricken peasants, slum-dwellers, suicide bombers, migrants, and court jesters. Though they are mostly male, Binebine has also portrayed female slaves, concubines, and migrants. His decision to depict chikhates corresponds to his typical character types who are also “aligned with the subaltern and the disenfranchised” (Kapchan 1994, 86). The photographic artist Fatima Mazmouz uses the figure of the chikha as a visual symbol of Moroccan women’s power to subvert taboos in her own society but also the stereotypes that abound in ‘Western’ culture about Muslim women. Like Binebine, Mazmouz was born in Morocco and lived for many years in France.2 She has exhibited in galleries and biennales in Europe, Africa, North America, the Middle East, and Australia. Her themes, often conveyed through large-scale photographs of herself, include the pregnant body, menstruation, abortion, the uterus, sex workers, and weapons. Trained in art history, she has drawn on many aspects of her Moroccan heritage to create a corpus of conceptual art. Her exhibit “Bouzbir” (from 2018) critiques colonial domination by assigning new meaning to colonial postcards and photographs depicting Moroccan women in a red-light district in Casablanca created by the French in the 1920s. It interrogates, among other things, how women’s bodies were used symbolically as objects of exchange. Mazmouz’s investigation into the Bousbir district intersects with research about women of that era who flocked to Casablanca in search of wages and freedom.3 The status of Moroccan female performers who have sung and danced for generations at weddings, family ceremonies, community religious festivals, and private parties, has always been “complex and controversial” (Kapchan 1994, 100). They have a place in the long history of women entertainers in the Arab world since pre-Islamic times, alongside ‘singer slaves,’ or courtisans who entertained royalty, who were “the equivalent of Japanese geishas” (Chebel 2003, 296). Al-Jahiz in the ninth century described female performers who worked their charm with smiles, glances, and suggestive lyrics on unfortunate male victims (Chebel 2003, 297). More recently, their appearance on stage at music festivals and on television has added a layer of complexity. They are admired for their skills as performance artists and yet despised for their association with debauchery. In Morocco, the term chikhate applies to a specific type of female performer. It is derived from cheikh, an honorific title given to male

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political or religious figures to indicate their status as elderly persons with authority, wisdom, and experience. By extension, chikhates are also erudite, influential women who are worthy of respect and with a deep fund of knowledge as experts in their art (El Mazned 2017, 14; SoumPouyalet 2007, 28). The Moroccan tradition of aïta, which signifies ‘a cry,’ is associated with chikhates and refers to a genre of sung poetry, often improvised, that developed in the Moroccan countryside. A fusion of styles brought by Arabs with those of local Amazigh cultures, it is sung mainly by women accompanied by male musicians. The aïta traditionally starts with the invocation of God and the saints of Islam (Aydoun 1995). Aïta lyrics are typically about love, the lover’s beauty, longing, separation, and loss, as well as social critique and revolt (El Mazned 2017, 12, 13). Though the aïta’s precise remains unclear, an acknowledged milestone occurred in the late nineteenth century with the mythical heroine of Kharboucha, whose song still inspires chikhates today. In her aïta, Kharboucha denounced a brutal tribal chief and called on her tribesmen to revolt. She fearlessly performed the song before the chief, losing her life as a result. This example of the people’s resistance to oppression, embodied by a woman poet and singer, highlights a transgressive quality of chikhates that earns them admiration and honor (Soum-Pouyalet 2007, 32). Brahim El Mazned, director of a major aïta anthology project, describes the chikha as “l’emblème de la femme qui s’émancipe de ses fonctions figées par la société, qui lutte aux côtés des hommes et s’implique dans la vie politique.” [the emblem of the woman who frees herself from the fixed roles society has created for her, who fights alongside men and who engages in political life] (El Mazned 2017, 13).4 In Kharboucha’s case, women’s intrusion into the public sphere is ‘re-codified’ and justified by the political events, but chikhates “exemplify feminine potential as embodiments of independent and brave women” in many other ways as well (Bekkar, cited in Soum-Pouyalet 2007, 32; Kapchan 1994, 100). Chikhates are considered an essential part of festive celebrations, which offer an atmosphere of permissiveness that allows for their transgressions, yet they are also treated as outcasts and considered as “symptoms of social malaise” (Kapchan 1994, 100). For many Moroccans, the word chikha has a pejorative connotation, “synonymous with subversion and impropriety” and associated with cigarettes, alcohol, and prostitution (Soum-Pouyalet 2007, 29). Profound social and economic upheavals wrought by colonialism in the early twentieth century contributed to the transformation of female performers’ role and status. Whereas in

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the past chikhates had sung and danced within their rural communities, impoverished young women began to leave their families to join itinerant groups in order to make money. By the 1950s, many were moving to cities like Casablanca where they danced in cabarets, adopting Egyptianstyle ‘belly-dancing,’ wearing make-up and perfume, and drinking and smoking. They performed for foreign patrons who could neither understand nor appreciate the poetic texts of the aïta. A number of studies have traced the decline of the chikhates’ status to this period.5 As musicologist Alessandra Ciucci points out, “In their writings on women and music the aim of many Moroccan scholars has been motivated by both postcolonial concerns—the reappropriation of a musico-poetic genre from the colonizers—and a moral interest in recovering the honor of Moroccan women” (Ciucci 2012, 788, see Najmi 2007). By emphasizing the historical, political and textual import of the singers of aïta, however, they risk shrouding other subversive aspects of the chikhates’ performance and lives. Some scholars have not shied away from examining chikhates’ marginal status as it is linked to eroticism, whether considering the women’s performance or the lyrics of the aïta (Kapchan, Soum-Pouyalet, Najmi, El Mazned, Ciucci). The chikhates’ eroticism itself has been reconsidered and rehabilitated. Journalist Saïd Afoulous believes that scholars like Najmi are right to defend the oral poetry against unjustified criticism by “a dominant literate culture.” For Afoulous, the aïta represents “un érotisme de bon aloi, libérateur, concret et sans detour.” [an eroticism that is positive, liberating, concrete and straightforward] (2007, n.p.). Many Moroccans believe that the pious Muslim woman’s place is inside the confines of the private sphere and they consider singing and dancing in mixed company unseemly, yet the chikhates’ performance offers an opportunity for men and women to ‘let loose’ during times of festivity (Kapchan 1994, 93–94). In their role as artists, the chikhates “take responsibility for the voicing of social disjuncture caused, for example, by the competing forces of family expectations and personal desires” (Kapchan 1994, 92). The chikhates’ freedom, “[l]eur liberté, la liberté des mœurs et la liberté de ton qui leur permettent, à elles seules, de chanter l’injustice et le sort des femmes” [their liberty, the liberty of morals and liberty of tone that allow them, and them only, to sing about injustice and the lot of women] is what keeps them marginalized from other women] (Essafi 2004, n.p.). In the poetic words of a one chikhate, “Notre vie est semblable à cette

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bougie qui brûle et se sacrifie pour que les autres voient” [our life is like a candle that burns and sacrifices itself so others may see] (Essafi 2004, n.p.). In recent decades, the transgressive Muslim female body has been adopted as a symbol of artistic freedom by writers, artists and filmmakers in Morocco. In the words of Malek Chebel, a renowned Algerian scholar of Islam and sexuality, “S’il existe une liberté sexuelle dans le monde arabe et dans les pays musulmans, elle est d’abord celle de l’esprit et de la création dans son ensemble.” [“If there is sexual freedom in the Arab world and in Muslim countries, it is first of all freedom of the spirit and of creation as a whole] (Chebel 2003, 489). A number of Moroccan artists who call for freedom reference the Muslim female body in their struggle. They are resisting taboos around the representation of desire and pleasure and pushing back against an Islamist imperative to offer ‘clean art’ (al-f¯ an an¯ adh¯ıf ) or ‘halal art’ to a conservative public.6 The expression ‘clean art’ was first used in 2011 by Najib Boulif, a government minister from Morocco’s PJD Islamist party. The injunction to expunge art that is not ‘morally acceptable’ outraged many artists and spurred their creativity. In 2012, the Moroccan feminist playwright Naima Zitane staged the play Dialy (‘Mine’), a provocative Moroccan version of Ensler’s Vagina Monologues. Performances took place in Paris and Casablanca despite the menace of censorship and death threats. The play’s black humor and songs helped bring a measure of catharsis to the audience, releasing pentup tension of many taboos, including the speaking aloud of the word ‘vagina’ (Tazi 2021, n.p.). Meriem Alaoui’s 2018 novel Straight from the Horse’s Mouth presents a prostitute from a feminist perspective.7,8 Films, more accessible to the Moroccan public than novels, particularly those in French, have been censored for their representations of the transgressive female body. For example, Nabyl Ayouch’s film about prostitution, Much Loved (2015), was banned in Morocco. Feminist artist Khadija Tnana’s “Kamasutra” installation was removed from the Center of Modern Art in Tetuan in 2018 for representing figures in erotic poses painted on hands of Fatima. Tnana, whose work was inspired by the fifteenth century ‘manual of Arabian erotology,’ The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight, called its censorship “shameful.” She quipped with irony, “The theory of ‘clean art’ has a bright future!” (Ouamer-Ali 2018, n.p.). Binebine’s 2019 novel Rue du Pardon (‘Forgiveness Street’), published with Stock in France and Le Fennec in Morocco, was nominated for the Renaudot prize and won the Prix Méditerranée in 2020.

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The book’s back cover characterizes the protagonist as “a free woman in a country founded on prohibitions,” emphasizing the perceived conflict between personal liberty and societal constraints, particularly for Muslim women. Binebine based his story on a chikha he knows well, and describes his novel as an effort to dignify her and other women of her profession (“Mahi Binebine ‘Les Chikhate sont feministes !” 2019).9 He claims that “we artists” do not see chikhates as frivolous or wanton, but rather as “artists like us,” on the same level as photographers, musicians or writers (“Six questions à Mahi Binebine,” 2019). The author’s representation of these singer-dancers as artists may rehabilitate them in the eyes of certain Moroccans, for example artists or those who might read novels in French. As we explore below, the chikhates share characteristics with libertines, in the sense that they are freethinkers, especially regarding religion, who are unrestrained by convention or morality. Rue du Pardon’s protagonist Hayat, whose name means ‘life,’ embodies contradictory characteristics typical of chikhates. She has beauty, talent, intelligence, and passion, but she is a victim of abuse, mockery, and jealousy. Her success is secured through her resilience and her artist’s soul, despite the obstacles she faces growing up in a poor neighborhood in Marrakesh. As a blond child, she brings the ‘suspicion of sin’ on her mother and faces gossip and insults from neighbors. Her home life is dreary, sad, and deathly boring and her parents create a toxic environment. Her mother slaps her but acts cowardly toward the father. Her father has a “violent and deceitful character” (10) and a “satanic face” (69). His incestuous abuse of Hayat is evoked obliquely in phrases such as, “Je n’aimais pas mon père […] Je haïssais l’obscurité de sa chambre, son haleine, sa barbe piquante, ses mains monstreuses… et le reste. Tout le reste.” [I did not love my father […] I hated the darkness of his room, his breath, his prickly beard, his monstrous hands… and the rest. All the rest] (14). When Hayat narrates her life, she describes herself as both a “la petite frondeuse” [the little rebel] (17) and a born artist who, from a young age, knew how to decode the language of angels (11). Later, when her life is threatened, she is reminded that “L’art est ton unique raison de vivre, ta seule façon de respirer.” [art is your only reason to live, your only way to breathe] (120). She learns that the life of an entertainer is not easy but “[l]es saltimbanques ne meurent jamais parce que nous avons tous besoin de rêves” [entertainers never die because we all need dreams] (120).10

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Like many girls who became chikhates to flee from a crisis such as abuse or forced marriage, Hayat is finally saved from the chaos of her family (Soum-Pouyalet 2007, 143). For these girls, “le salut est dans la fuite” [salvation is through escape] (36). Hayat’s escape also provides a therapeutic cure for her trauma. Leaving home at fourteen, she can finally begin to heal, “effacer de [s]a mémoire les souvenirs sales et encombrants, ceux qui [lui] empoisonnaient la vie et la rendait insoutenable.” [to erase from [her] mind the dirty and cumbersome memories that poisoned [her] life and made it unbearable] (46). Hayat’s healing is compared to an effort to “recoller les morceaux d’une poupée fracassée, d’une existence en miettes.” [glue back together the pieces of a shattered doll, of a life in shambles] (127). Years later, Hayat returns to save her sister who has apparently been through similar suffering. The sister leaves, “accrochée à [s]on bras comme une bouée de sauvetage” [hanging on [Hayat’s] arm like a life buoy] (142). Rue du Pardon portrays chikhates, young and old, as resilient women who have the power to rebound after suffering. Chikha Serghinia, affectionately known as Mamyta, is a “goddess” (12), a “genius” (91) with a “face inhabited by joy” (15), who saves Hayat by taking her in, treating her like a daughter, and teaching the girl her art. Though she is not a standard beauty, with her solid gold dentures and “a hundred kilos of milky flesh compressed into a satin caftan,” (15) she has an uncontested sex appeal (15) that makes both men and women “succumb to her charms” (90). Mamyta belongs to the caste of artists whose body is a work tool of which she is proud. Hayat, too, embraces the words that others use to insult Mamyta: “Pu-tain. Ça claquait la majesté d’une femme affranchie, ça revendiquait la liberté de tortiller le cul en public dans une djellaba en soie moulante, ça brandissait haut dans le ciel l ‘étandard enflammé de l’insoumission.” [Whore. It smacked of the majesty of a liberated woman, it claimed the freedom to wiggle your ass in public in a tight-fitting silk djellaba, it waved the flaming flag of insubordination high in the sky] (12). Hayat’s entry into Mamyta’s tutelage liberates the artist in her. While she had always been simultaneously “frondeuse, provocante, habitée par la grâce” [rebellious, provocative, inhabited by grace] (108–109), under Mamyta’s wing, “La petite frondeuse de la rue du Pardon se transmuait soudain en princesse; une artiste accomplie, étincelante et raffiné.” [the little rebel is of the rue du Pardon was suddenly transformed into a princess; an accomplished artist, sparkling and refined] (17). Performing becomes for her a means of sublimating her defiant energy and channeling

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it into the creation of art. Binebine’s painterly perspective is conveyed in the young Hayat’s interior monologue: “Je voulais rire et danser, entrer de plain-pied dans un monde gouverné par la beauté, la bienveillance et la couleur. Une orgie de couleurs: un rouge de Fez pour mes lèvres, un noir de jais pour le contour de mes yeux, un bleu azur pour les paupières … Je voulais libérer ma blondeur du henné.” [I wanted to laugh and dance, to enter with gusto into a world ruled by beauty, kindness and color. An orgy of colors: a red of Fez for my lips, a jet black for the contour of my eyes, an azure blue for the eyelids… I wanted to free my blondness from the henna] (69). As she matures, Hayat takes on the full glory of the accomplished diva: “Sensual and flamboyant,” “everything in me sparkles” (87). At her apogee, she borrows her mentor’s name to create her stage name, Houta Serghinia. She praises Mamyta, and herself, as fearless feminists. Mamyta tells her that she “fought tooth and nail to practice [her] art with dignity” (79), and this same conviction is what Hayat takes with her when Mamyta dies. The disciple has learned from her master and pays her homage: “Je ressens ici le besoin de raconter son oeuvre. Haut et fort. En toute liberté, car nous avons affaire à une femme libre, à une battante ayant mis son métier controversé au centre de son combat, au cœur de sa propre existence” […] “Me voilà debout. Envers et contre tout […] Debout et triomphante.” [I must tell of her accomplishments. High and loud. In complete freedom, because we are dealing with a free woman, a fighter who has put her controversial profession at the center of her struggle, at the heart of her own existence (125) […] Here I am standing tall. Against all odds […] Standing tall and triumphant (127). Binebine further bestows credibility on the chikhates’ status as artists by highlighting the rigorous transmission of their savoir-faire.11 As dancers, singers and performers, chikhates must learn how to dress, do their hair, apply make-up, move their bodies and project their voices. They must also learn a repertoire of songs and dance steps. According to Rachid Mountasar, a Moroccan scholar of ethnoscenology and performing arts, “On ne devient jamais performeur gnawi ou cheikha du jour au lendemain. Il s’agit d’un travail exigeant, d’un apprentissage centré sur les détails des techniques du corps et de sa mise en spectacle.” [No one becomes a gwani or shikha performer overnight. This is demanding work that entails training centered on the details of the techniques of the body and its performance] (Mountasar 2016, 74). In more abstract terms, chikhates “développent, entretiennent et transmettent des techniques, sensibilités, représentations singulières à forte dimension symbolique.”

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[develop, maintain and transmit techniques, sensibilities, singular representations with a strong symbolic dimension] (Mountasar and PhilippeMeden 2016, 5). An example of this can be seen in the famous chikha Fatna Bent Lhoucine (1935–2005) who had a repertoire of more than two hundred songs (Ameskane 2005, n.p.). Hayat’s coming-of-age story in Rue du Pardon emphasizes the passing of ancestral knowledge from mentor to mentee as she learns the skills and insights specific to her art. Hayat is fascinated by the eloquence of storytellers, saying, “L’éloquence des conteurs me fascinait. Je retrouverais plus tard leurs frères chez les poètes anonymes que Mamyta chantait, et dont, jour après jour, elle m’inculquait le sens, la profondeur et les trésors infinis qu’ils recelaient.” [I would find their brothers later in the anonymous poets that Mamyta sang, and whose meaning she instilled in me, day after day, she imparted their meaning to me, the depth and infinite treasures they held] (33). Binebine’s insistence on the chikhates’ immense artistic savoir-faire dispels the stereotype of these entertainers as frivolous and empty-headed. The author also complicates the stereotype of chikhates as godless partiers by representing them as embracing the ‘world of the night’ and its pleasures while also holding deep religious beliefs. Hayat’s and Mamyta’s use of drugs and alcohol is not hidden in Binebine’s text, or referred to metaphorically, but revealed in the most concrete terms. Hayat muses, for example, about the troupe partaking together in performance-boosting, mind-altering substances: “Une cigarette blonde, un fourneau de kif, une cuillère de majoun, une bière mousseuse ou un verre de vodka glacée… des douceurs quotidiennes qu’on appelait “le carburant”, et dont on se ravitaillait dès le crépuscule […]. Nous y puisions l’énergie et la bonne humeur nécessaires pour affronter une fête nouvelle jusqu’aux lueurs de l’aube.” [A blond cigarette, a pipe of kif, a spoon of majoun [a cannabis edible], a frothy beer or a glass of iced vodka [..]. daily sweets that we called ‘fuel’, and which we replenished starting at dusk […] From it we drew the energy and the good spirits we needed to face another party until the glimmer of dawn] (77). At the same time, Binebine depicts Mamyta as profoundly connected to spiritual aspects of popular Islam in Morocco. The chikhates’ beliefs in charms, potions, magic and the like “represent[s] an alternate power system to that of orthodox Islam” (Kapchan 1994, 95). When Hayat suffers abuse from her father, Mamyta advises her to ward off his attacks with verses of the Quran that she says will serve as shields and swords (Binebine 2019, 64).

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Mamyta tells Hayat that despite not being a model believer, she still feels close to God: “Le Seigneur m’a toujours soutenue. Négliger mes prières ou Lui désobéir ne m’empêchait pas de L’adorer, ni de sentir au plus profond de mon cœur Sa présence.” [The Good Lord has always supported me. Neglecting my prayers or disobeying Him did not prevent me from worshiping Him, nor from feeling His presence in the depths of my heart] (80)]. She tells Hayat that artists like them are God’s favorite children and that God makes artists suffer so that they can create beauty (70). Through her performances, Mamyta acts almost as a spiritual leader, albeit an unorthodox one: “Elle tirait le meilleur de chacun, les élevant dans un espace accessible uniquement aux artistes, là où les âmes écorchées se retrouvent pour se lamenter, communiant dans la ferveur d’un rythme de tous les diables.” [She brought out the best out in everyone, elevating them to a space accessible only to artists, where flayed souls meet to lament, communing in the fervor of a devilish rhythm] (81). As cheikhates take on an almost shamanistic role of conveying collective suffering, they invest all their efforts into their art. Writing about the iconic chikha Fatma Bent Lhoucine, cultural journalist Mohamed Ameskane noted, “Bent Lhoucine n’a pas eu d’enfants. Elle a sacrifié sa vie au plaisir des autres. Elle a laissé d’inoubliables refrains. Fredonnons-les en guise de prière !” [Bent Lhoucine didn’t have children. She sacrificed her life for the pleasure of others. She left unforgettable choruses. Let’s hum them in prayer!] (Ameskane 2005, n.p.). Rue du Pardon subtly links the chikhates’ art to other Moroccan musical and dance traditions that incorporate mystical trance, such as the Gnawas, Aissawas or Hamadchas. These religious association also occupy a marginal place in Moroccan society, particularly in relation to orthodox Islam. They use music and dance to bring healing to women and men suffering from physical and psychological illness. For Sufi mystics, the body is a means to express the sacred and to fuse with the oneness of the divine. Dance and trance help permit this flow (Btarny 2012, 67). In Rue du Pardon, the chikhates’ performance has therapeutic power and the vocabulary used to describe it evokes trance and exorcism, the divine and the diabolical. Hayat and Mamyta orchestrate “frenzied nights” that are “bathed in grace, desire and fury” (25). The disciple takes her master’s lead, and together their “demons” plot together to “kindle a fire that set [them] ablaze until the end of the night” (91). Binebine’s description of the women’s movements clearly aligns them with Moroccan Sufi rituals: “J’imitais ses gestes, ses œillades assassines, sa façon de fouetter

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le sol avec sa chevelure quand le diable prenait possession de son corps […] les tambourines et les crotales s’enflammaient […] Je voulais être elle. Me défaire de ma condition de mortelle, me couler dans cet habit de lumière qu’elle revêtait en foulant la scène.” [I imitated her gestures, her fatal glances, her way of whipping the ground with her hair when the devil took possession of her body […] The tambourines and castanets were on fire […] I wanted to be her. To leave behind my mortal condition, to slip into the cloak of light that she wore as she stepped on the stage] (18). Binebine’s fictionalized account of Mamyta’s entry on the scene, the calculated movements of her body, and her husky voice as she sings “songs where the bawdy and the sacred blend” (18) illustrates the connection anthropologist Deborah Kapchan draws between the practice of chikhates and that of other groups: “The shikha may even approach trance; indeed, her performance makes salient the permeable boundaries between the sexual and the sacred, drawing as it does upon a vocabulary of movement similar to that used to commune with the spirit world in Moroccan esoteric performance” (Kapchan 1994, 86). As Mamyta warms up in her dancing, “la houle s’empare de sa chair, emprunte le chemin des frissons, atteint le bas-ventre qui se redresse, avale le nombril et se relâche lentement comme se meurent les vagues. Et les ondulations reprennent, deviennent contagieuses, gagnent les convives qu’elles entraînent dans un roulis fiévreux. … le rythme s’emballe, s’accorde aux battements des cœurs et fait bouillir le sang.” [the swell takes hold of her flesh, takes the path of chills, reaches the lower abdomen which straightens, swallows the navel and slowly relaxes as the waves die off. And the ripples resume, become contagious, win over the guests and drag them into a feverish swaying … the rhythm soars, synchs with the beating of hearts and makes the blood boil] (18). In another passage, the diva is again described in terms associated with trance: “[Elle est] loin de nous. Elle est ailleurs, audelà du vertige et de ses frissons, du vacarme et de la foule exaltée, loin de la fête et même de son propre corps qu’elle abandonne aux mortels tel un amas de guenilles … Elle chancelle. Sa tête tourbillonne, agite sa crinière qui balaie le sol … Ses yeux mi-clos deviennent blancs, son visage rouge sang. [[She is] far from us. She is elsewhere, beyond vertigo and its chills, the din and the elated crowd, far from the party and even from her own body which she abandons to mortals like a heap of rags […] She staggers. Her head spins, she shakes her mane which sweeps the ground […] Her half-closed eyes turn white, her face blood red] (82).

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Binebine’s heroines transform other women who are present in these ecstatic moments. The dancers draw out the female spectators’ “irrepressible desire” to cry out their sexual frustration, and to “openly embrace” the “promiscuity and licentiousness” modeled by the chikhates (20). Mamyta delights in her ability to take the “wives […] mothers, aunts, sisters, and cousins” momentarily to a higher realm, transporting them to happiness and transforming them into “dazzling lovers” (20). A reference to Sufism can be seen in the exalted figure of the lover and in the eroticism of the dance as a metaphor for a mystical union with the divine, as in the Sufi dhikr ceremony where the body enters into a trance and “adopts postures that evoke erotic ecstasy” (Chebel 2003, 254). Sadly, at the end of the scene in which she brings other women to ecstasy, Mamyta cannot help remarking with bitterness that when the party is over, the same women—“those bitches!”—will once again treat chikhates like prostitutes (20). Rue du Pardon emphasizes the nature of these artists’ lives as both exhilarating and devastating. Ordinary Moroccans with their conventional morality cannot perceive the gift of artists who elevate everyday existence to a higher plane. The communion that Mamyta created through her performance has the “sacramental character” that Georges Bataille attributes to eroticism. For this French philosopher, eroticism, “unlike simple sexual activity, is a psychological quest […] Eroticism is assenting to life even in death” (Bataille 1987, 11). Binebine’s heroines Mamyta and Hayat (whose name means ‘life’ in Arabic), employ their bodies to bring an “altered awareness” to society yet they remain misunderstood and underappreciated (Kapchan 1994, 90). Hayat benefits from the curative powers of spiritual healers in an exorcism, which serves to further link chikhates to esoteric practices in the reader’s mind. At a time when her career as a performer is thriving, she falls victim to the jealous daughters of her mentor who poison her. She becomes ill for a decade and is taken on extended stays to Muslim holy men for healing. Finally, in a ceremony a marabout allows spirits (‘jinn’) to take possession of Hayat’s soul. Her body is racked with “violent fits” and “appalling convulsions” (107) until the marabout chants a Quranic verse, accompanied in chorus by the crowd. This intimidates the jinn who end up releasing her (108). This treatment allows her to be “reborn from the ashes” (117), after which she relaunches her career to even greater heights. Near the end of the novel, Mamyta encourages Hayat in a dream to “Repriser la dentelle de l’innocence, restituer les rêves volés, épandre

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l’aigreur dans les égouts et cesser d’avoir peur, reconstruire, avancer, avancer” [Darn the lace of innocence, restore stolen dreams, throw your bitterness to the gutter and stop being afraid, and rebuild, move forward, move forward] (140). Hayat does move forward, confronting past demons and showing solidarity with other abused women. These words of encouragement can also be read as addressing chikhates directly. Rue du Pardon is Binebine’s attempt to wash away their shame, to rehabilitate their status as wise, rebellious women artists with healthy sexuality and a gift for healing themselves and others. Fatima Mazmouz also dignifies Moroccan women entertainers in her 2019 “Raw Queens” exhibit which was first presented at London’s Mosaic Rooms. She photographs herself embodying a chikha, wearing a colorful traditional Moroccan caftan with a red belt and looking straight into the camera. In other images she is depicted dancing as if in a trance, flinging her long, loose hair. The artist remarks in an interview that aïta performers “have very sexual connotations today” but they have also “influenced Moroccan literature, poetry, history and activism” and “convey [] through [their] bod[ies] the tradition of an oral history of the country” (Mazmouz, 2019). Though unnamed by Mazmouz, the heroic figure of Kharboucha implies the idea of these Moroccan entertainers as combatants, not sex objects. Mazmouz elaborates: “The Chikha appears as a woman-warrior, a resistant who fights with dance and words. […] One of the opening lyrics of one of the famous singers goes ‘my call is my weapon and my words are my bullets.’ […] [This] vocabulary […] is truly a language of war” (Mazmouz, 2019). The artist depicts herself carrying a rifle in some of the images. In addition to representing (typically male) power, this weapon also associates chikhates with the ‘fantasia,’ a Moroccan performance of shooters on horseback that occurs during festivals, which are also occasions when chikhates perform. Mazmouz’s glorious visual portraits of chikhates leave a positive impression of them and, particularly for the foreign viewer, of Moroccan women in general. The artist’s description of chikhates as “powerful, the voice of unruly and disobedient women, both disturbing and free,” strikingly echoes Kapchan’s observation that “expressions of sexuality and personal emotion through music, dance, or poetry are manifest […] in particular performance contexts due to their potentially subversive power. […] The shikha becomes a metonym for female transgression. She is a ‘free woman’” (Mazmouz 2019; Kapchan 1994, 89). It was no doubt a

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challenge for Mazmzouz to outdo her earlier works, such as a performance piece as “Super Oum” (Super Mom), a very pregnant woman in a black leather bikini, go-go boots and a mask. But taking upon herself, and rehabilitating, the role of chikhates, a social group disdained by the Moroccan upper classes, shows that this artist continues to push boundaries and move forward in her artistic practice. Malek Chebel studied sexuality as a fundamental aspect of AraboIslamic cultures and he argued that it permeates Maghrebian literature, whether Arabophone or Francophone (Chebel 2003, 289). No doubt sensuality, the body, eroticism, and related concepts inform all the arts in the Maghreb, whether their manner of expression falls within or outside the bounds of propriety according to the particular society. Art by its very nature is transgressive. Artists like Binebine and Mazmouz with influence internationally and in urban centers in Morocco have used their power to praise chikhates and polish their tarnished reputation. They have shown how chikhates’ performance “exposes the values of the dominant culture to challenge” (Kapchan 1994, 90). Reciprocally, the life-affirming artistic courage of chikhates has a healing effect on these artists and helps sustain them in their own breaking of taboos.

Notes 1. Sometimes the word is spelled cheikhates or shikhat; the singular is chikha, cheikha, or shikha. 2. Binebine also lived for five years in the United States. 3. An example of recent research on this topic is Jean-François Staszak’s article “Tourisme et prostitution coloniales: la visite de Bousbir à Casablanca (1924–1955)” Via 8, 2015, n.p. 4. All translations from the French are mine. 5. In his article celebrating a type of aïta called Alwa, Abdelmajid Arrif decries the cultural loss resulting from the shattering of individual and collective destinies by colonization, rural exodus, emigration, flight to escape violence only to take refuge in the modern violence of cities, in red-light districts, in slums, and clandestine immigration (Arrif 2018). 6. This situation is thoroughly analyzed in Said Graiouid and Taieb Belghazi’s article “Cultural production and cultural patronage in Morocco: the state, the Islamists, and the field of culture.” Journal of African Cultural Studies, 2013 Vol. 25, No. 3, 261–274. 7. Meriem Alaoui’s La vérité sort de la bouche du cheval was published by Gallimard. An English translation by Emma Ramadan appeared with Other Press in 2020. Alaoui’s novel contrasts to earlier portrayals by

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8.

9.

10.

11.

male authors such as Mohammed Zafzaf, Mohamed Choukri, Abdelhaq Serhane and Tahar Ben Jelloun. The latter’s 1973 novel Harrouda features a cheikha as a minor, and negative, character. Khalid Zekri analyzes how the bodies of female characters and homosexual characters function in a number Moroccan novels written since the late 1990s in “Le sujet et son corps dans le romanm marocain,” Itinéraires, 2011, 3, 45–59. Binebine does not reveal the name of the artist who inspired him, but Chikha Aïda, disciple of Chikha Fatima Chabha (the blond), correspond in many ways to his portraits of Hayat and Mamyta. Kaouthar Oudrhiri, “Portrait: Chikha Aïda, au nom du ‘nachat’” Tel Quel 29 August, 2016, n.p. This recalls Binebine’s 2017 novel Le Fou du roi (The King’s Jester) in which he relates the story of his father who spent thirty-five years in the service of King Hassan II. This transmission is documented in Soum-Pouyalet (2007, 139), and Mountassar and Philippe-Meden (2016, 5).

References Alfoulous, Saïd. 2007. Al-Aïta poésie orale et musique traditionnelle au Maroc de Hassan Najmi, Défense et hommage d’une poésie orale. L’Opinion. March 7. n.p. Ameskane, Mohamed. 2005. Hommage. Fatna Bent Lhoucine. Eloge d’al aïta.” TelQuel Online 175, March 14. Amraoui, Saïd. 2019. Grand hommage aux chikhates. Bladi.net. September 29. https://www.bladi.net/mahi-binebine-chikhates,59883.html. Arrif, Abdelmajid. 2018. Alwa. Pérégrination pour l’âme. Lecture improbable d’un chant populaire. Collection Graphiques. https://www.academia.edu/ 37421351/Alwa_P%C3%A9r%C3%A9grination_pour_l_%C3%A2me_Lecture_ improbable_d_un_chant_populaire_Abdelmajid_Arrif. Aydoun, Ahmed. 1995. Musiques du Maroc. Casablanca: Éditions Eddif. Bataille, Georges. 1987. Eroticism. Trans. Mary Dalwood. London, New York: Marion Boyars. Binebine, Mahi. 2019. Rue du Pardon. Paris: Stock. Btarny, Meriem Alaoui. 2012. Entrer dans la danse avec les Gnawa. In Penser le corps au Maghreb, ed. Monia Lachheb, 67–77. Paris: Karthala. Chebel, Malek. 2003. Encyclopédie de l’amour en Islam. Érotisme, beauté et sexualité dans le monde arabe, en Perse et en Turquie. Paris: Éd. Payot. Ciucci, Alessandra. 2012. The Study of Women and Music in Morocco. International Journal of Middle East Studies 44 (4): 787–789.

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El Mazned, Brahim. 2017. Chikhates & Chouikhs de l’Aïta: Anthologie. Casablanca: Atlas Azawan. Essafi, Ali, dir. 2004. Le Blues des sheïkhates. (Dumou’ al-chaykhât). Documentary film. Cairo, Egypt: Misr International Films, Paris, France: Ognon Pictures. Euzière, Paul. 2019. Rue du pardon de Mahi Binebine, Une ode aux femmes libres. May 19. https://pauleuziere.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/rue-dupardon-de-mahi-binebine-une-ode-aux-femmes-libres/. Firdaous, Kawtar. 2020. La Chikha est avant tout une guerrière. L’observateur du Maroc. September 30. https://lobservateur.info/la-chikha-est-avant-toutune-guerriere/. Hatim, Houssam. 2019. Mahi Binebine: l’hymne aux cheikhates. Tel Quel. April 26. https://telquel.ma/2019/04/26/mahi-binebine-lhymne-auxche ikhates_1636558. Kabbal, Maati. 2018. Chikhates et femmes insoumises. Fondation Hassan II. March 5. http://www.e-taqafa.ma/dossier/chikhates-et-femmes-insoumises. Kapchan, Deborah. 1994. Moroccan Female Performers Defining the Social Body. The Journal of American Folklore (winter) 107 (423): 82–105. La aïta entre déclin et regain d’intérêt. 2009. La Vie eco, 8 June. https://www. lavieeco.com/culture/la-aita-entre-declin-et-regain-dinteret-13958/. Lahlou, Yasmina. 2019. Mahi Binebine: ‘Au Maroc, les chikhates sont un modèle d’émancipation féministe.’ Le Point. September 25. https://www.lep oint.fr/afrique/mahi-binebine-au-maroc-les-chikhates-sont-un-modele-d-ema ncipation-feministe-25-09-2019-2337773_3826.php. Mahi Binebine. ‘Les cheikhate sont féministes!’. 2019. LesEco.ma. June 11. https://leseco.ma/culture/mahi-binebine-les-cheikhate-sont-feministes.html Mazmouz, Fatima. Artist’s website. www.fatima-mazmouz.com. Mazmouz, Fatima. 2019. Raw Queens Press Release. https://mosaicrooms.org/ raw-queens-pressrelease/. Mountasar, Rachid. 2016. Ces corps qui regardent: La place du spectateur dans la danse des cheikhate. Horizons/théâtre 7: 70–80. Mountasar, Rachid, and Pierre Philippe-Meden. 2016. Éditorial. Horizons/théâtre 7: 5–9. Najmi, Hassan. 2007. Ghina  al- ait.a: al-Sh ir wa-l-musiqa taqlidiya fi almaghrib. Casablanca, Toubkal. Nigrou, Imane. 2016. Les chikhates, ces mal-aimées: Elles sont libres, elles divertissent et elles dérangent. Aujourd’hui le Maroc, April 9. n.p. https://aujourdhui.ma/culture/musique/les-chikhates-ces-mal-aimeeselles-sont-libres-elles-divertissent-et-elles-derangent. Ouamer-Ali, Tarik. 2018. La théorie de l’art propre a encore de beaux jours devant elle! Founoune Art Média. March 15. https://www.founoune.com/ index.php/theorie-de-lart-propre-a-de-beaux-jours-devant-khadija-tnana-mar oc/.

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Six questions à Mahi Binebine, lauréat du Prix Méditerranée de littérature. 2020. Map News. June 10. http://albayane.press.ma/six-questions-a-mahibinebine-laureat-du-prix-mediterranee-de-litterature-2020. Soum-Pouyalet, Fanny. 2007. Le Corps, la voix, le voile: Cheikhat marocaines. Paris: CNRS Editions. Tazi, Maha. 2021. Naima Zitane’s Revolutionary Play, Dialy: Using the Vagina Trope to ‘Talk Back’ to the Islamist Party’s Calls for ‘Halal’ Art in Morocco. Journal of International Women’s Studies 22 (1): 246–269.

Islam and Far-Right Politics in Post-contemporary Francophone Speculative Fiction: An Ethical Call to Resistance or Revival of French Orientalism? Simona Emilia Pruteanu

First defined by Robert Anson Heinlein in 1964 as “the story embodying the notion ‘just suppose – or – What would happen if –’” speculative fiction is definitely living its golden age in terms of literary and cinematic successes, such as The Handmaid’s Tale, both the book by Margaret Atwood (2011) and the TV adaptation or the British series Black Mirror.1 Their popularity is in huge part explained by their choice of current issues our societies are grappling with: climate change, evolving technology, women’s reproductive rights, or the rise of far-right politics and the play upon different scenarios, which no longer seem science-fiction but rather very plausible. Canadian writer Margaret Atwood makes this distinction quite clear when she defines speculative fiction as literature that deals with possibilities in a society which have not yet been enacted but are already latent, quite different then from science-fiction: “speculative

S. E. Pruteanu (B) Department of Languages and Literatures, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Mielusel (ed.), Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81234-8_9

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fictions [that] explore the consequences of new and proposed technologies in graphic ways by showing them as fully operational” (In Other Worlds, 62). In his monograph Theory for the World to Come (2019) Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer argues that speculative fiction, much as social theory, is always situated in its time, place, and especially in its historical moment. Far from embodying just a “what if” game, Wolf-Meyer claims, speculative questions pose “a challenge to complacency and resignation. Not content to simply diagnose the problem that faces society, speculative fiction asks us to think about how it might be otherwise and what might be done to bring a better future into being” (100). The first book we have chosen to examine was released in French bookstores on January 7th 2015, the same day as the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine. In a remarkable coincidence, Michel Houellebecq, the author of Soumission, was featured that day on the magazine’s cover in a satirical drawing alluding to this title. The novel follows a passive, cynical intellectual who has to decide whether giving into something bigger than himself, as the entire France seems to embrace Islam in 2022, is ultimately the way to happiness. Soumission has been denounced as Islamophobic, even before it officially appeared on the shelves, but the concept of Islamophobia in itself is a problematic one in the French context. As Timothy Peace puts it, France’s insistence on Republican secularism finds both the Left and the Right guilty of creating a climate of suspicion around Muslims living in France: “In some cases, however, hostility towards Islam and/or Muslims is much more explicit when coming from the Left, even if it is justified in the language of progressive politics.” (“Islamophobia and the Left in France”, 120). In the end, it seems that Fred Halliday was right to argue, as early as the end of the 1990s, that Islamophobia is a misleading concept, covering the fact that Muslims are being discriminated against for simply being Muslims: “The attack now is not against Islam as a faith but against Muslims as a people, the latter grouping together all, especially immigrants, who might be covered by the term” (“Islamophobia Reconsidered”, 1999, 898). Published a year later, Karim Amellal’s Bleu Blanc Noir 2 (2016) offers the opposite perspective: when France’s far-right political party wins the elections and subjects French citizens of immigrant origins, especially Muslim ones, to inhumane treatments. Surprisingly, the reaction to this political shift will come from within the notorious French banlieues which rally to form a Resistance movement. The novel’s action takes place in 2017, the year Emmanuel Macron ran against Marine Le Pen of the

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former National Front party, rebranded as the National Rally since 2018. Although Macron eventually won the elections, Marine Le Pen is still a prominent figure in French politics who will run for a third time in 2022.3 We could then choose to read the novel’s epigraph as a cautionary tale in itself, or think of Gérard Genette’s (1987) definition of the epigraph as both a representation and a summary of a book (Seuils, 148): “France is what we make of it. This story is probably not about us, but it could very well happen to us.” (La France est ce que nous en faisons. Cette histoire n’est probablement pas la nôtre, mais elle pourrait bien nous arrive.)4 Given that this chapter was written during what will from now on be referred to as the “confinement period” due to the novel coronavirus’ restrictions, it would have been impossible to ignore the parallelisms between the fictional plots and the real-world events, such as the uncertainty overshadowing the rest of the academic year in Soumission after a Muslim president is elected, as predicted by one of the characters: “I find it impossible to envisage a normal end for the academic year!” (88) (il me parait impossible que l’année universitaire se termine dans des conditions normales). This is also why this chapter insists on the crisis trope linked to politics, as it emerges from both books, or what Dolores Herrero calls the “post-apocalyptic sentiment” (2017, 949), which she defines as a direct consequence of the 9/11 attacks: “In this third phase,5 often known as the Golden Age of post-apocalyptic thinking, people are worried about almost everything: war, viruses, fundamentalisms of all kinds, ecological global disasters, genetically modified humans, computers that can no longer be kept under control, global warming, etc.” (“PostApocalypse Literature”, 949). In addition to this aspect, the chapter also examines whether these two speculative fictions perform the function of calling society to resist the evils of extremist political and religious factions or, rather, in the case of Soumission, they slide into the stereotyped denunciation of Eastern culture’s exotic attributes and the threat it poses to Western civilizations, as defined by Edward Said in his reference text Orientalism. Both scenarios prompt a discussion about ethics, the moral value of a text which engages with real politics as well as with the responsibility or the effects of the first person narration. Even if we admit that the main characters cannot be mistaken for the real authors’ alter ego, there is enough of Houellebecq and Amellal’s publicly shared stances on different topics in their narrator’s speeches6 for this chapter to analyze the “careful manipulation of the narrative voice” (“Introduction”, 6); the expression belongs to Adrienne Angelo and Erika Fülöp

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who, in their edited volume, Protean Selves (2014), on first person voices in twenty-first-century French fiction ask their readers: “What does it mean to write “I” and to try to write the self in our postmodern society, in a world in which technological advances and increased globalization have complicated notions of authenticity, origins, and selfhood, and which, moreover, offer a number of outlets for the representation of the selfhood?” (“Introduction”, 5).

When “East” and “West” Finally Come Together In the Afterword added years later to his 1978 ground-breaking study, Orientalism, Edward Said insists on the fact that “words such as Orient and Occident correspond to no stable reality that exists as a natural fact” (331), meaning that these names should not be confused with the geographical locations; rather, drawing on Michel Foucault’s theory on discourse analysis (Archaeology of Knowledge 1970), Said implies that any representation of “Oriental” and “Occidental,” including his own, will seem to “respond to certain cultural, professional, national, political and economic requirements of the epoch” in which they are uttered (273). After discussing several prominent representations of Orientalism in European culture Said feels that “in reading the Orientalist, the apocalypse to be feared was not the destruction of Western civilization but rather the destruction of the barriers that kept East and West from each other” (263). Said’s sentiment is certainly contradicted by many contemporary French intellectual figures such as Renaud Camus in his Le Grand Remplacement (2011) which describes a future Islamization of the French Republic or Éric Zemmour, author of the best-seller Le suicide français (2014), a similar study about the potential siege of the French cultural identity under Northern and Sub-Saharan immigration pressure. The fictional literary landscape has also been dominated by novels mirroring the country’s current political and social debates which seem to converge toward what Lucas Hollister (2019) identifies as an ambient cultural malaise reverberated by stories of loss, decline, and also rebirth: There is disagreement on the what and the why, but there is a welldocumented feeling in France that something has been lost or is slipping away, and this feeling feeds an increasingly brazen nostalgic and xenophobic public discourse. From the far left to the far right, these fantasies of decline – and their correlative fantasies of rebirth – orient cultural

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expression and give meaning to competing social, political and historical narratives. They also permeate, in ways both subtle and overt, contemporary French literature. (Beyond Return, 2)

In her article entitled “The Migrant as Colonist: Dystopia and Apocalypse in the Literature of Mass Migration” (2018) Nasia Anam also finds that the genre she discusses portrays the total annihilation of Western civilization by Islam as the direct result of the reversal of the spatial trajectory of immigration in the twenty-first century with the former colonized people invading the metropolis (659). At the core of these novels, such as Soumission or Boualem Sansal’s 2084—La fin du monde (2015), according to Anam, lies not the concern with the current insurgency and violence of certain Muslim factions but rather a return of what she calls the “historically repressed” (656) or the anxieties about an Islamic empire haunting European consciousness since the first Crusades. One of the arguments supporting this claim is what Anam classifies as “the writers’ fixation” with the medieval apocalyptic image of Islam gaining a stronghold in European territory coupled with the absence of traditional tropes of the immigrant narrative: Nowhere do issues of integration, citizenship, identity, hybridity, or multiculturalism arise. The concerns that are bound up in questions of belonging to the nation-state are seemingly null and void because, at bottom, the entire concept of the modern nation-state is presumed to have failed. These novels, both written in French and both post-9/11, instead desire to bring us back to the Manichean civilizational struggle between Islam and Christianity: a Ground Zero that precedes the attacks in Lower Manhattan the "Clash of Civilization" proponents reference by about a millennium (670).

This is also Raphaël Baroni’s (2016) perception of Houellebecq’s novel where he does not find any concern for the racial or diversity issues still going on in France and he concludes that the main conflict, as far as Houellebecq depicts it, is solely between far-right politics and Islam: Besides, in his latest novel (Houellebecq, Soumission 2015) the only allusions to French Africans place them in the position of either a protagonist’s helper or innocent victims of the political changes described by the fictional story, the truly concerning forces being embodied by religious extremists and far-right nationalists. (“Comment débusquer la voix d’un auteur dans sa fiction?”, 89)

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France versus Islam is also one of the focal points of Amellal’s novel in which fictional French politicians, bearing a striking resemblance in speech and names to their real-life counterparts,7 warn the nation about endangered values such as “France’s integrity, the survival of its millennial identity and culture while facing ‘the inoculation of foreign diseases such as Islam’” (226).8 Nevertheless, Bleu Blanc Noir ends on a more optimistic note which the author has linked to his will of showing how society, and not the elite, could deal with such shocking circumstances and overcome them: After Submission by Michel Houellebecq or 2084 by Boualem Sansal, I needed to write a counter-narrative, a novel which offers a different vision of the world than those to which we are constantly being exposed, in which Islam and the immigrants are public enemies no.1. In its own way, Bleu, Blanc, Noir changes real life’s anti-heroes into the heroes of the fictional world. (Béligh Nabli, “Le roman national de Karim Amellal”, s.p.) (Après ‘Soumission’ de Michel Houellebecq ou ‘2084’, de Boualem Sensal, j’avais besoin d’écrire un contre-récit, un roman qui propose une autre vision du monde que celles dont nous sommes en permanence abreuvés, où l’islam et les immigrés sont les ennemis publics numéro 1. ‘Bleu Blanc Noir’, à sa façon, fait des anti-héros de la réalité les héros de la fiction.)

While debates around religion and France’s policy of cultural integration/ assimilation are not exactly recent,9 Nicolas Sarkozy’s quinquennat, starting in 2007, can, beyond any doubt, be credited with bringing such issues as the crisis of the national identity and Muslim immigration to the forefront.10 Sarkozy and consequently his successor, François Hollande have been accused of “borrowing” far-right politics tactics in order to seek re-election, a strategy which failed for both of them but succeeded in creating more division within the country. Haunted by Marine Le Pen’s surge in popularity before the 2012 presidential elections Sarkozy did not hesitate to forbid the use of burqa in the public space,11 while Hollande sponsored a bill to strip dual citizens of their French citizenship should they engage in terrorist activities12 after the ISIS attacks on Paris from November 2015. Both presidents were accused of manipulating the “triangulation” tactics, a term first used by Bill Clinton’s former political advisor Dick Morris (1999) who describes it as the need to “take a position that not only blended the best of each party’s views but also transcended them to constitute a third force in the debate” (Behind the Oval Office, 80). In other words, a politician borrows one of his opponent’s

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tactics in order to destabilize the latter and gain new support. Whereas the strategy proved successful for Clinton’s re-election back in 1996 it backfired for both Sarkozy and Hollande, most likely because the ideas belonged to the far-right movement and had been previously denounced, especially by Hollande himself; their own outraged party members and supporters ultimately voted against this politics of fear but the anxious climate persisted and it is very much the background of both Houellbecq and Amellal’s novels.

Social and Political Representations in Speculative Fiction or Political Declarations? Soumission, signed by an author who has been called more than once a racist,13 sparked controversy with some choosing to read in its title the French translation of the word Islam (which from Arabic could be roughly translated as submission to the will of Allah) and consequently labeling the novel Islamophobic.14 Others, such as Jan Techau have deplored the West’s inability to recognize irony and instead label it as xenophobia, an act which more than justifies Houellebecq’s pessimistic vein according to Techau: “A West that no longer appreciates the virtuosic nature of its own defining character trait is indeed a West that won’t stand a chance. The West’s submission will not be primarily to other, more determined cultures. It will be first and foremost a submission to its own small-minded self” (2015). As Anders Berg-Sørensen (2017) has rightfully noticed both interpretations start from the very same premise that the book’s meanings articulate different political ideologies at play currently within the European context: Both ideological points of view operate within the same frame of understanding as Houellebecq’s Submission. The first pretends to agree with Houellebecq, while the second wants to disagree. The question becomes, however, whether these ideological interpretations of Submission reduce the multiple meanings at play in the novel by their common understanding of a nationalist and culturally pessimistic dystopia of Europe. (“Submission”, 133)

Such discussions obviously imply that any author who writes fiction largely based on contemporary politics must assume a moral responsibility for the way the text’s message might be perceived by different

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readers; however, they also seem to do away with the traditional distinction between author/narrator and the fictional first person who assumes the story telling. In Soumission the main character’s name is François, which may be read as a metonymy for the French people while Amellal’s character, a French-born citizen of Algerian descent, just like the author himself, remains conspicuously nameless all throughout the story, by comparison to his French-born girlfriend Agnès, his co-workers or the leader of the Resistance who recruits him, symbolically named Charlie. In fact, in the first 15 pages, the main character only drops a few hints about what might be perceived as his “otherness” since he considers himself French and his trajectory thus far in life has been more than satisfactory: having graduated from one of France’s elitist grande école he is now successfully and gainfully employed in finances and he believes that money and social status protect him from being racially stereotyped or profiled: Attracted by the money which reigns supreme on trading floors, the financiers could not care less about your skin colour. Competence was measured by the ability to increase margins, make capital grow, take risks. All the rest, your face, your first name, your religious or social background did not count. […] Finance was universal and racism was a hindrance, an obstacle to the fluidity of transactions, a boundary which did not need to be there, at least not where the market did not absolutely insist on one’s visibility (17). (Attirés par l’argent qui règne en maître absolu dans les salles de marché, les financiers n’avaient que faire de votre couleur de peau. La capacité à accroître des marges, à faire fructifier un capital, à prendre des risques, était la seule aune de la compétence. Le reste, votre gueule, votre prénom, votre religion ou encore votre milieu social, ça ne comptait pas. […] La finance était universelle et le racisme y était un frein, un obstacle à la fluidité des transactions, une frontière qui n’avait pas lieu d’être là, du moins là où le marché n’imposait pas d’être visible.)

Nonetheless, this illusion is shattered during a conversation with his co-worker, Louise, who confesses that she had a one-night stand with someone she had met in a bar and was subsequently brought back to her apartment only to wake up in the morning “raped by a Muslim” (24). She quickly adds that she is not certain about that guy being a Muslim but that he definitely looked Arab. While saying this Louise pauses to consider her interlocutor as if she just realized the meaning of his (still unknown to the reader) name15 and blurts a sentence which the character defines as a long awaited and feared detonation: “You are not a

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Muslim, are you? […] Anyways, you know what I mean, not like that, right?” (24) (Tu n’es pas musulman, toi, hein? […] Enfin, tu vois ce que je veux dire: pas comme …ça, quoi, hein?) The automatic overlapping of the term Muslim and outlaw in the general public’s mind is again underscored toward the end of the novel in a conversation between a French taxi driver and the narrator’s sister, while the main character is escorting his parents to Agnès’s parents’ country house for safety. After the far-right government led by Mireille Le Faecq wins the elections, drastic measures are imposed all over the country: Muslim population is identified as one of the vulnerable or “at risk” communities, alongside the Roma communities and people with disabilities, who are all progressively quarantined in their own neighborhoods before being sent to camps. While the radio in the taxi highlights the government’s latest actions the satisfied driver clearly seeks his clients’ approval: “They’re doing a great job, aren’t they?” (Bleu Blanc Noir, 458) (Ils font du bon boulot, non?) Lilia, the narrator’s sister, retorts that “for some of us” what they are doing is not all positive, which prompts the bewildered driver to ask her in return to which “us” she is actually referring. When Lilia answers with “the Arabs, the immigrants” (460) the driver starts laughing, visibly relieved, before exposing his own understanding of the socio-political situation: “First of all, I have nothing against the Arabs. The problem is not the Arabs; it’s Islam, the Muslims. You on the other hand, seem like good people, so you have nothing to worry about” (460). (D’abord, les Arabes, je n’ai rien contre eux. Le problème, c’est pas les Arabes. C’est Islam, c’est les musulmans. Vous, vous avez l’air d’être des gens bien, alors vous n’avez rien à craindre.) The taxi driver’s speech illustrates France’s current struggle with what Abderrahman Beggar identifies as part of Islamophobia and its agenda (“On the Islamophobic Mind”, 2020), namely the use of the word Muslims as if they were a separate social and political category, although citizenship in France is supposed to be indifferent to religious criteria, given the separation between State and Church. The ordinary French citizen has internalized the official political discourse which equals terrorism with Muslims and cannot perceive that his own fear might be used to better control him and those around him: Islamophobics capitalize on the emotion, so that they can essentialize and transubstantiate the Other to serve a hidden agenda. As a result, in a phobic situation, the mind of the target (it can be a reader or a follower or an audience) is incapacitated and cannot adopt a critical stance. (Beggar, 212)

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During the pandemic emergency states following the spread of COVID19 in their respective countries, many presidents and prime ministers all over the world have asked16 from their governments and citizens to grant them temporary extraordinary powers so that they may be able to act faster in the interest of the public welfare. While some of the emergency measures have been approved even by the opposition, in Canada for example, Justin Trudeau has insisted on the fact that he would rather not resort to invoking the Emergencies Act,17 something that the majority of the premiers also agreed to. On the other hand, in Bleu Blanc NoirAmellal describes the easiness with which the French citizens, even the more progressive ones, accept the new president’s constitutional reforms, especially after another “terrorist attack,” thus proving Beggar’s previously quoted statement on the lack of critical stance under highly emotional circumstances: The debate preceding the vote on the constitutional reform was particularly expeditious. In all honesty, despite the scale of the project and the radical changes it brought about, the discordant voices from both majority and opposition, were not very loud. Everyone agreed to strengthening the power of the executive – the fight against terrorism requires it. Likewise, it was quite logical in people’s minds to constitutionalize the state of emergency and make it, in a way, the normal state of things. (Bleu Blanc Noir, 370) (Le débat qui précéda le vote de la réforme constitutionnelle fut particulièrement expéditif. En vérité, en dépit de l’ampleur du projet et des changements radicaux qu’elle impulsait, les voix discordantes, dans la majorité comme dans l’opposition, furent assez peu audibles. Tout le monde était d’accord pour renforcer encore davantage les pouvoirs de l’exécutif-lutte contre le terrorisme oblige. De même, il était assez logique, dans l’esprit des gens, de constitutionnaliser l’état d’urgence et d’en faire, en quelque sorte, un état normal.)

Houellebecq’s novel shows similar reforms met with little resistance, thus overtly criticizing the intellectuals’ passivity and hypocrisy. François is a middle-aged French literature professor at the Sorbonne whose only achievement in his forty years of life seems to be an exceptional PhD thesis on nineteenth-century novelist Karl-Joris Huysmans and la décadence. He is single and cultivates short-term liaisons with his female students, does not enjoy teaching and the only real friend he can think of would be Huysmans, given that both of them share a disdain for their respective

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contemporary societies, perceived as decadent. On more than one occasion François re-asserts his pessimistic view of the world and of his own life: “I obviously did not expect to have a happy end of life, that was no reason why I should be spared bereavement, illness and suffering (Soumission, 72).” (Je ne m’attendais pas à avoir une fin de vie heureuse, il n’y avait aucune raison que je sois épargné par le deuil, l’infirmité et la souffrance.) One Sunday evening, François’ intellectual stupor is shaken by the results of the first round of presidential elections which see the candidate for the Muslim Brotherhood (Fraternité Musulmane) Mohammed Ben Abbes coming in second after the National Front, with the French socialist left-wing party out of the race. François returns on campus after this political shock only to be confronted with his students and fellow colleagues’ indifference, a chance for Houellebecq to slate the intellectual elite’s apathy, an elite from which the writer clearly wishes to distinguish himself at the end of the novel18 : On the other hand, I was struck by the lethargy of my colleagues. There seemed to be no problem for them, they did not feel concerned at all, which only confirmed what I had thought for years: those who reach the status of university professor cannot even fathom that a political evolution should have the smallest effect on their careers; that is how untouchable they feel. (Soumission, 78-79) (J’étais par contre frappé par l’atonie de mes collègues. Pour eux il ne semblait y avoir aucun problème, ils ne se sentaient nullement concernés, ce qui ne faisait que confirmer ce que je pensais depuis des années: ceux qui parviennent à un statut d’enseignant universitaire n’imaginent même pas qu’une évolution politique puisse avoir le moindre effet sur leur carrière; ils se sentent absolument intouchables)

The novel’s entire action concerns the academic milieu and its rapid submission to the Muslim Brotherhood, which brings to mind Jacques Chirac’s 2003 speech on the school’s role as a Republican sanctuary meant to protect all boys and girls from things which might divide them or cause conflicts between them.19 Houellebecq ironically describes the destruction of this temple when Saudi Arabia buys the Sorbonne, a symbol of all French universities and academies and insists upon employing Muslim instructors only, offering a choice between immediate retirement with maximum benefits, regardless of seniority, or conversion and a triple salary. When he receives his letter from the newly appointed president of the university, François is shocked to see that if he chose to quit on the spot, he would receive the same monthly installments as if he

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retired at the legal age of 65. In a satirical tone, the character deplores the Saudi Arabs’ naivety which frightens them into thinking that university professors or students would actually protest against these measures or that anyone in France would care if they did: “They seemed to ignore in Saudi Arabia that even the unanimous protest of university professors would have gone almost unnoticed; basically, they still believed in the power of the intellectual elite, it was almost touching” (Soumission, 179). (Une protestation même unanime des enseignants universitaires serait passé à peu près complètement inaperçue; mais ça, en Arabie saoudite, ils ne pouvaient apparemment pas s’en rendre compte. Au fond, ils croyaient encore au pouvoir de l’élite intellectuelle, c’en était presque touchant.) Little by little François starts noticing how things change for “the better” in France under Ben Abbes’s leadership: women are encouraged to stay home and raise their families which in turn creates more job opportunities and results in a dramatic reduction of the unemployment rate. The new president’s economical measures are hailed by all political commentators as a revival of France’s optimism known during les Trente Glorieuses. At one point the character accepts to meet with Sorbonne’s new president, a recent convert, in the latter’s home and is fascinated by his ideas as well as by his two wives: an elderly one who treats him to her amazing cooking and a stunningly beautiful 15-year-old second wife. The rest of the novel is dedicated to François’ dreams and speculations on the topic of his conversion to Islam, polygamy being seen as the ultimate prize; this comes as no surprise, since the novel presents Western sexuality and gender spheres as having reached their lowest point in a globalized society based on goods and exchanges, showing François frequently visiting sex workers: The novel is thus complicit with the most unreconstructed orientalist fantasies of “eastern” sexuality, imagining both potent men and submissive yet devilishly accomplished young women. Soumission’s closing chapters cheerfully install a polygamous and paedophilic system of gender relations, with François contentedly envisaging “une épouse de quarante ans pour la cuisine, une de quinze ans pour d’autres choses...” (Morrey 2018, 206)

In this respect the novel can be seen as reviving Orientalism, since the character never goes too far in his knowledge of the other but limits himself to idealistic stereotypes of a patriarchal society, in which he, as male, will have as many as four women devoted to his pleasures. In

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other words, the relationship between the Western male gaze and the Oriental woman is perpetuated in the twenty-first century’s character mind as Per-Erik Nilsson (2019) emphasizes: “when analysing fantasies about the Orient in Houellebecq’s work, it is necessary, as Yegenoglu argues, to highlight that ‘Western acts of understanding the Orientand its women are not two distinct enterprises, but rather are interwoven aspects of the same gesture’” (“Fuck Autonomy. Neo-Orientalism”, 606). Amellal’s novel subscribes to the same awareness of the elite’s abdication to dangerous ideas and the writer, when interviewed, never rejects the claim that his political fiction could be read as a warning against the widespread use of those dangerous ideas, to the point where they become trivial; in particular, he recalls how shocked he was during the national debate over the stripping of the nationality to see that the elites especially were embracing far-right proposals.

Conclusions To conclude on the issue of the ethical (ir)responsibility of the author who signs politically charged speculative fiction, Houellebecq’s novel finishes on a tone of genuine or ironical bliss, with François declaring “Je n’aurais rien à regretter/ I would have nothing to regret” (300) while Amellal’s last sentence is a salute to the republican values “Vive la République, vive la France!” (478) One author, Amellal, confirms his political engagement and hope that what he wrote will influence people, for the better, not shying away from proposing his novel as an alternative to Soumission; for his part, Houellebecq, rejects the idea that he might bear any responsibility for the voters’ change of hearts in the next elections20 and defends a writers’ artistic freedom. Those who read Soumission as a great fictional satire find their main argument in the hypothetical spineless conversion, lacking any moral or religious conviction and motivated only by financial and sexual personal interests; nevertheless, Houellebecq’s choice to present this process as “absurdist comedy” or even “light farce” rather than “bitter denunciation” (Todd Kliman 2015) is precisely what seems to insult the majority of the French readers, according to Morrey (“The Banality of Monstrosity”, 211). In both cases, it would be hard to ignore the different emotional response that this speculative fiction elicited from the readers with Soumission being quoted by both François Hollande and Marine Le Pen21 among other prominent political and media figures. At

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the same time, Amellal’s novel has not had the same impact as Houellebecq’s, sold at around 800,000 copies in the francophone world alone, nor has it stirred a similar debate. Could it be because Bleu Blanc Noir has, as Jana Treffler calls it in her analysis of the novel, “less shock potential?” (2017, 35). In her paper discussing dystopia during times of ideological crises, Zeitgeschichte und Dystopie, Treffler suggests that France is faced with a hegemonic crisis and there is no surprise that a book discussing terrorist threats and anti-Muslim feelings should capture everyone’s attention. In contrast, it would seem that Amellal’s dystopian future under a far-right government is less problematic for the readership, perhaps, due to the fact that the author does not challenge French core beliefs about immigrants’ obligation to assimilate. As Treffler points out, the main character is not faced with a dual or split identity dilemma and his trajectory seems to confirm that “complete assimilation is still a valid pre-requisite to being French “(Zeitgeschichte und Dystopie, 37). Where both novels seem to converge, surprisingly or not, is on the fact that the French Republic is in danger, and it is not the political competition between Right and Left which will save it; the resistance will have to come from a mentality change, a task which “is not facilitated when much of the Left prefers to argue about who has the correct interpretation of secularism rather than agreeing on the need to fight anti-Muslim prejudice” (Peace 2019, 119).

Notes 1. “Black Mirror is a British dystopian science fiction anthology television series created by Charlie Brooker. He and Annabel Jones are the programme’s showrunners. It examines modern society, particularly with regard to the unanticipated consequences of new technologies. Episodes are standalone, usually set in an alternative present or the near future, often with a dark and satirical tone, although some are more experimental and lighter. The series has garnered positive reception from critics, received many awards and nominations, and seen an increase in interest internationally, particularly in the United States after its addition to Netflix. The show has won eight Emmy Awards for ‘San Junipero’, ‘USS Callister’ and Bandersnatch, including three consecutive wins in the Outstanding Television Movie category” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror). 2. The title plays on the syntagma representing France’s national flag bleublanc-rouge and also on the famous slogan black-blanc-beur from 1998, when its soccer team became world champion, which acknowledged the

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team’s cultural diversity (Franco-French, Franco-Maghrebi and FrancoCaribbean or Sub-Saharan African). She had made her intentions known as early as 2017, see titles such as “Je suis la plus solide et la mieux placée” https://www.europe1.fr/pol itique/marine-le-pen-je-suis-la-plus-solide-et-la-mieux-placee-pour-20223442034. Accessed May 10 2020. All translations in the text are mine unless otherwise indicated. Herrero talks about post-apocalyptic books starting with the Cold War in the 1950s when people worried about a nuclear war and then during the 1980s when they feared famine and potential out of space dangers. To give only one example, just like his character, Karim Amellal is the son of an Algerian immigrant and has also graduated from France’s prestigious Political Sciences school (Sciences Po). As far as Houellebecq is concerned there are numerous studies who prove the existence of the writer’s arguments in the mouth of his characters, such as Raphaël Baroni’s « Comment débusquer la voix d’un auteur dans sa fiction? Une étude de quelques provocations de Michel Houellebecq.» Arborescences, numéro 6, septembre 2016, pp. 72–93. It is quite obvious that the character of Mireille Le Faecq stands for Marine Le Pen, as well as Martin Luxembourg for François Hollande. In addition, we can find the character of the writer Marcel Retour, author of Le grand renoncement who becomes the Minister of Culture in the novel who clearly stands for Renaud Camus and his book Le Grand Remplacement. Excerpt in the novel from the French prime minister’s speech: “l’intégrité de la France, la survie de sa culture et de son identité millénaires face à ‘l’inoculation des maladies étrangères comme l’islam’” (226). The first “scarf affair” (affaire du voile) shook France in 1989 when three female students were suspended for refusing to remove their scarves in class. The debates over secularization (laïcité), most recently seen by some in direct opposition with Islam in France, have only intensified since. Soon after his election Nicolas Sarkozy created the Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development, fulfilling a promise he had made during his campaign. Two years later, the government initiated the “Great Debate on the National Identity”, which included hundreds of public meetings as well as a dedicated website inviting answers to the question “For you, what does it mean to be French?”. Michael Samers shows how even as an Interior Minister (2002–2007) Sarkozy had claimed that a large number of undocumented immigrants were “difficult to integrate because of their religious origins or practices— code words for Muslim and Islam” (“The Regulation of Migration”,

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2020, 62) and how he hardened his attitude towards migration culminating with his last attempt to woo far-right supporters before being defeated by François Hollande in 2012: “In the presidential elections of 2012, it appeared that Sarkozy sought to attract support from Front National (FN) voters by reducing legal immigration by half, providing further obstacles for immigrants to receiving benefits, increasing restrictions on family reunification, withdrawing from the Schengen Agreement, drawing connections between immigration and a lack of law and order, and linking immigration with poverty” (Samers 2020, 65). The bill was not voted into law and then French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira stepped down after announcing the media that she was quitting government due to a major political disagreement. In 2001 Houellebecq disputes this accusation in a statement which does not help this case, saying he has never equated Muslims with Arabs: “Je n’ai jamais fait l’amalgame entre Arabes et Musulmans”, https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/2001/09/07/michelhouellebecq-dement-etre-raciste_4187150_1819218.html. The French National Observatory Against Islamophobia has even issued a statement blaming the media of converting an “Islamophobic fiction” into a political event. https://www.20minutes.fr/medias/1511747-201 50107-edwy-plenel-observatoire-national-contre-islamophobie-denonc ent-place-accordee-medias-michel-houellebecq. The reader never finds out his name but in the scene with Louise she seems to realize that he had a fairly connoted first name (“un prénom assez connote” 24). One notable exception is the US president, Donald Trump who made it clear that he does not need any permissions while he is in power. In April 2020, when asked about the clashes between him and the governors concerning the re-opening of the economy, Trump replied: “When somebody’s president of the United States, the authority’s total. And that’s the way it’s got to be. It’s total. It’s total. And the governors know that”. (The Guardian, April 14th, 2020) https://www.theguardian.com/ us-news/video/2020/apr/14/donald-trump-when-somebody-is-presid ent-of-the-united-states-the-authority-is-total-video. The Emergencies Act authorizes the taking of special temporary measures to ensure safety and security during national emergencies and to amend other Acts. It received royal assent in July 1988, replacing the former War Measures Act, but it has yet to be used in Canada. https://laws-lois.jus tice.gc.ca/eng/acts/E-4.5/. In the book’s acknowledgments, at the end, Houellebecq highlights that he has not pursued higher education and that all his knowledge about this institution comes from a professor, friend of his: “Je n’ai pas fait d’études universitaires et toutes mes informations sur cette institution, je

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les ai recuillies auprès d’Agathe Novak-Lechevalier, maître de conférences à l’université Paris X-Nanterre. Si mes affabulations s’inscrivent dans un cadre à peu près crédible, c’est uniquement à elle que je le dois” (Remerciements). 19. “L’école doit être un sanctuaire républicain” par Jacques Chirac.https:// www.voltairenet.org/article11649.html. Accessed May 20 2020. 20. Alain Jakubowicz, former president of the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism, has declared that Soumission was the best Christmas present that Marine Le Pen could have ever received: «C’est le plus beau cadeau de Noël qu’on ait pu faire à Marine Le Pen.» Journal de 20 heures on France 2, January 6th, 2015. 21. Former president François Hollande has been heard saying he would read Soumission only because it caused such an upheaval whereas Marine Le Pen declared that the scenario of the book was a very plausible one.

References Amellal, Karim. 2016. Bleu Blanc Noir. La Tour D’Aigues: Éditions de l’Aube. Anam, Nasia. 2018. The Migrant as Colonist: Dystopia and Apocalypse in the Literature of Mass Migration. Asap/journal 3 (3): 653–677. Angelo, Adrienne, and Erika Fülöp, (eds.). 2014. Introduction. Protean Selves: First-Person Voices in Twenty-First-Century French and Francophone Narratives, 1–11. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Atwood, Margaret. 2011. In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination. Anchor. Baroni, Raphaël. 2016. Comment débusquer la voix d’un auteur dans sa fiction ? Une étude de quelques provocations de Michel Houellebecq. Arborescences, 6: 72–93. Beggar, Abderrahman. 2020. On the Islamophobic Mind and Its Agenda in France. In Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, ed. Ramona Mielusel and Simona Pruteanu, 199–215. Palgrave Macmillan. Béligh Nabli. Le roman national de Karim Amellal. Libération, Sept 1st, 2016. http://egalites.blogs.liberation.fr/2016/09/01/la-societe-du-spe ctacle-identitaire/. Berg-Sørensen, Anders. 2017. Submission: Ambiguity, Hypocrisy and Misanthropy in Michel Houellebecq’s Imaginary Politics. Journal of Political Ideologies 22 (2): 131–146. Boualem, Sansal. 2015. 2084. La fin du monde. Paris: Gallimard. Camus, Renaud. 2011. Le Grand Remplacement. Neilly-Sur-Seine: David Reinharc. Foucault, M. 1970. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Information (international Social Science Council) 9 (1): 175–185.

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Genette, Gérard. 1987. Seuils. Paris: Seuil. Halliday, Fred. 1999. Islamophobia Reconsidered. Ethnic & Racial Studies 22 (5): 892–902. Heinlein, Robert A. 1964. On the Writing of Speculative Fiction. In Of Worlds Beyond, ed. Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, 13. Chicago: Advent. @1947. Herrero, Dolores. 2017. Post-Apocalypse Literature in the Age of Unrelenting Borders and Refugee Crises: Merlinda Bobis and Australian Fiction. Interventions 19 (7): 948–961. Hollister, Lucas. 2019. Beyond Return: Genre and Cultural Politics in Contemporary French Fiction, vol. 63. Liverpool University Press. Houellebecq, Michel. 2015. Soumission. Paris: Flammarion. Kliman, Todd. 2015. The Subtle Despair of Michel Houellebecq. Washingtonian, 19, no.11. Morrey, Douglas. 2018. The Banality of Monstrosity: On Michel Houellebecq’s Soumission. Australian Journal of French Studies 55 (2): 202–217. Morris, Dick. 1999. Behind the Oval Office: Getting Re-elected Against All Odds, 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Renaissance Books. Nilsson, Per-Erik. 2019. Fuck Autonomy: Neo-Orientalism and Abjection in Michel Houellebecq’s Soumission. European Review 27 (4): 600–614. Peace, Timothy. 2019. Islamophobia and the Left in France. In The Routledge International Handbook of Islamophobia, ed. Irene Zempi and Imran Awan, 110–122. Routledge. Said, Edward. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Samers, Michael. 2020. The Regulation of Migration, Integration, and of Multiculturalism in 21st Century France. In Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, ed. R. Mielusel and S. Pruteanu, 55–75. Palgrave Macmillan. Techau, Jan. 2015. Michel Houellebecq’s Soumission Is the Soundtrack of Our Tim. Carnegie Europe. https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/58834. Treffler, Jana. 2017. Zeitgeschichte und Dystopie Michel Houellebecqs Soumission und Karim Amellals Bleu Blanc Noir in Zeiten ideologischer Krisen. B.A thesis. Berlin, 45 pages. Wolf-Meyer, M. J. 2019. Theory for the World to Come: Speculative Fiction and Apocalyptic Anthropology. U of Minnesota Press. Zemmour, Éric. 2014. Le suicide français. Paris: Albin Michel.

Representations of Islam in Music, Comic Series and Visual Arts

(P)raising Islam: When French Muslim Rappers Advocate for Peace, Love, and Unity in a Multicultural France David Yesaya

A large number of French public figures from the (far) right like the politician Marine Le Pen, the writer Renaud Camus, the journalist polemist Eric Zemmour, and the philosophy professor Alain Finkielkraut, just to name a few, believe that Islam is a threat to the French Republican values because, in their view, the massive presence of the Muslim religion (hence Muslim people) in France will wipe out its tradition, culture, identity, and secular principles. John R. Bowen in his book Can Islam Be French?: Pluralism and pragmatism in a Secularism, contradicts this statement by affirming that “public figures criticize some Muslims for harboring values incompatible with French citizenship, even if they neither break laws nor contravene norms of public behavior” (2009, 3). Bowen is saying, in other words, that Islam in France does not infringe individual or universal national and cultural values, on the contrary, it co-exists with them in an attempt to find the unifying force between citizens of different faiths residing on French territory.

D. Yesaya (B) University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Mielusel (ed.), Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81234-8_10

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In this chapter, I will first show how the alliance between rap music and Islam was established in France. Once I have elaborated on the definition of “Islamic rap,” I will demonstrate that the rappers1 of my analysis promote mostly an Islam advocating a vivre-ensemble in the French nation through universal values of peace, love, and unity more so than messages of violence or opposition to the republican values like other forms of rap might do. It is only fair to point out that some politicians, intellectuals, and media people tend to highlight the problematic aspect of rap lyrics that question and challenge virulently the republican values, but often fail to admit the fact that Muslim rappers also spread messages of peace, love, and unity among French citizens. Therefore, I will concentrate my attention on these unifying principles in Islamic rap in order to show a new perspective of contemporary rap in the global context of multiculturalism, but also of Islamophobia, especially after 9/11 and after the terrorist threats of 2015–2016.

Alliance Between Rap Music and Islam in France Rap music was born in the early 70s in the ghettos of the Bronx in New York and migrated a decade later from the United States to France. Its alliance with the Islam of France comes from a cultural heritage of the first American rappers’ protesters who spotlighted their Muslim faith in their daily lifestyle and songs. Apart from this American cultural heritage of revolutionary Islamic rap transmitted to French rap, the actors of this art easily identified themselves with the ideas of Muslim movements such as Nation of Islam or Black Panthers Party because their thinkers (Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, etc.) denounced the same social injustices in America that French rappers experienced in France. The alliance of French rap with Islam comes also from the fact that these two paths (music and religion) give a social redemption to some of these rappers whose lives could have gone onto a dead end. In her chapter “The hip-hop Culture of the Republic,” Ramona Mielusel, is right to say that “Despite their level of education and their current success, they carry many regrets from their past lives. As they all recognize in their songs and public declarations, rap music and their return to the faith saved them from a life of delinquency” (2018, 112) and she gives a concrete example in the case of the rapper Regis Fayette Mikano also known as Abd Al Malik who confessed that his conversion to Islam saved him (2018, 119). The same goes for Kery James2 who affirms in “28 décembre 77”

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(28 December 77), a song that traces his existential journey from his birth to his conversion to Islam, that this religion changed his life for the better: “Et quand je regarde mon passé/ j’ai failli y passer/ Si je n’avais eu l’Islam peut être que je me serais fait repassé/ Ou la moitié de ma vie en prison, j’aurais passé” [And when I look at my past/ I almost passed away/ If I hadn’t had Islam maybe I would have been dead/ Or half of my life in prison, I would have spent.] (https://gen ius.com/Kery-james-28-decembre-1977-lyrics). What Kery James means by “repassé” is getting gunned down because of the criminal lifestyle he once had before becoming a devout Muslim. His adherence to this religion has made him without a doubt a better person; this moral transformation can be heard not only through an unifying speech throughout his lyrics, but it can also be seen by a desire to make the world a better place by his social commitment. For example, he founded in 2008 the association called A.C.E.S (Apprendre, comprendre, Entreprendre et servir/Learning, understanding, undertaking and serving) which support projects that fight against academic failure and that act for integration into professional life. Other French rappers have found peace in Islam by converting to this religion, such as Maska3 and Gims,4 rappers from the iconic group Sexion d’Assaut, Akhenaton, one of the members of the famous rap group IAM and the rapper Diam’s.5 Indeed, the French rap scene is dominated by the Muslim culture. Thus, the alliance of rap with Islam has been made quite naturally because most of its members are already familiar with the Muslim faith. According to Farid El Asri, the Muslim faith and traditions are primary cultural references for these rappers and influence their songs and their lives: “Parmi les traditions culturelles mobilisées dans les textes de rap, la principale référence culturelle est, évidemment, la tradition arabomusulmane.” (2014, 80) [Among the cultural traditions mobilized in rap texts, the main cultural reference is, of course, the Arab-Muslim tradition.]. The Muslim religion is ingrained in the French rap world, because, as El Asri affirms, when this music was brought to Europe, it flourished among the “jeunesse issue de quartiers populaires” (2014, 45) [youth from the low-income neighborhoods], in their great majority descendants of immigrants from the Maghreb, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the French Caribbean and raised predominantly in the Muslim tradition or culture. In “Rap et Islam: quand le rappeur devient imam,” Samir Amghar reveals the relationship that some French rappers have with Islam by noting that:

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“l’islam est fortement inscrit dans l’inconscient du rap de France” (2003, 86) [Islam is strongly inscribed in the subconscious of rap in France] He goes on to say that it is because “l’un comme l’autre [sont] perçus comme des outils de contestation.” (2003, 86) [both [are] seen as tools of contestation.]. Indeed, there is more than just a therapeutic aspect in rap and Islam. The former gives to the artists a freedom of speech and the latter calls into question the legitimacy of the political power in place. This therapeutic aspect is certainly felt in the lyrics of the Islamic rappers addressing themselves, their peers and the world in general as we shall see in our analysis.

Islamic Rap and Its Messages in French Rap An Islamic rapper is a rapper who embraces his religion in his daily life that also takes a fundamental place in their work as an artist. Islamic rap in this study is not necessarily a music that only evokes the Muslim faith in the lyrics, the videos, or in the behavior. For example, it is not what El Asri mentions in the following passage: Le corps même des artistes se trouve mobilisé comme réceptacle potentiel de la pratique religieuse. L’artiste, posant intentionnellement en témoin de la foi, invoque des références textuelles et gestuelles au cultuel musulman. La mobilisation de citations, de traditions prophétiques, les allusions à des versets du Coran, autant que des objets tels que les chapelets, les tenues vestimentaires des cultures musulmanes traditionnelles, la symbolique du choix des lieux et les postures participent ainsi d’une réappropriation des univers de pratiques musulmanes des pays d’origine, voire de pratiques déterritorialisées, injectées dans une orientation scénique “glocale”. (2014, 16) [The very body of artists is mobilized as a potential receptacle for religious practice. The artist, intentionally posing as a witness to the faith, invokes textual and gestural references to Muslim worship. The mobilization of quotes, prophetic traditions, allusions to verses from the Qu’ran, as well as objects such as rosaries, the clothing of traditional Muslim cultures, the symbolism of the choice of places and postures thus participate in a reappropriation of universe of Muslim practices from the countries of origin, or even deterritorialized practices, injected into a “glocal” scenic orientation].

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Without being proselyte, Islamic rappers represent a Muslim religious state of mind and express Islamic virtues and defend human values in their artistic project and in their life project. Sayyed Hossein Nasr explains eloquently that “In every religion all the virtues of its adherents derive from those existing in the founder of the religion” (2002, 35). He goes on to say “In the same way that no Christian can claim to have any virtue that was not possessed to the utmost extent by Christ, no Muslim can have any virtue that was not possessed in the most eminent degree by the Prophet” (2002, 35). He lists some of them: […] the Prophet exemplifies the virtues of humility; nobility, magnanimity and charity; truthfulness and sincerity. For Muslims, the Prophet is the perfect model of total humility before God and neighbor; nobility and magnanimity of soul, which means to be strict with oneself but generous, charitable, and forgiving to others; and finally, perfect sincerity, which means to be totally truthful to oneself and to God. (35)

This is also how I will be identifying Islamic rap(pers) in the rest of my analysis. This chapter will specifically analyze the lyrics of the songs of four of these rappers, Kery James, Abd Al Malik, Ali6 (ex-member of Lunatic7 ), and Médine, who deal with themes of Islam in the West, mostly with the messages of vivre-ensemble and peace, love and unity between people in general and French citizens in particular. It is particularly interesting to point out that all of them were former delinquents or transmitted messages of violence and hate in their earlier lives before their conversion to Islam.

Peace Some Western media associate the image of rap and Islam with extreme hostility while Islamic rappers sing values of peace in their songs. In his article, about the music lifestyle and the faith of some of the French Muslim rappers, “Les rappeurs d’Allah,” the French journalist Gilles Médioni clearly states that “Tous les rappeurs musulmans rejettent l’amalgame islamiste = terroriste” (2004, n. p.). [All Muslim rappers reject the amalgam of Islamist = terrorist]. For example, he notes that for Kery James “L’islam de Ben Laden n’est pas l’islam” (2004, n. p.). [Bin Laden’s Islam is not Islam.] Indeed, the rapper writes in his song “28 décembre 1977” that Islam: “hisse l’âme loin de tout extrémisme.”

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(https://genius.com/Kery-james-28-decembre-1977-lyrics) [hoists the soul away from all extremism.] Moreover, Médioni affirms that Kery James claim to defend “des valeurs universelles” [universal values] (2004, n.p.). In his fifth album Réel, Kery James adresses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his song “Avec le coeur et la raison.” [With heart and reason.] In the song’s Outro he states: “J’suis conscient que dans chaque camp, je dis bien dans chaque camps, y’a des gens qui se battent pour que les choses changent, / qui se battent pour la paix et la justice et je ne peux que saluer leur courage et leur sincérité.” [I am aware that in each side, I say in each side, there are people who are fighting for things to change,/who are fighting for peace and justice and I can only salute their courage and their sincerity.] (https://genius.com/Kery-james-avecle-coeur-et-la-raison-lyrics) These words summarize some of the principles that Kery James conveys through his rap such as peace among the peoples and particularly those at war. He repeats this peaceful idea in ‘‘Le combat continue part 3”8 : “J ‘rapperai toujours la paix, mais pas sans le respect” [I will always rap peace, but not without respect.] (https://gen ius.com/Kery-james-le-combat-continue-part-3-lyrics). In “Rap et islam, l’histoire d’une conversion,” Fred Sochard describes Kery James as a rapper who advocates for peace: “Kery James reste depuis lors un inclassable du rap français. Musulman converti, il passe avant tout pour un citoyen activement engagé. Une dualité qui lui permet d’apporter une autre dimension à son message: la paix et l’éducation.” (2015, n.p.) [Kery James has remained unclassifiable in French rap ever since. A converted Muslim, he is seen above all as an actively engaged citizen. A duality that allows him to bring another dimension to his message: peace and education]. Peace is indeed one of the central messages in Kery James’ lyrics. In his song “Cessez le feu,” [Stop gun violence] he evokes French urban violence and sends “un message de paix à toutes les villes” [a message of peace to all cities] of France hit by gun violence. This message confirms Amghar’s thesis about Islamic rappers and their educational role in the society when he says that “Tout comme les prophètes, le rappeur [islamique] délivre un message, il a une mission et les textes rimés interviennent comme une liturgie.” (2003, 81) [Just like the prophets, the [Islamic] rapper delivers a message, he has a mission and the rhyming texts intervene like a liturgy.] It is hard to believe that these lyrics come from the same person who experienced the hostile world of delinquency before finding internal peace through the Muslim religion. Elbadawi shows how his inner peace positively transformed his life: “Kery

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James a été très loin dans le rap social hardcore, avec Idéal J, son premier groupe, avant de s’engager en religion. L’islam incarne alors une forme de salut.” (2004, 153) [Kery James went a long way in hardcore social rap, with Ideal J, his first band, before committing to religion. Islam then embodies a form of salvation]. His salvation should be understood as a second chance to make peace with oneself, with God and with others. For those Islamic rappers who come from an impoverished social background it is also a way to make peace with society and its values. Not particularly by adhering to its principles, but rather by freeing themselves from the dictatorships (social status, appearance, fame, money, etc.) that it imposes on individuals in society. Médine also promotes a message of peace in his work. For example, he called his second album Jihad, le plus grand combat est contre soi-même [Jihad, the biggest fight is againt yourself]. This battle that Médine refers to in this title has nothing to do with a physical fight, but with a quest of an inner peace. Moreover, in his album 11 septembre [September 11] he writes a whole song which he calls “Salaam” which means “peace” in Arabic: “C’est mon message, celui de la paix. A défaut de l’dire, j’ai choisi de l’rapper.” [This is my message, that of peace. Failing to say it, I chose to rap it.] (https://genius.com/Medine-salaam-lyrics). Through this affirmation, Médine shows that it is not contradictory to be an (Islamic) rapper and to sing about peace. In addition, he suggests that rap is a powerful tool to express his thoughts in France. Que la paix soit sur vous (2015) [Peace be upon you] is rapper Ali’s latest album (and also a song’s title). The message of peace runs through his entire album. In “Lotus,” his first song, he clearly states that “La paix est le message, là où la haine est comme un marécage.” [Peace is the message, where hate is like a swamp]. (https://genius.com/Ali-fra-lotuslyrics) More interestingly, Ali begins and ends his album with a message of peace. It is a noble way of greeting the listener of his album in addition to being a way to end his album, the same way he would finish a prayer. In “Lotus,” he starts by saying: “Que la paix soit sur vous!” and in “Salaam” (the last song) he finishes it with the chorus: “Salaam, salaam, salaam, salaam, salaam/Océan de paix, pas de vague à l’âme/ Mon corps vogue dans le calme évitant le drame/Paix aux hommes, paix aux enfants, paix aux femmes/Se passant la paix, se passant le salaam/Se passant la paix, se passant le salaam.” [Salaam, salaam, salaam, salaam, salaam/Ocean of peace, no wave to the soul/My body sails in calm avoiding drama/Peace to men, peace to children, peace to women/Passing peace, Passing the

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salaam/Passing the peace, passing the salaam](https://genius.com/Alifra-salaam-lyrics). In these verses, Ali brings out several concepts of peace. One of them refers to being at peace with his religion. “Salaam” does not refer only to peace in general, but also to the peace of Islam, that which comes from Allah. This ties in with what Nasr explains about the Muslim’s greeting: “Even the daily greeting of Muslims, al-salamu alaykum, ‘peace be upon you,’ which the Prophet taught to his companions as the greeting of the People of Paradise comes from the Qu’ran.” (2002, 23) Therefore, in this passage, Ali underlines also the peace with oneself. The rapper speaks not only of a body at peace with itself, but also of a calm and tranquilized soul. This peace can be seen in the evolution of his lyrics: from chaos to harmony, as he calls his first solo album in 2005, Chaos and Harmony. Furthermore, the image of the ocean in opposition to the wave supports the immensity of unshakeable inner peace. A peace that can only come from submitting to God. As Nasr explains “The very name of the religion, Islam, comes from this reality, for the Arabic word al-Islam means ‘surrender’ as well as the peace that issues from our surrender to God.” (2002, 8) Moreover, Ali’s “Océan de paix” alludes to the peace and calmness of nature. In other words, Ali makes his listeners hear loud and clear that he wishes peace in the world. In the same song he raps “Salaam sur la terre, partout dans l’univers.” [Salaam on earth, all over the universe] https://genius.com/Ali-frasalaam-lyrics) Of course, it is difficult to talk about peace on earth without talking about peace between human beings. This is the reason why he distinguishes each human entity whether it is a man, a child, or a woman.9 Ali places great emphasis in his songs on the peace of mankind. He reiterates the same idea in “Doux et puissant”: “Paix aux hommes, femmes et enfants que l’amour éclaire.” [Peace to the men, women and children whom love enlightens] (https://genius.com/Alifra-doux-et-puissant-lyrics). However, Ali’s messages were not always so peaceful and unifying. He first started with Lunatic, a rap group which largely promoted delinquency and violence in their lyrics. Nevertheless, his return to religious values and beliefs changed his world perspective and transformed him in the person that he is today. Of course, this new way of thinking takes place in each of his musical work. As Ali’s song underlines, for Islamic rappers, the values of peace seem to go hand in hand with those of love, another idea promoted by religious beliefs like Islam.

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Love Advocating values of peace and love for Islamic rappers is a duty as practicing Muslims. This duty even takes a form of mission for them to show a completely different image to the radical and caricatured Islam that promotes hatred and killings in the name of religion. El Asri notices that “La majorité des mises en avant de l’islam prennent pied dans la musique européenne sur une approche de présentation, voire de représentation d’un islam positif et même idéalisé.” (2014, 47) [The majority of highlights of Islam take root in European music on an approach of presentation, even representation of a positive and even idealized Islam.]. This statement is noticeable among all the Islamic rappers in this study. For example, Ali wrote a song called “Positive énergie” [Positive energy] in which he states that “Tout passe, tout s’efface. Seul l’amour reste positive énergie.” [Everything passes, everything is erased. Only love remains positive energy] (https://genius.com/Ali-fra-positive-ene rgie-lyrics). Beyond the positive aspect, Ali sees love as a strength. In “Langage venimeux” [Poisonous language] he writes: “La force de mon art repose sur l’amour.” [The strength of my art lies in love] (https://gen ius.com/Ali-fra-langage-venimeux-lyrics) Similarily, Kery James joins Ali on the conception of love seen as a force: “La force d’un homme, n’est pas dans son arme, mais dans la grandeur de son cœur.” [The strength of a man is not in his weapon, but in the greatness of his heart.] https:// genius.com/Kery-james-la-force-lyrics). In this verse, Kery James juxtaposes the heart with the strength of man. He goes against the idea that a man who reveals his feelings is a weak and fragile man. For him, it actually takes courage for a man to show love to his fellow human being in a world full of hatred and violence. In “Protest Song,” Médine declares: “Rélovution, j’ai besoin de rélovution.” [Relovution, I need relovution]. (https://genius.com/Medine-protest-song-lyrics) Mielusel notices rightfully that in Médine’s songs, “the verses are very poetical and playful, but they also transmit a strong social message.” (2018, 113) In the song, Médine plays with words and turn “revolution” into “relovution.” Firstly, this is to show that the key to social change is not found in acts of violence (revolution), but in an act of love. Secondly, this association of the two words also shows that love is a powerful weapon to change heart, mind, and soul. Still in the same song, Médine writes: “Nous sommes des rélovutionnaires. Un jour on lève le poing, un jour on forme un cœur avec les doigts.” [We are revolutionary. One day we raise our fists, one

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day we form a heart with our fingers.] (https://genius.com/Medine-pro test-song-lyrics) In this context Médine juxtaposes the strength of a wrist clenched in the air with heart-shaped fingers. According to him, both give off the same power. There is no doubt that Médine believes in this value of love. As he even wrote a book with Pascal Boniface about the vivre-ensemble. He named the essay Don’t panik: n’ayez pas peur [ Don’t panic: Do not be affraid]—a title that he also used for one of his songs. As for Abd Al Malik, the love in his lyrics is often summed up as a romantic feeling between a man and a woman. For example, this feeling is found in several of his songs in different albums like in “Vivre à deux” [Live together] in his album Le face à face des cœurs [The battles of the hearts] (2004), “Roméo et Juliette” [Romeo and Juliet] in his album Dante, “Mon amour” [My love] in his album Château Rouge or “Love u” in his album Scarification. This vision, however, goes beyond a simple carnal love between two beings and also underlines a love coming from a source of purity as in his music called “Adam et Ève” [Adam and Eve] in his album Gibraltar (2006). Abd Al Malik brings out the strength of the pure love in the following verse “Ils ont pas une tune, ils ont trois gosses maintenant, mais ils se kiffent pareil.” [They don’t have any moola, they have three kids now, but they like each other anyway] (https://gen ius.com/Abd-al-malik-adam-et-eve-lyrics). The poet describes what the couple has: its (human) value. It doesn’t have any money, but it still has something valuable: children and unconditional love. In this Western capitalist society, money is the sinews of war. It can easily corrupt a person’s morals. It is one of the main causes of human conflicts in general and marital in particular. However, not having money in this context is a blessing in the sense that it does not pervert the pure feeling of love between the two beings. In fact, their union is growing, and this is manifested by the arrival of three children, a symbol of purity and innocence. The fruit of their marital union is multiplied not by money (the material), but by love (the divine). In other words, the lyricist shows a couple who lives on “love and fresh water” and their prosperity is produced by their posterity. Moreover, love plays an essential role in the work of Abd Al Malik. He wrote an autobiographic novel and produced a film called “ Qu’Allah benisse la France” [May Allah bless France] in which he recounts his life transformation from a juvenile delinquent to a fervent Muslim believer as well as the beauty of the “vivre-ensemble” beyond the different cultures, ethnicities or religion that exist in France.

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The representation of pure love can also be seen in the following verse: “Mais Ève, il l’a jamais embrassé, Ève, il l’a même jamais touché/ Ève, Il lui a dit à l’ancienne, je le ferai quand tu seras mienne.” [But Eve he never kissed her Eve, he never even touched her Eve, he told her the old-fashioned way I’ll do it when you’re mine Eve] ( https://gen ius.com/Abd-al-malik-adam-et-eve-lyrics). In this sentence, Abd Al Malik obviously implies sexual intercourse. In the context of a contemporary society predominantly saturated by sex and where a man’s identity in banlieues (and elsewhere too) is often defined by the number of female conquests obtained, abstaining becomes a proof of true love. In this case, Adam sees Eve not only with carnal eyes, but also with spiritual eyes. His wife is not only a body, but also a heart, mind, and soul. Besides, the “old-fashioned way” refers to the commandment of the Abrahamic religions which asks to preserve oneself sexually for their future spouse shows a pure relationship in the sense that Adam’s action alludes to virginity and chastity. Basically, Abd Al Malik underlines the difference between a sexual relationship (making love) and a loving relationship (be in love). Unlike Ali, who focuses more on transcendental spiritual type of love, Abd Al Malik focuses more on relational love. This brings up the fact that there are many ways of perceiving and conceiving love in a Muslim view. El Asri underlines the different ways of expressing Islam among Islamic rappers: “On le voit, bien des variétés d’islam semblent coexister ou même s’affronter dans le monde de l’art, de l’ ‘islam bisounours’ d’Abd Al Malik à l’ ‘islam des maquis’ plus spécifique à la verve et au contenu des musiques de Médine.” (2014, 176) [As we can see, many varieties of Islam seem to coexist or even clash in the art world, from Abd Al Malik’s “love-bear Islam” to the “Islam of the maquis’ more specific to Médines” writing and content of the music.] By “love-bear Islam,” El Asri meant values inclined to good feelings, whereas the “Islam of the maquis” is the one which doesn’t accept everything in the name of love. This one is more in the denunciation than in the blind emotions. This variety of Islam can also be seen between Ali and Abd Al Malik. For Ali, in “Amour” [Love] he sees love as a gift from God as God is love: “[…] Dieu est Amour. Que Dieu est éternel et donc l’Amour ne meurt pas.” [… God is Love. That God is eternal and therefore Love does not die.] (https://genius.com/Ali-fra-amour-lyrics) For Abd Al Malik, in “Ode à

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l’amour,” he “ professe la religion de l’amour et quelle que soit la direction que prenne sa monture cette religion est [s]a religion.” [professes the religion of love and whatever direction his mount takes this religion is [his] religion] (https://genius.com/Abd-al-malik-ode-a-lamour-lyrics). In other word, for Ali, God is love and for Abd Al Malik love is God. In this sense, El Asri is right to assert that “Chacun exprime sa communion avec Dieu et le monde musulman de différentes façons dans son rap.” (2014, 150) [Everyone expresses their communion with God and the Muslim world in different ways in their rap.] Nonetheless, even though there is a distinct difference between these two conceptions of love, both artists preach the importance of unity in humanity.

Unity The spiritual and religious belief of Islamic rappers encourages them to promote in their songs the importance of the values of unity, solidarity and fraternity in a French nation divided by questions of racial, cultural and religious identity. Speaking of Abd Al Malik, El Asri admits that “L’écriture de ce rappeur et slammeur incarne ces ‘artistes musulmans d’utilité publique’ qui sont les témoins positifs, prônant le respect de l’autre autant que l’amour et ce au sein même d’une société particulièrement tendue.” (2014, 224) [The writing of this rapper and slammer embodies these “Muslim artists of public utility” who are the positive witnesses, advocating respect for others as much as love and this even in a particularly tense society.]. Ali is also a great advocate of unity within the French nation. In his song “Langage du Coeur” [Language of hearts], he is not afraid to say that to obtain a better communication among one another, it is important to have love, peace and unity. The desire to bring the French closer to a common social destiny is apparent in the works of Kery James. Mielusel notes that, in Kery James’ album Savoir et vivre ensemble (2004), “Six out of the twenty-one tracks relate to Islamic precepts such as fraternity and unity between generations, races, and religions.” (2018,125) She explains that at the release of this album: “Kery James had invited several artists to participate in this project to offer different points of view on religion. Not all the artist who were invited are Muslims. He was perceived as a promoter of universal values of respect, charity, generosity, humility, which are not necessarily exclusively Islamic principles.” (2018, 125).

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These values of mutual aid and fraternity are also reflected in his album À l’ombre du show business [In the Shadow of Showbusiness] in the song “Le combat continues part 3” [The Fight Goes on part 3] when he asserts “j’rapperai toujours l’unité.” [I will always rap for unity] (https://gen ius.com/Kery-james-le-combat-continue-part-3-lyrics). In fact, in his first album already, Kery James wrote a song called “Y’a pas d’couleur” [There is no color] in which he says: “Moi j’rappe pour les Noirs, les Arabes et les Blancs. Sache que je suis pas de ceux qu’effraient la différence. Ta couleur de peau pour moi ne fait aucune différence.” [I rap for blacks, Arabs and whites. Know that I am not one of those who are afraid of difference. Your skin color to me doesn’t make any difference]. (https:// genius.com/Kery-james-ya-pas-dcouleur-lyrics). Same goes for Médine that, in his first album, wrote a song called “A l’encre de Médine” [In Medine Ink] in which he affirms that his message speaks to the heart and not to the race or the skin colour: “Quelle que soit ta couleur ou ton histoire. Que tu sois Blanc, Maghrébin ou d’Afrique Noire.” [Whatever your color or your story. Whether you are White, Maghrebian, or Black African]. (https://genius.com/Medine-a-lencrede-medine-lyrics) Kery James and Medine underline in their songs the importance of racial unity in a twenty-first-century France where national identity is still under scrutiny. The three ethnicities Médine raps about refer to the terms Black, Blanc, Beur,10 a slogan that became popular in 1998 after France’s football team11 won their first World Cup. Right after this event, the media turned this term into a symbol of a French multicultural and multiracial nation. This is most likely the reason why Abd Al Malik does not hesitate to chant loudly in “Soldat de plomb” [Toy soldiers]: “Vive la France arc-en-ciel” [Long live rainbow France] (https://genius.com/Abd-al-malik-soldat-de-plomb-lyrics). The rainbow of which he speaks refers to skin colors, but also to all forms of differences between French people. In “Porteur saint” [Holy Bearer], one of the singles of Médine’s album Prose Élite,12 he states: “Avec les saintes écritures, on [the believers, n.a.] dev[r]ait gommer les differences.” [With the holy scriptures, we [the believers] should erase the differences] (https://genius.com/Med ine-porteur-saint-lyrics). By erasing the differences, Médine means to live in a French society that is color blind without being colorless. In “Le langage du cœur,” Abd Al Malik expresses the fact that “que tu sois Juif, Chrétien, ou bien Bouddhiste je t’aime.” [Whether you are a Jew, a Christian, or a Buddhist], I love you.] (https://genius.com/Abd-al-malik-le-

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langage-du-cur-lyrics). The reason behind this unconditional love is that, for him, love is a universal force, as he says in the same song “L’amour est universel” [Love is universal.] (https://genius.com/Abd-al-malik-lelangage-du-cur-lyrics). This universality that often comes up in the lyrics of these rappers supports the fact that Islam can be in accord with Republican values. Besides, Abd Al Malik lives what he preaches as he is married to Wallen, a French singer of Moroccan origin. In fact, Kery James and Médine are also in an interracial marriage. Moreover, in his song “Dialogue,” Ali greets his listeners by saying “Salam,” “Shalom” and “Salut.” He uses the same greetings in different languages to demonstrate unity among French people and mankind in general. By doing so, Ali shows also tolerance toward other French people of different faith than him. “Shalom” refers to his respect for the Jewish religion and “Salut” to that of the Catholic religion, but also to the atheists, which would understand this word in the sense of a simple greeting and not in a sense of salvation. In the song “28 décembre 77,” Kery James explains that, for him, Islam does not separate people, but brings people together contrary to general public perceptions: “L’Islam ramène l’amour, rassemble les gens de tous les pays de toutes les origines, toutes les cultures, toutes les ethnies.” [Islam brings love, brings together people from all countries of all origins, all cultures, all ethnicities.] (https://genius.com/Kery-james-28-decembre-1977-lyrics) When some media or (far) right politicians believe that Islam is a religion that divides and conquers France, Kery James turns this perception onto its head and preaches otherwise. He uses the word “toutes” four times in a simple sentence. It is a way of emphasizing the universality, the tolerance, and the openness of Islam in the unity of humanity’s diversity and in this case unity in the French nation. These are values that are dear to Kery James since he called his second solo album Savoir et vivre ensemble (Knowing how to live together). The title of this album promotes living with the Other (vivre ensemble), not just side by side, but together in a united and harmonious way and not divided by confessional, social, and racial “segregation.” The term “savoir” shows a desire to learn from others and to know their habits, customs, traditions, beliefs, and culture in order to maintain social cohesion among all French people. Moreover, Kery James strongly believes in education as a tool for emancipation. In the “ Dernier MC” [The Last MC] he cleary states: “1 pour l’éducation, car sans elle pas d’élévation” [one for education because without it there is no elevation]. Besides, in

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his latest album, Moohammad Alix, he has a song called “Vivre ou mourir ensemble” [Live or die together]. This title echoes to his second album written sixteen years before he wrote this song. Years later, times passed, but Kery James sees no change in the integration of visible minorities in the French society. He then comes to realize that, if the French society as a whole does not know how or does not want to live together, each of its members will inevitably die together. In other words, the French nation must find a way to live together in a social cohesion or remain divided and die together in a social collision.

Conclusion The objective of this chapter was to show the relationship between French rap and Islam in the current cultural and political context in France. By analyzing the lyrics of some of the most important contemporary Islamic rappers, the study puts forward three principles promoted by the rappers as essential guiding lights for a peaceful and joyful co-existence within ethnic groups in France: peace, love, and unity. These rap lyrics respond to a certain discourse of politicians and the media alike suggesting that rap or the Muslim religion is contrary to the French republican values. Through their lyrics, these Islamic rappers challenge the negative stereotypes on their profession and their religion by advocating universal values that exceed the French republican principles. By promoting values of peace, love, and unity to the French nation, those Islamic rappers show their religion is not a real problem in the society. Their songs reinstate that a harmonious cohabitation between French Muslim and the rest of the nation is possible. Those unifying principles in Islamic rap show a new view in contemporary rap especially in the global context of Islamophobia, as a result of 9/11 attacks and of the terrorist threats that shook France in 2015–2016.

Notes 1. In this article, I will only focus on male Muslim rappers, not because there are no woman Muslim rappers (as there are a few, Diam’s being probably the most famous one), but because the male Muslim rapper is the one targeted by the media as the real threat to the French’s value. However, Muslim women, therefore the rappers too, are more seen as the

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2. 3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8. 9.

10.

11.

victims that needs to be protected from their Muslim brothers, fathers and husbands. Kery James was born in Guadeloupe to Haitian parents. Ex member of the group Ideal J, he is known to be a socially conscious rapper. Bastien Vincent (legal name) was born on May 21th 1985 in Paris, France. He released his first solo album in 2014 entitled Espace temps with the famous track “Prie pour moi” (Pray for me) in featuring with Gims. Born on May 6th 1986 in Kinshasa, Gandhi Bilel Djuna (legal name) started his solo career in 2013 with his album Subliminal. Since 2014, Gims and his family live in between Paris and Marrakech. Diam’s short for Diamond is the stage name of Mélanie Georgiades who was born on July 25th 1980. She was one of the most famous rappers in the early 2000 up until 2010 when she suddenly terminated her musical career to devote herself to her Muslim faith. Ali or Yassine Sekkoumi was born on May 5th 1975 in Paris. His stage name, Ali, is the acronym for (Africains lié à l’Islam/Africans tied to Islam). The name is an identity marker. By using this acronym, the artist shows that his identity belonging not only to Africa from a continental point of view but also to Islam from a religious point of view. Lunatic is a French hip-hop group from the West end of Paris. It is constituted by Booba and Ali. The duo is famously known for their singles “Le crime paie” Crime pays] (1996), “Les vrais le savent” [The Real ones know it] (1997) and for their gold record album Mauvais oeil [Evil Eye]. The group separated in 2003 and both artists continued as solo artist. This is the first song from his fourth album called A l’ombre du show business [In the Shadow of Showbusiness]. In fact, Ali is not the only Muslim rapper to spread a message of peace and love to women; In “Love music” from his album Dernier MC, Kery James pays tribute to the women in his life: his daughter, his wife and his mother. Abdel Malik has written several songs in honor of women, for example, in his album Château rouge, “Ma Jolie” [My Pretty] raises the theme of a battered woman. Then, in the album Jihad, Le plus grand combat est contre soi même [Jihad, the Biggest Fight is against yourself], Médine wrote a song named “Combat de femme” [Woman Fight] by paying tribute to the woman. It is important to mention this celebration of women from those artists because one strong impression people have towards their music and religion imprisons them in a certain view of them being patriarchal and sexist men who hardly respect the female gender. Beur is a back-slang term for “Arabe” that it is known to designate an individual born or raised in France whose parents are originally from North Africa. It was a national team that was known for his racial diversity: Black, like Marcel Desailly who was born in Ghana, Lilian Thuram who was born in

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Guadeloupe, White French like Didider Deschamps, Laurent Blanc and Emmanuel Petit or Arab like Zinedine Zidane. 12. A pun word with the word “proselyte.”

References Ali. 2005. Chaos et harmonie, 45 Scientific, compact disc. _____. 2015. Que la paix soit sur vous, 45 Scientific, 2015, compact disc. Amghar, Samir. 2003. Rap et islam: Quand le rappeur devient imam. Hommes & Migrations 1243 (1): 78–86. Bowen, John R. 2009. Can Islam be French?: Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secularist State. Princeton: Princeton University Press. El Asri, Farid. 2014. Rythmes et voix d’islam: Une socioanthropologie d’artistes musulmans européens. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses universitaires de Louvain. Elbadawi, Soeuf. 2004. Allah remixé par le rap: Le flow de la prédication en France. Africultures 4 (61): 150–154. Gilles Médioni “Les rappeurs d’Allah,” L’Epress, June 28, 2020. https://www. lexpress.fr/culture/musique/les-rappeurs-d-allah_489437.html. James, Kery. 2001. Si c’était à refaire, Believe Music, compact disc. _____. 2004. Savoir et vivre ensemble. Naive, compact disc. _____. 2008. A l’ombre du show business. Up Music, compact disc. _____. 2009. Réel, Up Music, compact disc _____. 2016. Mouhammad Alix. Suther Kane - 94 Side P, compact disc. Lunatic. 1996. “Le crime paie”, track 8 on Hostile. Beat de Boul & Double H, compact disc. _____. 1997. “Les vrais savent”, track 29 on Opération: coup de poing, Passe Passe, compact disc. Malik, Abd Al. 2004. Le face à face avec des cœurs, Atmospheriques/Universal, compact disc. _____. 2006. Gibraltar, Distribution Select, compact disc. _____. 2008. Dante, Atmospheriques/Universal, Universal Music Division Barclay, compact disc. _____. 2010. Château rouge, Universal France, compact disc. _____. 2015. Scarification, [PIAS], compact disc. Maska. 2014. “Prie pour moi”, track 4 on Espace-temps, Wati B, compact disc. Médine. 2004. 11 Septembre, Récit du 11ème Jour, Din Records, compact disc. _____. 2008. Don’t panik tape, Din Records, compact disc. _____. 2013a. Prose Élite. Din Records, compact disc. _____. 2013b. Protest song. Din Records, compact disc. Mielusel, Ramona. 2018. The Hip-Hop Culture of the Republic. In FrancoMaghrebi Artists of the 2000s, 100–135. Leiden: Brill Rodopi. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. 2002. The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity. San Francisco: Harper Collins.

Drawing the Muslim Self: Muslim Citizenship and Contemporary Islam in France Jennifer Howell

Norédine Allam’s popular internet and comic-book series, Muslim’Show (created with illustrator Greg Blondin), humorously depicts the challenges and responsibilities of being Muslim today. Born in the northern French city of Amiens in 1977 to a French mother and an Algerian father, Allam debuted as a graffiti artist before transitioning to the comics industry where he worked as a colorist. His talents soon garnered the attention of comic-book publisher Dargaud, as well as that of Albert René who commissioned him and his team at Studio 2HB to recolor all of the Astérix albums over a five-year period. Only after (re)discovering Islam, did Allam become acutely aware that the market lacked quality “Islamic” comic books made by and for Muslims. To remedy this, he launched Muslim’Show online in 2009 and, shortly thereafter, founded Europe’s first Islamic comic-book publisher, BDouin Studios.1 Despite its originality and strong following on social media,2 the Muslim’Show comicbook series has not fared well in France. Print runs are typically small, making albums difficult to find, and bande dessinée festivals have shown little interest in promoting Allam’s work (Bourquin and Contenay 2014;

J. Howell (B) Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Mielusel (ed.), Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81234-8_11

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Deraedt 2015; Mohamed 2014). Nevertheless, Muslim’Show remains the first of its kind and has cultivated an international readership in North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Well-balanced between caricature and respect for Self and Other in its depiction of Muslim daily life, Allam’s Muslim’Show serves as an unintended yet perfectly effective counternarrative to Islamophobic currents prominent in mainstream media and political discourse. Despite the artist’s claim that the series was created by and for Muslims, the present analysis (authored by a non-Muslim) proposes a contextualized reading of Allam’s work, which highlights his representation of “moderate Muslims”3 performing their civic and religious identities in ways that are simultaneously traditional and modern. Throughout the series, the artist demonstrates that these two identities are indeed compatible, even complementary. What then are the cultural and political implications of Islamic comics such as Muslim’Show for French republicanism and its version of secularism? How does the series engage with readers to embrace a new pluralist French society, one in which communal identities based on religious beliefs are no longer deemed antithetical to the republic? Finally, is Allam similar to other “young Muslim changemakers” in France who, through various forms of active citizenship, “generate heterotopias which contribute to the emergence of a pluralistic society and sow the seeds of mutual understanding” (Barylo 2018, 138)?

Muslim Citizens in a State of Emergency On November 14, 2015, one day after a series of coordinated terrorist attacks claimed by the Islamic State paralyzed Paris and ten months after the Kouachi brothers forced their way into the offices of Charlie Hebdo killing twelve people, President François Hollande declared a state of emergency in France. Extended six times, the presidential decree would remain in force for nearly two years. Hollande’s successor, Emmanuel Macron, would later suspend France’s state of emergency in November 2017, only to replace it with a controversial anti-terrorism law, which would allow the Minister of the Interior and local authorities to continue to search homes, make house arrests, surveil suspected terrorists, and close places of worship without prior judicial approval. Although security measures permitted under the state of emergency and made permanent by the new law did not target a specific demographic, Human Rights Watch

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reported that the majority of individuals under investigation were either Muslim or of North African descent (Human Rights Watch 2016). Yet even before the expansion of these security measures, scholars found that “racialized Muslim ethnic groups…are disproportionately represented at all levels of the French criminal justice system” (Jackson 2010, 51).4 Farhad Khosrokhavar estimates that Muslims make up between 40 and 50 percent of France’s prison population; the percentage is probably higher in large prisons near Paris (“Caged Fervour,” 2016). As a point of comparison, only 8.8 percent of the French population identifies as Muslim (Hackett 2017). Headscarves, mosques, halal consumer products, and the creation of Muslim sections in French cemeteries have nevertheless made France’s 5.7 million Muslims highly visible in the public sphere (Cesari 1994, 95; Hackett 2017). Together, the perceived threat of Islamic fundamentalism and this very public expression of religion have raised serious questions regarding the “failed” integration of Muslims into French society, as well as Islam’s “incompatibility” with French republicanism and, in particular, laïcité (secularism). Being Muslim in secular France presents new challenges to the ways in which society understands and articulates the politics of citizenship, but it also forces French Muslims to define their religious practice so that it fits within the parameters of French secularism. Olivier Tonneau has convincingly argued that, in recent years, young French Muslims have become “both intensely religious and resolutely republican” (2016, 297). This does not mean, however, that French Muslims wish to capitalize on their religious identity. In fact, scholars have determined that the majority of Muslims living in France prefer to limit their practice to the private sphere.5 In France’s current climate of islamophobia, Muslims must “compete…for the ownership of definitions concerning the nature of being Muslim and the meaning of Islam” (Amiraux and Jonker 2006, 12). Unfavorable attitudes toward Muslims and, in particular, those of North African descent have led to institutional racism witnessed in discrimination in housing, employment,6 and–as we have already seen–criminal justice. Negative stereotypes influence how non-Muslims view Muslims, but they also affect how Muslims shape their own identity. Challenging dominant political discourses on Muslims and Islam within non-Muslim societies through Muslim self-representation therefore takes on paramount importance (Fadil 2006, 60). While Norédine Allam maintains that he did

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not create Muslim’Show with the intention of explaining Islam to nonMuslims, the series offers such readers a window into Muslim life, ultimately showing that its guiding principles are not really “foreign.” In his reading of Muslim’Show, Christophe Monnot finds that Allam’s vignettes effectively demonstrate the extent to which Muslims are no different from non-Muslim citizens (Deraedt, 2015). Allam’s resistance to the process of othering is noteworthy. France’s Muslim community has responded to discriminatory practices with a diverse array of reactions, ranging from indiscriminate acts of violence to the disavowal of ethno-religious identity (e.g., via the Francization of one’s name). Mainstream media nevertheless remains highly focused on instances of extremism. Such reporting practices have resulted in the construction of an “imaginary Islam” (Deltombe, [2005] 2007, 8). By placing undue importance “on religion as the determining factor in the behaviour of people of Muslim culture…many analysts,” writes Olivier Tonneau, have overlooked “other factors such as the demand for social justice and equality…” (2016, 283). The ideologically charged representation of Islam and Muslims in Europe assimilates the moderate majority into an extremist minority and “cast[s] Muslims as external to all things European” (Tsagarousianou 2016, 16–17). European Muslims are then alienated from the societies in which they live and their claims to equality and, in certain instances, citizenship are disregarded (Tsagarousianou 2016, 17). Consequently, many “moderate Muslims” like Allam assert their “right to indifference” (Fernando 2014, 27; Tonneau 2016, 296), wishing “to remain unnoticed but visible” (Fadil 2006, 64). Concerns about the cultural assimilation of Muslim citizens in France underscore the assumed incompatibility of Islam with French republicanism. However, scholars like Tonneau have convincingly argued that “moderate Muslims” are resolutely republican in their demands for equality regardless of origin, race/ethnicity or religion; in so doing, they are articulating their rights as citizens using the very republican rhetoric that dominant discourses in France have used to other and, thus, exclude them (2016, 281). Research on civic engagement and social participation within European Muslim communities has demonstrated that Muslims who engage in community service through local faith-based organizations view religion as an alternative yet equally viable pathway to citizenship (Barylo 2018, 21). For young European Muslims, “active citizenship stands for being a good Muslim, and being a good Muslim becomes synonymous

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with active involvement in society” (Fadil 2006, 70). And for those whose community involvement—both in the real world and in the virtual one—has made them visible as responsible (Muslim) citizens, they are well-positioned to deconstruct stereotypes and influence public perception. Norédine Allam’s Muslim’Show is certainly no exception. One could even argue that, as the founder of a Muslim-run media outlet that has enjoyed positive press, Allam has an obligation to take a defensive position in the aftermath of certain events (e.g., Islamic terrorism), but, perhaps more importantly, to make visible the Muslims for whom Allam speaks and their commitment to social ethics.7 As indicated by the series’ title, the artist uses comics to put Muslims on display as they perform their identity both civically and religiously. However, because Allam is Muslim, his preferred mode of representation, which combines the image and the word, has raised ethical and aesthetic questions among Islamic scholars.

The Ethics and Aesthetics of Islamic Comics Understanding that “the weight and responsibility from an Islamic standpoint are heavy,” Allam regularly consults with an anonymous mufti and, under his guidance, avoids content that could be misconstrued as aligning with a specific doctrine or ideology (Mohamed, 2014). Regarding one particular issue—that of representation—Norédine Allam posted an announcement on his blog in 2015, publicly distancing himself from earlier versions of Muslim’Show in which humans were portrayed “realistically.”8 The artist’s message addresses his Muslim followers in English and is worth citing at length: Allah permitted me to meet some great brothers who had the goodwill to advise me (in private) about my doings. These people have made me aware of the mistakes in my work, and the danger to which I was exposing myself had I continued on this path (of “realistically” portraying living beings). It was this realization that led me (in October 2014) to completely change my style, to now only drawing dark silhouettes, or animated objects (ex. cars with eyes). Today, for this reason, I dissociate myself from all my previous works that are not drawn in this way, whether that be the first 3 volumes of Muslim Show, or other commercial works of this type. I also separate myself from all previous comic works on which I have collaborated with other publishers, like Albert René, Dargaud, Soleil, or M6 (Astérix, Léa Parker, Ghetto Poursuite, Jules Verne, etc.) Aside from the graphic aspect, the above-mentioned works also held the important fault

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of containing ideas incompatible with the principles of Islam. I have also become aware of the need for a complete change in editorial direction. This is why I have decided to dedicate the majority of my time on entertaining, educational and informative projects (all the while continuing to produce “mini comics” promoting proper, Islamic behaviour). And finally, I have decided no longer to comment publicly on current politics.9

However, only a year before changing his visual representation of people from cartoony human figures to simplified silhouettes, Allam explained his stance on the matter during an interview published online. Acknowledging the lack of consensus among Islamic scholars, the artist—in consultation with a mufti—initially determined that his stylized figural representation did not go against the teachings of Islam (Mohamed 2014). According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Islamic religious art and architecture are anionic. Islamic aniconism stems from the belief that only God may create living forms, although there remains some disagreement regarding the meaning of references to idolatry in the Qur’an. Where they appear in art and architecture, figures are therefore stylized or modified. Despite this resistance to figurative representation, the inclusion of human and animal forms in secular art and ornamentation has nevertheless prevailed in much of the Islamic world (Department of Islamic Art 2001). Perhaps due to the nature of Allam’s work, the artist reconsidered his original position on figural representation. Indeed, Muslim’Show is not merely ornamental; it purports to illustrate “Muslim people, their doubts, their fears, their desires, their hopes and their contradictions” (Mohamed 2014). In the same interview, Allam compares Muslim’Show to his contribution to the Islamic edutainment project ADABéo on Facebook and Twitter, which uses avatars drawn from above and whose faces are indistinguishable, to teach viewers about Ramadan and the Hajj. For Allam, “ADABéo works very well in providing an edutainment content; it is less effective when it comes to telling stories: identification is less obvious with faceless characters” (Mohamed 2014). However, Scott McCloud’s seminal Understanding Comics offers a different perspective on iconicity in comics. In opposition to Allam’s interpretation of ADABéo’s “faceless characters”10 that render reader identification difficult, McCloud posits that by removing facial details from an image, the face becomes more universal: “The more cartoony a face is…the more people it could be said to describe” ([1993] 1994, 31). For McCloud,

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low levels of iconicity actually facilitate viewer identification. He writes, “when you look at a photo or realistic drawing of a face—you see it as the face of another. But when you enter the world of the cartoon— you see yourself” (McCloud [1993] 1994, 36).Allam’s cast of characters in Muslim’Show, most notably those who appear throughout the first three published comic-book albums (Ramadan, Mariage, and Voisin voisin), consequently come to represent modern Muslim communities who live in non-Muslim societies and to whom the artist’s Muslim fans can presumably relate. After all, Allam initially created Muslim’Show due to a perceived lack of quality Islamic comics that spoke to the artist as a Muslim. Quite arguably then, reader identification was an important determinant of the series’ conception. While I do not question Allam’s decision to distance himself from his earlier work, to alter Muslim’Show’s visual style, and to refocus narrative content, I would like to discuss the cultural significance of the three aforementioned albums before commenting on more recently published Muslim’Show anthologies. The first album, Ramadan, offers a humorous yet humanizing depiction of Muslims fasting in non-Muslim societies. Conceived as a series of shorts, Ramadan plays with cultural misunderstandings and misrepresentations. For example, in “À quoi tu penses?” (What are you thinking about?) two young Arab men are drawn in a seemingly lewd conversation during which they take turns describing what the reader initially assumes to be women absent from the frames: “Mate un peu le morceau!… Je me ferais bien celle-ci!… Attends… mate un peu celle à droite… on dirait sa sœur…” (Allam et al. [2010] 2015, n.p.). (Check out this piece!… I would gladly take her!… Wait…check out the one on the right… they look like sisters…) Their conversation mimics instances of sexual harassment on the street and recalls one scene from Mathieu Kassovitz’s 1995 banlieue film La Haine (Hate) in which the central protagonists discuss sexual encounters with neighborhood women. The last image on the page, however, reveals that the objects of their desire are pastries (in French, patisserie is feminine). The young men who originally appear as unemployed racaille (riff-raff)—one is wearing a hoodie and a sideways cap; the other is dressed in a soccer jersey—are later shown to be practicing Muslims drooling over dessert pastries while fasting. In another episode, “Boulette d’alu” (aluminum ball), police pull up to a bus stop with their lights flashing and accost two young men engaged in a quiet conversation. During the pat down, one of the officers finds a crumpled piece of aluminum foil in one of the men’s pockets.

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Assuming he has found drugs, the officer escorts the Arab youth to the police station where another officer sniffs the foil and finds that it does indeed smell like Moroccan hash. Only upon opening the foil, do the officers realize their mistake: the foil contains a date to break the young man’s fast at the end of the day. Allam’s recasting of young Arab men challenges the predominant “racial imagery of violence” and criminality in France, associated with “dark-skinned immigrant bodies” (Silverstein 2004, 108). Instead, non-Muslim readers must confront their own feelings of hostility toward the Muslim Other and to recognize instances of injustice, racism, and discrimination targeting (Arab) Muslims in the West. For Allam’s Muslim readership, however, narrative focus lies elsewhere. In their study of Arab comics, Allen Douglas and Fedwa Malti-Douglas identify the ways in which comics can be considered Islamic. Either they can address subjects specific to Islam (e.g., Ramadan) or they can offer “moral guidance…presented in Islamic terms or with Islamic legitimization” (Douglas and Malti-Douglas 1994, 83). The latter categorization best describes Muslim’Show as a whole in its attempts to delineate proper religious conduct. As individual moral tales, the episodes that make up each album (Ramadan, Mariage, and Voisin voisin) serve to model good (Muslim) behavior while denouncing the bad behavior of Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Vignettes derive humor from culturally specific situations that provoke misunderstandings. Mariage, for example, follows the evolution of a Muslim couple’s relationship from courtship to honeymoon. Because they live in a non-Muslim society, much of the album’s humor stems from how their non-Muslim friends, neighbors, and colleagues view their relationship—always through a Western lens that the couple understands but to which they refuse to conform. For instance, in “Le mur de la…” (the wall of), the groom’s non-Muslim colleague plans a bachelor party with three Muslim groomsmen. After plastering a wall with images of cocktails, party limousines, poker, and strip clubs, the nonMuslim must relinquish his “mur de la tentation” (wall of temptation) in favor of the other men’s “mur de la compassion” (wall of compassion) which promotes humanitarian causes, tajwid classes, and prayer (Allam et al. [2011] 2015, n.p.). Another episode, “Le bisou” (the kiss), narrates the couple’s civil ceremony at the town hall. Unfortunately for the groom, the officiant ends the ceremony with a seemingly simple “vous pouvez embrasser la mariée!” (Allam et al. [2011] 2015, n.p.) (you may kiss the bride). The image also

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contains the groom’s thought balloons—discernible by their dark background and white lettering—in which he contemplates the implication of kissing the bride in front of her father. At the episode’s close, the groom is drawn with a red mark on his cheek (presumably where he was struck by his father-in-law’s shoe), spiraling pupils that suggest a sustained concussion, and leaning over a glass of water with a dissolving aspirin tablet. An Arab friend tells him that he was to kiss her forehead, not her mouth. Finally, in “Invités d’honneur” (guests of honor), which takes place after the religious ceremony and during the wedding reception, the groom makes his way around the room to welcome guests. At one table are the groom’s best friend, neighborhood boulangère, and one of his father-inlaw’s former brother-in-arms. In the first frame, the three guests—men and woman—are drawn dining together with opaque curtains in the background. The guests thank the groom for treating them like royalty to which he responds: “Mais non voyons, c’est naturel! Vous êtes des invités comme les autres!” (Allam et al. [2011] 2015, n.p.) (No, it’s only natural! You’re regular guests like everyone else!). Similar to other episodes in this album, the final image reveals the true context of the exchange. The curtain visible in the first frame reappears here as a divider: to one side are the women and, to the other, the men. The outsiders, seated in the center and separated from everyone else, are quite obviously not like the other guests. While these moments are undoubtedly humorous to all of Allam’s readers, they underscore the additional stress placed on non-normative couples. In addition to planning their wedding (an event that would cause most individuals a great deal of stress), the bride and groom must also negotiate their Muslim identity within a non-Muslim society, something that presents a unique set of challenges when these worlds overlap. In such instances, Allam brings to light the unforeseen (but not necessarily negative) consequences of Muslim integration into French society. For example, if the groom appears to cater to his non-Muslim guests’ expectations at the wedding, the groom’s best (non-Muslim) friend also appears to learn the value of civic engagement at the bachelor party. The third album, Voisin voisin (neighbor neighbor), differs from Ramadan and Mariage in that Muslim characters are shown navigating the everyday as neighbors of non-Muslims and outside of important life events. The cultural implications are less about Islamic traditions than the expression of religious identity in a secular context. For this reason, Voisin voisin is perhaps the most interesting of the three albums with respect to self-representation as it highlights daily interactions between Muslims

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and non-Muslims. Some of the themes from Ramadan are nevertheless revisited, including the deconstruction of Muslim stereotypes. One episode, “En Musulmanie?” (in Muslimania), examines Islamophobia as political discourse. A minister becomes alarmed after a video of a cloaked individual encouraging French Muslims to remain united in the face of Islamophobic acts goes viral. Despite the alleged terrorist’s peaceful discourse, he is arrested. Describing the accused as a “pseudo-salofoimmigro-terroriste” (pseudo-salafo-immigro-terrorist) who is “in-compa-ti-ble avec les valeurs de notre république,” (incompatible with the values of our republic) the minister wants nothing more than to “expulser cet imam de France et le renvoyer dans son pays natal” (Allam et al. 2013, n.p.) (deport this French imam and send him back to his native country). Unbeknownst to him, the “terrorist” is a blonde-haired, blueeyed Frenchman whose lineage can be traced back to Vercingétorix. Not only is the accused a far cry from mass-media representations of jihadists, Allam’s narrative indicates that it is the national government—and not the cultural Other—who is, at times, incompatible with the values of the French republic.11 The artist’s use of narrative tension between word and image quite arguably speaks more to non-Muslim susceptibility. In the above example, the visual and the verbal do not reinforce one another (i.e., the image does not simply illustrate the word). Instead Allam’s preferred mode of representation re-contextualizes problematic images from mainstream media—which, incidentally, serve to justify Islamophobic policies and systemic racism—and proposes a counternarrative to non-Muslims who may have expected the aforementioned cloaked figure, for instance, to be an Arab denizen rather than a French citizen. Reductionist thinking is further illustrated in “Tout un symbole” (truly symbolic) centered on a televised round-table discussion about the threat of Islamic terrorism in France. Notwithstanding the seriousness of the subject debated, the moderator asks “le plus grand spécialiste du terrorisme islamiste en France” (the leading expert on Islamic terrorism in France) to identify the greatest indicator that someone is a potential terrorist. “La barbe” (Allam et al. 2013, n.p.) (the beard), he replies. His answer stands in opposition to the narrative voiceover (or récitatif ) in which bearded men in the West are shown to have been some of the most influential public figures in modern history from politicians to Nobel Laureates. The brevity of each episode prevents Allam from delving too deeply into narrative content. Episodes remain to the point and actively encourage non-Muslim

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readers to reflect on common (mis)perceptions while giving voice to the silent majority of moderate Muslims in France. Yet this sector of the French population does not exist in a national vacuum. Muslim’Show’s social media presence and dissemination of moral tales in French, English, and Arabic has allowed Allam to target a transnational demographic: the global Muslim community or ummah.

Transcending the Nation: Social Media, French Muslims, and the Ummah12 According to Jacob Høigilt, “global trends after 9/11 have construed Muslim youth as a potential factor of instability, making them into a distinct, transnational social category” (2019, 128). While many contemporary Arab comics focus less—and sometimes not at all—on religious identity,13 Norédine Allam’s Muslim’Show quite obviously does (and perhaps even more so since Allam’s 2015 blog announcement). In contrast to the work of contemporary Arab comic-book artists in the Muslim-majority world (Høigilt primarily studies Egypt and Lebanon) who use their art in non-religious ways to negotiate identity and raise awareness about social issues, religious identity finds itself at the fore of Muslim’Show. Following Allam’s announcement, the series shifted toward a universal narrative that transcends national contexts. Episodes published in the new Muslim’Show anthologies (each titled Recueil des chroniques du Muslim’Show [collection of the Muslim’Show chronicles]) explore the ills of modern society such as materialism (often tethered to the notion of progress and modernity), mudslinging, homelessness, pollution, and Islamic terrorism. Allam understands the universal appeal of the series, acknowledging that “it allows people from other religions to catch a glimpse of a daily life that they may not be familiar with. Some readers write to tell us that they recognize themselves in values such as mutual assistance, solidarity, modesty and the fight against materialism” (Mohamed 2014). The universality of Allam’s message coupled with its dissemination via social media and the internet at large has led to the articulation of an active, religious citizenship unrestricted by national borders. Globalization in the twenty-first century depends on an ever-changing international information economy, as well as on the virtual communities that shape it (Stovall 2015, 443). Writing about the new global “eummah,” Nasya Bahfen has found that young Muslims living in the West

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“use the internet to engage in the formation of Islamic community and identity on the basis of visibility, individual choice, transnationalism and social ethics” (2018, 120). For this to occur, sites must remain interactive and encourage dialogue among members of the ummah, but also between the ummah and non-Muslims (Bahfen 2018, 124–125). This allows for the ummah to respond quickly and effectively to negative media coverage in the wake of trauma; today, such events are frequently triggered by extreme acts of fringe groups who nevertheless belong to the global yet pluralist Muslim community. While Norédine Allam has publicly refuted the notion that Muslim’Show’s raison d’être is to encourage interfaith dialogue, the artist would later launch a crowdfunding campaign to finance the publication of a new album, Dialogue. This reactionary project proposes to contribute to conversations about terrorism and to dispel common misperceptions widely circulated online. More than 1000 individuals from over twenty countries have donated to the cause. Moreover, the published album’s cover denotes the comic as a “bande dessinée participative” (participatory comics); for each book purchased, BDouin will donate one book “pour propager le Dialogue” (Allam 2018a) (to promote dialogue). At the time of this writing, Allam and his team have printed 6000 albums (Dialogue 2018). The dialogue to which the album’s title refers is of course the one envisioned between Allam’s Muslim and non-Muslim readers. Yet the title also reveals the comic book’s narrative structure, which is a dialogue between a man wearing a taqiyya and a non-Muslim that the former finds on a park bench reading a newspaper, an obvious reference to problematic mainstream media discourse. What follows is an informative interaction through which the Muslim interlocutor defines commonly misunderstood concepts like jihad (he distinguishes between lesser and greater jihad by way of historical examples), deconstructs stereotypes based on outward appearances, and aligns Muslim behavior with social responsibility. Dialogue demonstrates that the self-discipline required of the Islamic subject (already shown in previously published Muslim’Show anthologies) is in fact compatible with the moral code of all societies whether they are founded on religious principles or secular ones (Fadil 2006, 69). In France, the various interpretations of laïcité have generated an anti-Muslim discourse, which holds that religious identity—and not other “communitarian” identities such as gender, sexual orientation, and national origin—has prevented certain sectors of the population from successfully integrating society. A secularist understanding of French

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republicanism has therefore done little more than justify the continued marginalization of Muslims in the wake of decolonization (Davidson 2012, 218). Allam’s Dialogue attempts to rectify this by demonstrating that citizens can derive their understanding and practice of social justice from religious ethics (Jouili 2015, 199). In this way, Allam establishes that religious beliefs can positively impact pluralist societies and that they can be conducive to democracy (Jouili 2015, 193). The international appeal of Muslim’Show does not, however, erase the national context from which the series emerged. Are French and Muslim identities mutually exclusive? Or are they compatible? Notwithstanding the dominant view that communitarianism constitutes a dangerous threat to the republic,14 the Pew Research Center has found that French Muslims are outliers with respect to other European Muslim communities: “what distinguishes French Muslims among others in Europe are their self-perceptions. Few Muslims living in France see a natural conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society” (Rosentiel and Allen 2006). If non-Muslim readers have identified with the ethics illustrated in Muslim’Show, it follows that the values of the moderate Muslim majority represented throughout the series reflect and perhaps even “fashion new modes of ethical and political engagement” (Fernando 2014, 6). Scholars such as Per-Erik Nilsson have shown that French secularism is an “empty category,” for which the Muslim Other has served as an effective counterexample to French secular citizenry ([2017] 2018, 197). Similar to other young Muslim pioneers of his generation, Norédine Allam’s representation of the Muslim Self has created space for the emergence of a pluralistic modern France, one in which national identity is no longer weakened by diversity, but rather strengthened by a shared understanding of solidarity, ethics, and social responsibility. This chapter has endeavored to situate Norédine Allam’s popular comic series, Muslim’Show, within the wider context of contemporary Muslim citizenship in non-Muslim societies. I would, however, be remiss if I did not allude to the series’ weaknesses, including the artist’s promotion of traditional gender roles and complete exclusion of non-binary gender identities. While this criticism is beyond the scope of the present analysis (indeed many of the aforementioned studies on young Muslim changemakers provide evidence that “traditional” values regarding sexuality and the division of labor are generally respected, even among feminists), these characteristics should be taken into consideration as they may cause some readers to question Allam’s articulation of modernity and desire for mutual understanding and respect.

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Notes 1. In French, the name “BDouin” cleverly fuses genre (BD or bande dessinée) and culture (Bédouin). In English, “Bedouin” refers to nomadic, desert Arab tribes native to North Africa, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, and Iraq. 2. As of July 2020, the series’ French Facebook page has over 400,000 likes and followers; the English page roughly 860,000; and the Arabic page 100,000. Muslim’Show also has a presence on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. 3. The subtyping of Muslims–specifically those living in non-Muslim societies–as either “moderate/good” or “radical/bad” is problematic because it actively ignores the vast spectrum of viewpoints found within Muslim communities themselves. In “Off script and indefensible: the failure of the ‘moderate Muslim,’” Randa Abdel-Fattah and Mehal Krayem convincingly argue that “[m]oderate Muslims…become representative of the type of Muslim that might be encompassed by the state. They are governable, they are ‘with us’ not ‘against us’–they are non-disruptors of the status quo. This is important in constructing a kind of normalcy around particular types of Islam, whilst demonizing those that differ. The moderate Muslims are easily contained in the rhetoric of belonging because they never seek to draw attention to the illegitimacy of White power” (2018, 433). While Abdel-Fattah and Krayem focus on Muslim communities in Australia, scholars have observed similar tendencies in the United States (see McGinty, 2012) and France (see Shryock 2010; Troian et al. 2018; Hakim et al. 2020). For more on this topic, see also Yassir Morsi’s monograph, Radical Skin, Moderate Masks: De-radicalising the Muslim and Racism in Post-racial Societies (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017). Although I am keenly aware that the subtype “moderate Muslim” is semantically charged, I nevertheless use it here to demonstrate that Allam’s representation of Islam maintains (whether intentionally or not) the status quo of secular Whiteness in mainstream French society and remains compatible with the values of French republicanism. 4. In France, it is illegal to collect information based on race, religion, or ethnicity (Bowen 2018, 4). Scholars must therefore use indirect data (e.g., names, parents’/grandparents’ place of birth, the number of requests for meals without pork in prisons and schools) to determine how state policies affect minority populations. See, for example, Farhad Khosrokhavar’s L’Islam dans les prisons (Paris: Balland, 2004) and Valérie Amiraux and Gerdien Jonker’s edited volume, Politics of Visibility: Young Muslims in European Public Spaces (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2006).

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5. See, for example, Valérie Amiraux’s chapter, “Speaking as a Muslim: Avoiding Religion in French Public Space,” in Politics of Visibility (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2006). 6. See, for example, John R. Bowen’s case study, “French Republicanism and Pluralism: Can They Co-Exist?”, published by the Global Centre for Pluralism. 7. The notion that Allam has become a “celebritized” Muslim both in response to French Islamophobia and within the context of France’s “‘cosmo-multicultural’ agenda” remains problematic (Abdel-Fattah and Krayem, 2018, 431). According to Abdel-Fattah and Krayem, “[n]o matter how sincerely the ‘public Muslim’ believes they represent themselves only, Islamophobia will sooner or later be there to remind them they have no such right. The right to speak as an individual is a privilege only the White mainstream can claim” (2018, 434). 8. For this reason and out of respect for the artist, I have decided not to reproduce his artwork here. 9. BDouin, “Announcement by Norédine Allam of Muslim Show,” Le blog du BDouin, 6 September 2015, https://www.le-bdouin.com/announcem ent-by-noredine-allam-of-muslim-show/. 10. Readers should note that the faces of ADABéo avatars have two lines for eyes or, possibly, eyebrows positioned above a protruding nose. See ADABéo’s Facebook page for representative images. 11. The artist does not limit his condemnation of bad behavior to the state. In episodes such as “Help” and “Ascenseur spirtuel” (spiritual elevator), Allam narrates examples of everyday non-Muslim citizens who instrumentalize Muslim identity for their own personal gain. 12. Nasya Bahfen explains the term’s significance as follows: “In the Qur’an the word ummah is used to refer collectively to a group of people with the same religious beliefs, so it is used to refer to the collective community of believers in Islam, or Muslims” (2018, 129). 13. See, for example, Jacob Høigilt’s Comics in Contemporary Arab Culture: Politics, Language and Resistance (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2019). 14. See, for example, Mayanthi L. Fernando’s The Republic Unsettled: Muslim French and the Contradictions of Secularism (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2014).

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References Abdel-Fattah, Randa, and Mehal Krayem. 2018. Off Script and Indefensible: The Failure of the ‘Moderate Muslim.’ Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 32 (4): 429–43. https://doi.org/10/1080/10304312. 2018.1487128. Allam, Norédine. 2015. Recueil #1 des chroniques du Muslim’Show. Amiens: Éditions du BDouin. Allam, Norédine. 2018a. Dialogue #1. Amiens: Éditions du BDouin Allam, Norédine. 2018b. Recueil #2 des chroniques du Muslim’Show. Amiens: Éditions du BDouin. Allam, Norédine. 2019. Recueil #3 des chroniques du Muslim’Show. Amiens: Éditions du BDouin. Allam, Norédine, Greg Blondin, and Studio 2HB. [2010] 2015. Muslim’Show Tome 1: Ramadan. Paris: Dargaud. Reprint, Amien: Éditions du BDouin. Allam, Norédine, Greg Blondin, and Studio 2HB. [2011] 2015. Muslim’Show Tome 2: Mariage. Paris: Dargaud. Reprint, Amiens: Éditions du BDouin. Allam, Norédine, Greg Blondin, and Studio 2HB. 2013. Muslim’Show Tome 3: Voisin voisin. Amiens: Éditions du BDouin. Amiraux, Valérie. 2006. Speaking as a Muslim: Avoiding Religion in French Public Space. In Politics of Visibility: Young Muslims in European Public Spaces, ed. Gerdien Jonker and Valérie Amiraux, 21–52. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839405062. Amiraux, Valérie, and Gerdien Jonker. 2006. Introduction: Talking About Visibility—Actors, Politics, Forms of Engagement. In Politics of Visibility: Young Muslims in European Public Spaces, ed. Gerdien Jonker and Valérie Amiraux, 9–20. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. https://doi.org/10.14361/978383940 5062. Amiraux, Valérie, and Gerdien Jonker, eds. 2006. Politics of Visibility: Young Muslims in European Public Spaces. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Bahfen, Nasya. 2018. The Individual and the Ummah: The Use of Social Media by Muslim Minority Communities in Australia and the United States. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 38 (1): 119–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/136 02004.2018.1434939. Barylo, William. 2018. Young Muslim Change-Makers: Grassroots Charities Rethinking Modern Societies. London and New York: Routledge. Bourquin, Susie, and Anne-Julie Contenay. 2014. Muslim Show, la BD française qui parle aux musulmans. Europe 1, June 10. https://www.europe1.fr/int ernational/Muslim-Show-la-BD-francaise-qui-parle-aux-musulmans-662622. Accessed 13 July 2020. Bowen, John R. 2018. French Republicanism and Pluralism: Can They Co-Exist? Global Centre for Pluralism, March. https://www.pluralism.ca/press-release/ french-republicanism-pluralism-can-co-exist/. Accessed 28 July 2020.

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Jackson, Pamela Irving. 2010. Race, Crime and Criminal Justice in France. In Race, Crime and Criminal Justice: International Perspectives, ed. A. KaluntaCrumpton, 51–71. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Jouili, Jeanette S. 2015. Pious Practice and Secular Constraints: Women in the Islamic Revival in Europe. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Kassovitz, Mathieu, dir. 1995. La Haine. Irvington, NY: Criterion Collection, 2007. DVD. Khosrokhavar, Farhad. 2004. L’Islam dans les prisons. Paris: Balland. McCloud, Scott. [1993] 1994. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: William Morrow. McGinty, Anna Mansson. 2012. The ‘Mainstream Muslim’ Opposing Islamophobia: Self-Representations of American Muslims. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 44 (12): 2957–2973. https://doi.org/10.1068/ a4556. Mohamed, Warda. 2014. Interview: Muslim Show, a French Comic Book Series Takes on the World. Orient XXI , May 29. https://orientxxi.info/magazine/ muslim-show-a-french-comic-book-series-takes-on-the-world,0582. Accessed 13 July 2020. Morsi, Yassir. 2017. Radical Skin, Moderate Masks: De-radicalising the Muslim and Racism in Post-racial Societies. London: Rowman & Littlefield. Nilsson, Per-Erik. [2017] 2018. Unveiling the French Republic: National Identity, Secularism, and Islam in Contemporary France. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. Reprint, Chicago: Haymarket Books. Rosentiel, Tom, and Jodie T. Allen. 2006. The French-Muslim Connection: Is France Doing a Better Job of Integration Than Its Critics? Pew Research Center, August 17. https://www.pewresearch.org/2006/08/17/the-french muslim-connection/. Accessed 26 July 2020. Shryock, Andrew. 2010. Introduction: Islam as an Object of Fear and Affection. In Islamophobia/Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics or Enemy and Friend, ed. Andrew Shryock, 1–28. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Silverstein, Paul A. 2004. Algeria in France: Transpolitics, Race, and Nation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Stovall, Tyler. 2015. Transnational France: The Modern History of a Universal Nation. Boulder: Westview Press. Tonneau, Olivier. 2016. Muslim Citizens! After the January 2015 Paris Attacks: France’s Republicanism and Its Muslim Population. International Journal of Public Theology 10 (3): 280–301. https://doi.org/10.1163/15697320-123 41447. Troian, Jais, Eric Bonetto, Florent Varet, Mathilde Barbier, and Grégory Monaco. 2018. The Effect of Social Dominance on Prejudice Towards North-African Minorities: Evidence for the Role of Social Representation

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of Secularism as a Legitimizing Myth. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 65: 96–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2018.05.002. Tsagarousianou, Roza. 2016. Muslims in Public and Media Discourse in Western Europe: The Reproduction of Aporia and Exclusion. In Representations of Islam in the News: A Cross-Cultural Analysis, ed. Stefan Mertens and Hedwig de Smaele, 3–20. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Franco-Maghrebi Perspectives on the Islamic “Body” in a Contemporary Artistic Context: Kader Attia and Zoulikha Boubdellah Ramona Mielusel

The last two decades, more than ever before, have seen a proliferation of artistic expressions from the Arab World, more particularly from the Maghreb, due to its proximity to the West and to the European cultural traditions. Visual artists like Kader Attia and Zoulikha Boubdellah among others have been present in international art shows and exhibitions promoting multiculturalism, interrelatedness of themes and artistic media as well as global issues such as women’s rights, individual freedoms of speech, of religion and of action.1 The two artists base their creative views on their double belonging to the Arab World and to Europe with which they are familiar at a deeper level of cultural and social understanding due to their upbringing.2 In other words, they are the products of “cross-cultural identities” (Shilton 2013b, 124) while being postsecular3 citizens capable of using multiple visual and sensorial languages in a “syncretism of artistic expressions” (Mielusel, 2020) such as photography, sculptures, installations, videos among others. Besides the use of diverse intertwined artistic expressions,

R. Mielusel (B) Department of Modern Languages, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Mielusel (ed.), Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81234-8_12

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their works intersect a variety of linguistic codes from French to Arabic, and English in a mix of colloquial phrases and cultural concepts. Their works of art, in their plurivocality and transculturality, are trying to resist clichés of perceived “otherness” of Maghrebi in France and across the Mediterranean.4 They invariably start from the representation of FrancoMaghrebi identities perceived as having a cultural and political impact on European national identity. However, their works, in their “contrapuntal perspective” (Shilton 2013a, 13),5 move beyond a unidirectional interpretation and they equally inscribe their authors in a universal perception of Otherness as we shall see later on. As a result of the ongoing discussions about Islam, Islamophobia, radicalization, the veil and the (in)compatibility of these beliefs with the Western culture, the artists’ works of the 2000s focus gradually on the representations of Islamic traditions and the public’s misconceptions of them in relation to modern ideas such as consumerism and multiculturalism. By being witnesses of the political and socio-cultural changes in Europe and in the Maghreb in the 2000s, Attia and Bouabdellah are aware of the cultural impact that these events have had on cross-cultural identities such as the (Franco)-Maghrebi. More importantly, their artistic views concentrate on transcultural identities in a diasporic and/or minority background (like the French suburbs’ culture) and on the complex experience of a double or multiple belonging. Interestingly enough, the artists in question in this chapter, like many others in their generation, turn their gaze to the debates about the place that minorities (Maghrebi immigrants) and more particularly (Muslim) women occupy in a patriarchal society (both in the Arab World and in Europe). Their works try to understand and interpret the tensions that exist between traditions and religious beliefs on one side and the impact of postmodernity and consumerism on multicultural individuals of Islamic faith on the other side. Through their artistic stance they argue that secularism and religious beliefs are present in daily practices in France and in the Maghreb and they are not incompatible with ideas of freedom of thought and freedom of speech. Therefore, in the present chapter, I am interested in presenting Attia and Bouabdellah artistic views on some Islamic traditions, symbols, or discourses by choosing to talk about the perception of the Muslim “body”6 in specific pieces of art such as Hallal (2004), Ghost (2007), and La Machine à rêves (2008 [2002–2003]) by Kader Attia and Dansons (2003) and Silence (2008) by Zoulikha Bouabdellah. My analysis will reveal that the creative

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works question misrepresentations in relation to Western views on secularism, integration and national identities in the contemporary context. The chapter will conclude with a reflection on the importance of contemporary visual art in challenging and reshaping public perceptions and misrepresentations of Islamic traditions in the West.

Muslim Subjectivity: Translating the Religious into the Public Sphere It is not hard to notice the fact that the growing presence of Islam (and its Islamic subjects) in Europe, and in France more particularly, represents the core of public debates, cultural discussions, and media representations. As Nilüfer Göle and Yannick Lintz (2018) have noticed, the presence of Islam in Europe is a cultural and political event that is no longer a private matter and/ or an individual practice (167). It is a practice that takes place in the public space and that is slowly transforming the Western society (Göle 2015). The public sphere is becoming a space of encounters with cultural and religious differences and sometimes of tensions between Muslims and Christians or even between ideas of secularity and religiousness. Moreover, besides the frictions and conflicts, the public space can also become a “familiarization zone” (zone de familiarization) (Göle in Göle and Lintz, 2018, 168) where the two social groups can enter into dialogue and mix. The current religious hypervisibility of Muslims in Europe contests the secular norms of public life. The way Muslim subjects manifest their religious belonging is by means of symbols (mosques, minarets, dress codes), signs (long beards, veil), and performances (public prayers) that according to Göle become “part of the Islamic agency” (2015, 7). These religious symbols and practices in public life contribute to the production of a certain understanding of Islam in Europe seen as a “Muslim subjectivity” (Göle and Lintz 2018, 168) and of a certain collective Muslim imaginary. The Muslims are able to contest the status quo of a nation, like France for example, by blending into the modern urban spaces, by engaging in public debates about religious freedoms and secularism, by using social media tools to express and organize themselves, by following consumption patterns and fashion trends or by getting acquainted with the global practices of postmodern societies. Therefore, the actors of Islam, by their social and cultural orientation toward both postmodernity and Islamic practices, transform the religious/secular divide. My view

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coincides with Göle’s who concludes in relation to the presence of Islam in Europe that the religious and the secular values and principles are not binaries in the contemporary context after all, but that they are interdependent (2015, 2). This idea of coexistence of the religious/secular and private/public views in contemporary identities (especially in diasporic and migrant identities) in France, and in Europe in general, is familiar to the FrancoMaghrebi artists analyzed in this chapter. Their art provides “interactive spaces” (Göle 2015, 7) for cultures and publics to interconnect, for individuals to explore each other and eventually understand the complex phenomenon of living as a Muslim in the West in a contemporary context. Their artistic creations could be characterized as intersectional due to their plurality of forms, voices, and interpretation angles. They can be seen as palimpsestic works7 because they reveal different levels of interpretation and juxtapose concepts and symbols that are in apparent opposition. Besides being transnational in their conceptualization and transmedial in artistic composition, their art constitutes an exemplary work of “translation” between what is seen as intimate and public, between perceptions of the sacred and the profane, and between universally accepted secular and religious beliefs. The artistic pieces of Attia and Bouabdellah on Islam and the Muslims’ perceptions of the European space they live in are trying to find points of cohesion between the two cultural references (Islam and Christianity, the Arab World and Europe, religion and secularism) or, at least, provide some artistic ground for the Western public to understand the tensions that exist within individuals born in France to Muslim immigrants and whose identity is constructed between the desire to integrate religious traditions and the social pressure of Western consumerism. While not managing to change European public perception of Maghrebi Muslim, the artists aim to familiarize their audience with the Muslim “Other” and his/her subjectivity.

Attia’s Ghost and Bouabdellah’s Silence or the embodiment of the void As citizens and prolific contemporary artists of Muslim background, both Attia and Bouabdellah are very sensitive to public and political debates about the place of Islam in France (and Europe) or the perceptions and representations of Muslims in the public sphere. Their works in the 2000s are engaging in an artistic manner with the Republican discourse

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on secularism (laïcité)8 and with the contemporary perception of the national identity in a multicultural environment. Although France does not strike as a country that supports the multicultural principles as such, it is nonetheless a place where diverse cultures and religions co-exist. Through a corporeal performance of transculturation and interrelationality, both artists address the cultural and political tensions that arise in France around these issues. In an artistic attempt to move beyond the “double critique” (Khatibi 1983) of essentialist perceptions of Western and Islamic traditions, Attia and Bouabdellah try to bring into the light a plurality of voices and visions that interconnect and push forward to a different way of “seeing” and perceiving diversity in France. Their plurifocal art forms help the public “visualize diversity” (Shilton 2013b, 125) of religious and secular perceptions “otherwise” (Khatibi 1983, 63), outside of dual frames: Islam vs Christianity, secularism vs. religion, etc. The aforementioned artistic works by Attia and by Bouabdellah address the complex understanding of Muslims’ religious and cultural identity in France. In their desire of (self)-representation as a way to fight stereotypical perceptions in the media and the politics, the two artists’ works testify to the blurry line that exists today between religious and cultural practices of Islam. Art becomes for Attia and Bouabdellah an alternative space for representations of Muslims from both sides of the Mediterranean who deal with multi-dimensional realities and interpretations about themselves and their religion on regular bases. In the five artistic works this multidimensionality is primordial. In the compositions, there is juxtaposition (and mixing) of apparently disjunctive visual and verbal elements that belong to both Western and Eastern traditions. Western consumerism and modernism appear intersected with traditional elements; secularism and religious practices are interrelated; identity markers (the veil) or the visibility embodied by the Muslim (women)’s body or symbols (dress code or high heels) are intertwined with the idea of absence or invisibility through the concept of emptiness or void in the representation. While clearly referring to the Muslim (female) body through certain markers (veil and high heels), the faces are not clearly contoured like in the case of Machine à rêves where a mannequin which represents a conventional facial figure is used or like in Ghost or Silence where the Muslim women’s bodies and faces are absent from the frame. What is left is a universalizing and imaginary construct that invites the general public to regard Muslim women as a cohort. They

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are reduced to an idea of sameness or even invisibility from the public space. Attia’s piece Ghost (2007)9 refers to the presence of Muslim women in the society through their perception as external forms without substance, therefore not as agents but as subjects of representations to be talked about. Ghost is a large installation of a group of Muslim women in prayer. They are presented from a back angle determining the viewer to approach them from this particular position. By getting closer to the bodies, the viewer is surprised by the lack of actual faces on them. Attia represents them “as vacant shells, empty hoods devoid of personhood or spirit” (https://www.saatchigallery.com). Made from aluminum foil, a domestic, disposable and fragile material, Attia’s figured bodies become alien and void to modern representations. The material makes them difficult to handle and vulnerable to the touch.10 The fragility of the construction and the idea of disembodied shells is representative of a form of human vulnerability of these bodies or of a form of social exclusion of Muslim women from the public sphere.11 The work is evidently concerned with bringing into the light the question of individual identity within dominant cultural and religious groups. By creating a similar representation of multiple life-size veiled female figures kneeling and bowing their heads in prayer, individuality is lost. What remains is a configuration of sameness, of a conceptualization of Muslim women bodies reproduced to the infinite. Muslim women are not perceived as different physically or culturally, but they are included in the same representation of Islamic females seen as veiled and submissive to their families and to their religion, Islam. It is the image supported by radical interpretations of the Qu’ranic verses by Salafists and Wahhabis and by certain media representations of Muslim women in the West. From a semantic point of view, for Attia, the manipulation of ephemeral materials like the tin foil and of elements like the emptiness of the sculptures defies rules of traditional sculpting and artistic representation in general. For him, the question of emptiness in art is related to the concept of the imprint, of the trace, of the dialectics of full/empty, of presence (existence)/absence (non-existence) that have a major role in the creative process of a piece of art as he argues: “I love the feeling that sculpture is not just a relation between a formal entity and the beholder, but more a relation between the beholder and the emptiness that there is between him and that entity” (Attia in Durand, 2010, 73). In this sense, Attia’s thought on representation goes in agreement with Marcel

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Duchamp and Michel Foucault’s points of view by affirming in an interview with Régis Durand (2010) that “representation is not completely representable” (Attia in Durand, 2010, 76). In other words, installations are constantly challenging the rules of the society we live in by going beyond the first layer of meaning, of what is “seen” in the first place. According to W. Mitchell (1995) an artistic representation is related to certain esthetics in arts and therefore to meaningful interpretations or perceptions that can change with time and in different environments. This interpretation goes in line with the contrapuntal perspective offered by Shilton as well as the idea of palimpsest. More important, for Attia, emptiness is more than a spatial given, or a lack or absence of subject/object in an artistic representation. In his view, emptiness is there for a specific purpose: it is “a vector of political meaning” (Attia in Durand, 2010, 73). It is a form of a politicized view of everyday personal experience for the Muslim women represented in the installation as the empty space or the void gives room to interpretation. In the particular case of Ghost, it forces the public or the critics to wonder about the absence of actual substance in the figures and the lack of facial expressions. The emptiness or the void in this art piece clearly joins the public discussions in France and in the Maghreb about the place of Muslim women in public life, about the politicization of the veil, and about the Muslim woman’s body perception in Islam. In the Western imaginary, Muslim women are seen as submissive (due to their religious beliefs) and hidden (both spatially and physically) to the public eye either by choice or by force. From a political stance, secularism in the West, and more specifically in France, is seen as a defender of gender equality and of offering freedom of action and of expression to all French citizens regardless of their religious or political views. Under the umbrella of universal citizenship and integration to the French cultural norms as founding principles of the French Republic, the civil society is questioning Islamic traditions such as wearing the headscarf or the hijab in the public sphere by Muslim women and is trying to impose the secular views through state laws like the 2004 and 2010 laws banning the wearing of the ostentatious religious signs such as the aforementioned Islamic garments in the public space and public institutions. It is obvious that it targets Muslim women in France and their right to practice their religious beliefs as they please therefore putting them in a vulnerable position or even in opposition to the civil society. In Joan Wallach Scott’s view, in her book Politics of the Veil (2007), these public interventions are damaging the image of

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Muslim women in France as the law is more harmful than beneficial to them by upholding France’s values of secular liberalism and by regarding the veil as symbolic of Islam’s resistance to modernity. By extrapolation, we could argue that, as the veil is the center of the debates about Islam in the West, Islam itself falls under scrutiny here as a marker of separation from modernity and secular view. In this regard, the art piece can reach the interpretation given by Attia to art seen as a “vector of political meaning” without directly engaging in a clear political stance. By bowing in shimmering meditation, the Muslim women’s ritual in Attia’s installation is equally seductive and hollow for a critical eye. It questions modern ideologies from traditional religion to (extreme) nationalism and consumerism on one side and the danger of their unidirectional approach: the Western view on “Otherness” in relation to individual identity, social perception, religious devotion, and exclusion. Attia’s work does not offer a clear answer to these discussions, but a plurality of interpretations. Similarly, Bouabdellah’s piece Silence (2008)12 questions the modern interpretations of the place of Muslim women in Islam. The installation is composed of 24 Muslim prayer rugs aligned in a rectangle. In the middle of each rug, a circle is cut off. Inside these circles, directly on the floor, 24 pairs of shiny high heel shoes are placed. In an attempt to defy the aforementioned binary oppositions and stereotypical views of Islam, Bouabdellah deliberately plays with several perceptions in this piece as well as with diverse symbols and elements belonging to both East and West and filled with religious and consumerist values. For example, she juxtaposes the religious symbol of the prayer rug to the fashion element designating femininity and seduction par excellence, the sexy pumps. Her “audacity” to touch on “sacred” symbols such as the prayer rug representative symbolically of one of the five pillars of Islam13 and an important religious and cultural marker brought her numerous critiques that even led to self-censorship.14 She was seen as provocative by possibly touching on the sensibility of some believers in the Muslim faith. Normally, the prayer rugs are only seen in private places where Muslims perform their rituals: in the mosques or in their houses. By bringing them into a public sphere (the exhibition space), these objects are desacralized and presented as simple artistic objects. In addition, by placing the shoes inside of the rugs, the artist seems to violate another interdiction in Islam, that of not removing the shoes before stepping on the prayer rugs. However, she goes around the taboo by cutting off the middle of the rugs before setting the pumps on. In this manner, the shoes do not directly touch the

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rugs, so the interdiction is not violated. As for the high heel shoes, they are definitely referring to the feminine users as an object of seduction. The shiny pumps are the product of years of fashion and consumerism of a modern society that fetishizes the woman and her sensual parts: the feet and the legs. The high heels refer to the idea of the female sexuality and sensuality and give her a sense of agency and control. When these two objects are put in juxtaposition by Bouabdellah, their primary significance and use are exceeded. Muslim women, even though not visible in the frame, are present in the composition through those symbols. They are not represented in a common perception of submissive and veiled bodies. In Bouabdellah’s piece, and in her artistic works in general, Muslim women are seen as powerful and in control of their desires and of their life choices.15 By placing “their” shoes in the center of each rug, Bouabdellah wants to make a point: the place of the Muslim women is central to Islam and one should address this matter by putting oneself in “their shoes.” The artist is trying to reverse the Eurocentric patriarchal gaze and interpret the debates about the role of women in Islam from the point of view of the “Islamic subjects.” While numerous public debates and discussions such as the “veil affair,” female genital mutilation, the burkini affair, honor killing and others focus on the Muslim women’s body as a marker of Islam and a regression from modernist views, her work is attempting liberation of these women from these perceptions. Nevertheless, by playing with the idea of presence/absence from the visual screen and by using the void in the depiction of Muslim women, Bouabdellah’s artistic piece can develop a political contour as well. Why use a symbol of the feminine and not the female body itself? Like in Attia’s artwork, the faces and the bodies are absent. The pumps are empty shells in a voided space created by the circle. They are only evocative of the trace of a human body. The absent bodies in Silence as in Ghost question emptiness and the void as more than just a spatial given, an element to work with. It is more than that, it becomes a political view of an everyday personal experience of these women who are forced to justify their presence in the public sphere and public debates. By offering a general view of the Muslim women in the West, Attia and Bouabdellah move beyond the individualization of women in Islam in a particular national context (such as the French context). The absence of figure and facial expressions in their art transgresses spatial and temporal references in an attempt to reach the universal. Through their artistic

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representations, the two artists contribute to the inscription of the Islamic subjects and especially Muslim women in a general discussion of understanding Islam and its followers as part of everyday life in France and in the West. The two installations are intended as “interactive spaces” that can familiarize the public and critics alike with the complexity of being Muslim women in a contemporary multicultural and postsecular society where a balance has to be found between religious/cultural views and consumerist and secularist tendencies. The two artists’ works represent a space of visibility for the “invisible” Muslim women seen as “veiled” impersonal bodies, covered, discussed, scrutinized. It becomes an embodiment of a controversial concept, Islam, for which the Muslim woman is the symbol. By bringing it into dialogue with modernity, the void or the “invisible” body can be filled up with new meanings and perceptions like the ones offered by Attia and Bouabdellah.

Fashioning Religious Identity: ˆ , Hallal and Dansons Machine A` Reves The complexity of Muslims’ religious and cultural identity in France and in the West in general has been further explored by Attia and Bouabdellah throughout their career. As products of multiple identities and belongings as well as active consumers in a capitalist world, they have been constantly forced to navigate between religious/traditional beliefs and modernist and consumerist trends. While they have been constantly crossing the borders of nations and cultures, between France and the Maghreb, they have also been in constant negotiation with conceptualizations of inclusion (belonging)/exclusion (otherness), Maghrebi traditions, and “Western” consumerism. Those personal experiences helped them understand and further explore in their art the identity conflict for those born in France to Muslim immigrants or for Muslims who chose to live in the West. In Machine à rêves (2008) and Hallal (2004) for Attia and Dansons (2003) for Bouabdellah, the themes of integration and a new identity formation for the individuals of immigrant descent are central to the work. The three art pieces juxtapose a discourse of alienation and a discourse of resistance. They question the creation of a new national and cultural identity in a diverse country such as France while, at the same time, they depict the difficulty for these individuals to balance distinctive religious views with their belonging to a European secular identity. The three artworks however move beyond these polemics and attest to a

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desire from the part of these individuals to assume both cultural heritages without having to choose one cultural aspect over another. In Machine à rêves,16 Attia focuses again on the perception of the Muslim woman in the West.17 The reference to Muslim women is obvious as he uses a female mannequin in a Western look (sport jacket and designer jeans) wearing a headscarf that clearly attaches her to her religious heritage. The mannequin faces a vending machine filled with a variety of products belonging to both cultures: Western and Eastern. On one side, one can perceive inside the device sweets and bubble gum (bringing us back to childhood memories), feminine products like lipstick, pantyhose, botox, contraceptive pills (referring to the women’s sexuality and attractiveness), but on the other side, the sales machine contains “halal” products in connection to the Islamic practices and traditions like the Maghrebi soup bag (“Chorba”), a designer “halal” handbag, a string “halal,” and a “Fashion Chador.” The reference to brand names attached to the symbolic concept of “halal”18 (permitted goods) is definitely ironical in this context. First of all, the term halal refers mostly to dietary restrictions in Islam and is a form of obedience to the guidelines in the Qu’ran. Moreover, Islam is a religion suggesting mere modesty to Muslim women in their dressing code and behaviors. Designer clothes and accessories showing a certain compliance with fashion trends and social ranking are defeating the idea of modesty and simplicity of women in Islam. Finally, the definition of these products as “halal,” therefore accepted socially and culturally, renders them in a regular product of consumption for Muslim women who, in this manner, want to express their femininity and visibility in the public sphere. Attia comes across as a critic of the consumerist trap as well as of the advertising conglomerates that have been contributing for years to “fashioning [the] religious identity” (Feldman 2010, 63) of young Muslims around the globe and in France.19 According to Hannah Feldman, in her article “As the World Constricts: Kader Attia’s Pictures of Spacelessness,” the fashion industry contributes to the “fashioning” of the new multicultural identities and of their idea of belonging to a modern and secular nation: “[…] works such as La machine à rêves (The Dream Machine, 2003) and Lose Weight (2004) […] explicitly point to the fashioning of religious identity as chief among the product-oriented phantasms that structure modern

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notions of belonging. In creating a continuum between secular and devotional consumerism, these works quickly conjure up the tension between inclusion and exclusion that has systematically animated Attia’s decade-long investigation into cultural identity under the hegemony of globalization” (2010, 63).

The consumerist society is without any doubt an important element in creating a certain imaginary about the Muslim identity, but it also shapes an image of the modern Muslim women as fashionable individuals totally integrated in the globalized trends. The idea of belonging or non-belonging to such an environment is dictated by the garments one wears and by the products he/she consumes. In Attia’s case, this choice is imposed by the brand name products and the gadgets or identity markers one chooses to possess and publicly display. In Attia’s other work about consumerism and Islam, Hallal (2004), concept written both in Arabic (‫ )حالل‬and its French transcription with double “l,” he satirizes the fashion industry and their intention of gaining the market share for “Muslim” oriented fashion. By transforming his workshop in Paris into a Muslim fashion shop, the artist denounces the commercialization and appropriation of religious symbols such as the veil as economic tools for profitability and financial benefit rather than trying to respect and value these symbols of devotion. One could conclude that Muslims in France are perceived as the “Other” in their religious practices and traditions while, at the same time, they represent a critical economic and political body that contribute to the consumerist society as well as to its governance. In addition, Muslim women are also targeted as prime consumers of this fashion in a desire to adopt popular trends in dressing while covering their bodies according to the religious standards. Bouabdellah’s video Dansons (2003) touches on the same theme of integration of Muslims to the new cultural and national identity in France as well as on the “commercialization” of the Muslim body. It is probably the most commented piece by the female artist as she breaks the taboos about belly dancing as a private and sensual activity for male consumption in the Arab world and the adoption of the French Republican values by a Muslim person living in France. Bouabdellah’s video focuses on a female’s hips covered in three belly dance wraps representing the French flag colors: red, white, and blue. The body slowly moves in rhythmical gestures while the Marseillaise (the French national anthem) plays in the background. The juxtaposition of symbols attached with deep cultural

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and political meaning for both the Arab world and for France can be seen as a shock for the French and the Maghrebi public alike. The belly dancing is most commonly seen as a form of oriental dance initiated in Egypt and popularized in the West by the Ottoman Empire as a form of entertainment for men. By bringing the Muslim woman’s sensuality to the public sphere and making it the focal point of the video, Bouabdellah questions contemporary debates about the Muslim female body as hidden to the view by the Islamic precepts of submission and modesty. Also, she demystifies this artistic activity of its sexual connotation attributing it to a cultural practice for women who appreciate the greatness of the Arab culture. Moreover, the artist’s choice of the French national flag and anthem in performing this activity is emblematic of the significance that these two symbols hold in French people’s conscience in relation to national belonging. Adhering to these two symbols is the equivalent of acceptance of the French Republican values (liberty, fraternity, and equality) by (Franco)-Maghrebi women while preserving an Arab belonging as well. Bouabdellah superposes these two cultural attributes in her video with the clear intention of conveying a message of coexistence and non-exclusion of religious and secular views, of private and public cultural practices in contemporary cross-cultural identities such as the Muslims in contemporary France. More so, the artist seems to suggest that Muslim women are the connectors and not the elements of separation between the West and the East and between modernity and tradition. Nevertheless, in all three installations, there is a preponderant use of mannequins or typical expressionless faces (or as in the case of Dansons the visual expression is inexistent) that rejoin the clear references to the “facelessness” of the Muslim population in France and Europe perceived as “invisible” beyond the iconic brands of their faith and culture. They embody the cultural “otherness” of Muslims in the West, rooted in their particularity (Islamic faith), that becomes an identity marker. The three works echo the concept of emptiness and void present in Ghost and Silence that should not only be perceived as a physical “invisibility” and metaphysical “silencing” of the Muslim body from the public sphere, but in connection to a undefined and unaccountable Muslim community’s presence in the postsecular French society. In conclusion, Kader Attia and Zoulikha Bouabdellah represent in an artistic manner the complexity of Muslims’ religious and cultural identity in France through works such as Hallal (2004), Ghost (2007), La Machine à rêves (2008 [2002–2003]), Dansons (2003) and Silence

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(2008). In their desire to fight stereotypical perceptions of Muslims (Muslim women in particular) in the media and the politics in the 2000s, the two artists’ works testify of the blurry line that exists today in perceptions between religious and cultural practices of Islam. Their art, in its intersectionality and transculturality, is able to help familiarize the public with the Muslim cultural and religious identity in a Western and modern context; at the same time it aspires to challenge and reshape public perception and representations of Islam and the Islamic “body” by offering an alternative space of visualization of Muslims in an artistic and public space. In doing so, they can contribute in their manner to a better understanding of the “Muslim problem” in France and in the world.

Notes 1. Among some public events where the Franco-Maghrebi artists have participated over the years we can note 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair held annually in London (since 2013), New York (since 2015) and Marrakech (since 2018); Biennale de Rabat (2019), and Beyond the Veil —Traveling Exhibition (2019–2021). 2. In this respect, it is important to note that Kader Attia is a French artist born in the Parisian suburbs (banlieues) in an Algerian family. He maintained a strong tie with his parental family across the Mediterranean. His Maghrebi encounters with family and individuals in Algeria as well as Maghrebi cultural references are inserted in his artistic works. They constantly enter in dialogue with his French and European references in a representation of the experiences of individuals of multiple belonging. Equally, Zoulikha Bouabdellah is the product of cross-cultural identities. She was born in Moscow in an Algerian family that had strong connections with the European cultural scene. Her mother was the director of the Arts Museum in Algiers. Zoulikha’s education is strongly influenced by European art and by spending her formative years in French schools such as the École Nationale Supérieure de Beaux Arts de Clergy-Pontoise in Paris. In recent years, she has moved to Casablanca in Morocco from where she leads her activity. Bouabdellah creates interconnections and cultural encounters between Arabic textual and cultural forms such as ornamentation and calligraphy and European references in paintings, literature and other fields. 3. The term postsecular should be understood in the sense of addressing the religious issue in a secular society. There is a misconception that (post)modern societies reject the religious aspect from social life and that

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more modern the society, the less religious it is. Scholars working on the matter actually have been proving the contrary (Göle 2015; Habermas 2006; Rosati and Stoeckl 2012; Taylor 2007; Berger 1999). Therefore, I agree with Göle’s affirmation that “Postsecular society is not a desecularized society, but a society where religious and secular views are called to live together” (2015, 2). Inevitably, when French or other Europeans think about the Maghrebi people, they associate them with the pejorative term “Arabs” and therefore to the predominant religion in the Maghreb, Islam. The increasing numbers of people of Muslim faith in Europe and in France (as the country with the highest number of Muslims in Europe) created heated debates over time concerning the Islamic practices and symbols (public prayers, wearing of the veil, consumption of halal meats, etc.) in what is understood as secular nations. For Shilton, in her book Transcultural Encounters: Gender and Genre in Franco-Maghrebi Art, a “contrapuntal perspective” is understood as “the method [that] involves ‘reading’ a selected version of the work with a simultaneous awareness of its distinct, yet interrelated, forms” (2013a, 13). Shilton borrows this term from Edward Saïd’s “contrapuntal reading” theory applied to Commonwealth postcolonial literary texts. The theory calls for an interdependence of perspectives in ‘reading’ or interpreting a literary work from the authors’ point of view as well as from the interpreter’s point of view depending on his time and place and on his cultural background. Similarly, for Shilton, the contrapuntal perspective applied to contemporary visual art produced by postcolonial and cross-cultural artists in the West should take into consideration the interconnection of these perspectives and the interactions of these artists and their artistic pieces to different spaces, traditions, mentalities and political and cultural events. When I refer to the Muslim “body”, I understand it in a dual form. First, I am talking about the human figure and its appearance in relation to other individuals. Secondly, I am alluding to the “Muslim body” seen as a mass of people, a group of individuals connected by their “sameness” in cultural and physical attributes. My understanding of a palimpsest is that of an overlay of different levels of significance sometimes obvious, other times hidden to a first level of interpretation that is quite similar to the Webster dictionary definition: “something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/palimpsest; accessed June 8th 2020). The primary understanding of secularism (laïcité) in France is that of the separation between Church and State based on the 1905 law that is supposed to give primacy to universal thought about religion and

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9. 10.

11.

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education and encourage democracy and equality between all individuals pertaining to the nation state. The existence of several theories and debates about the concept and the increasing numbers of publications in the field are witnesses of the complexity of this term and its perception in a contemporary French context. For more information about the term and its interpretation in France, see José Casanova (2011), Charles Taylor (2007), Ahmet Kuru (2009), Jean Baubérot (1998, 2004, 2008, 2009), Scott (2007), Fernando (2014), Nilsson (2018), and Göle (2015). For a visualization of the piece, please visit: https://www.saatchigallery. com/artists/kader_attia_unveiled.htm, last accessed June 8th 2020. Attia himself declared that he recreated the bodies and reassembled the installation from scratch every time he moved to different locations as it would have been very hard to handle the exhibits. By bringing into the frame the tin foil material, Attia clearly makes reference to the domesticity of (Muslim) women both in the West and in the Arab World whose “comfort zone” should be or is perceived as being in the household’s kitchen, so in a private environment where they can make themselves useful and where they can thrive. It is very important to note that this perception of women is not foreign to modern women in the West as well. Despite the visible “emancipation” of women in the developed societies, their domestic role has not decreased. They are expected to be able to balance a successful career and a family/ domestic life. For a visualization of the piece and its reception, visit: https://loeild elaphotographie.com/en/clichy-zoulikha-bouabdellah-s-silence-takendown-when-fear-becomes-censorship/, last accessed June 8th 2020. The five daily prayers (salat ) are one of the most important ritual or devotional duty for Muslims. The five pillars of Islam are: a declaration of faith in God (shahada), five daily prayers (salat ), fasting (saum), almsgiving (zakat ), and ultimately the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj ) at least once in one Muslim’s life. Bouabdellah’s piece was supposed to be included in the exhibition «Femina ou la Réapprobation des modèles» at Pavillion Vendôme in Clichy, Paris in the aftermath of the attacks at Charlie Hebdo in 2015. The artist was contacted by the curator of the exhibition before the opening and asked to retract the piece from the show to avoid all possible clashes with the representatives of the Muslim community in France. Considering it an infringement of the freedom of expression, Bouabdellah decided to refuse participation to the exhibition entirely. For a detailed analysis of Bouabdellah’s artistic interpretation of the Arab women as powerful and in control of their desires and agency, see my article “Pour une nouvelle esthétique culturelle du Maghreb: l’intersectionnalité chez Zoulikha Bouabdellah” in Expressions maghrébines 19 (1) (Summer) (2020): 71–86.

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16. For more information about the art work and for a visualization of it, please visit: http://www.histoire-immigration.fr/sites/default/files/ musee-numerique/documents/kaderattia_machineareve.pdf, last accessed June 8th 2020. 17. In an earlier work from 2002–2003, he had a previous conceptualization of the complex Muslim male’s position in the West. 18. According to the Islamic Council of Victoria in Australia, “Halal is an Arabic word meaning lawful or permitted. In reference to food, it is the dietary standard, as prescribed in the Qur’an (the Muslim scripture). The opposite of halal is haram, which means unlawful or prohibited. Halal and haram are universal terms that apply to all facets of life. These terms are commonly used in relation to food products, meat products, cosmetics, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, food ingredients, and food contact materials”(https://www.icv.org.au/about/about-islam-ove rview/what-is-halal-a-guide-for-non-muslims/, accessed June 4th 2020). In the West, the term is mostly encountered in reference to the halal meat that Muslims consume according to their dietary principles. 19. According to Grand View Research’s financial analyses, the global Islamic clothing market in 2017 was worth 59.7 billion dollars US and it is believed to reach 88.25 billion dollars by 2025 or a 5% increase (https:// www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/islamic-clothing-market; last accessed June 8th 2020). In Europe, the Muslim fashion industry is also raising at a fast pace as the articles in Vogue and The Independent in UK can attest (https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/the-multibillion-dollarmodest-fashion-industry-thats-gone-global; https://www.independent. co.uk/life-style/fashion/modest-fashion-asos-hijab-range-design-islam-rel igion-a8875636.html, last accessed June 8th 2020).

References Attia, Kader. 2010. http://kaderattia.de/. Accessed June 4th 2020. Baubérot, Jean. 1998. La laïcité française et ses mutations. In Social Compass 45 (1): 175–187. ———. 2004. Laïcité 1905–2005, entre passion et raison. Paris: Seuil. ———. 2008. La laïcité expliquée à Nicolas Sarkozy et à ceux qui écrivent ses discours. Paris: Albin Michel. ———. 2009. L’évolution de la laïcité en France: Entre deux religions civiles. In Diversité Urbaine 9 (1): 9–25. Berger, Peter L. (ed.) 1999. The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdman’s. Bouabdellah, Zoulikha. https://www.zoulikhabouabdellah.com/. Accessed May 1st 2020.

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———. www.Artsy.net/artist/Zoulikha-bouabdellah. Accessed May 30th 2020. Casanova, José. 2011. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Durand, Régis. 2010. Kader Attia in Conversation with Régis Durand. In NKA. Journal of Contemporary African Art 26 (Spring): 70–79. Feldman, Hannah. 2010. As the World Constricts: Kader Attia’s Pictures of Spacelessness. In NKA. Journal of Contemporary African Art 26 (Spring): 60–69. Fernando, Mayanthi. 2014. The Republic Unsettled. Muslim French and the Contradictions of Secularism. Durham: Duke University Press. Göle, Nilüfer. 2015. Islam and Secularity. The Future of Europe’s Public Sphere. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Göle, Nilüfer, and Lintz, Yannick. 2018. L’islam dans sa dimension culturelle et artistique: un enjeu politique à saisir. In Socio. La nouvelle revue des sciences sociales 11 (October 9): 165–196. Habermas, Jürgen. 2006. Religion in the Public Sphere. In European Journal of Philosophy 14 (1): 1–25. Khatibi, Aldelkebir. 1983. Maghreb pluriel. Paris: Denoël. Kuru, Ahmet T. 2009. Secularism and State Policies Toward Religion: United States, France, and Turkey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacDonald, Megan C. 2018. Who Owns the Trauma Blanket? Tracing Kader Attia’s Ghost and the “ couverturede survie” in Transit. In Contemporary French and Francophone Studies 22 (2): 248–258. Maisterra, Pauline. 2018. Zoulikha Bouabdellah: l’artiste qui se joue des clichés. In Femmes du Maroc, December. http://femmesdumaroc.com/a-la-une/zou likha-bouabdellah-lartiste-qui-se-joue-des-cliches-45-46623. Accessed May 24th 2020. Mielusel, Ramona. 2018. Franco-Maghrebi Visual Arts: the New Ways of Visualizing Diversity. In Franco-Maghrebi Artists of the 2000s: Transnational Narratives and Identities, 136–166. Amsterdam and New York: Brill/Rodopi. ———. 2020. Pour une nouvelle esthétique culturelle du Maghreb: l’intersectionnalité chez Zoulikha Bouabdellah. In Expressions maghrébines 19 (1, été): 71–86. Mitchell, W. J. T. [1990] 1995. Representation. In Critical Terms for Literary Study, ed. Lentricchia, Frank and Thomas McLaughlin, 11–22. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Nilsson, Per-Erik. 2018. Unveiling the French Republic. National Identity, Secularism, and Islam in Contemporary France. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. Rosati, Massimo, and Kristina Stoeckl. 2012. Introduction. In Multiple Modernities and Postsecular Societies, 1–16. London: Ashgate.

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Scott, Joan Wallach. 2007. Politics of the Veil. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Seaman, Anna. 2015. Zoulikha Bouabdellah: Pointed Depictions of Women and Religion. The National, June 20th, https://www.thenational.ae/artsculture/zoulikha-bouabdellah-pointed-depictions-of-women-and-religion-1. 95317. Accessed May 30th 2020. Scott, Joan W. 2007. The Politics of the Veil. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Shilton, Siobhán. 2008. Belly dancing to the Marseillaise: Zoulikha Bouabdellah’s Dansons. In Contemporary French & Francophone studies: SITES 12 (4) (October): 437–444. ———. 2013a. Transcultural encounters. Gender and genre in Franco-Maghrebi art. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ———. 2013b. Transnational Francophonies in Contemporary Art: Vizualizing Franco-Maghrebi Crossings. In Francophone Cultures and Geographies of Identity, ed. Adlai H. Murdoch and Zsuzsanna Fagyal, 124–146. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Taylor, Charles. 2007. A secular age. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Conclusion Ramona Mielusel and Laura Reeck

Arts institutions, cultural centers, and exhibitions with Islam as a focal point have multiplied in France in the twenty-first century; they can be seen as alternative narrative spaces and are perceived by curators, critics, and artists themselves as spaces of encounter and conversation. Take, for instance, the new galleries added to the Islamic Arts branch of the Louvre in 2012; the Institut des Cultures de l’Islam founded in 2005, the “Arts de l’Islam” exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe in 2009; the “Trésors de l’Islam en Afrique” exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe in 2017, which then traveled to Rabat; the MUCEM in Marseille where the histories of the three monotheistic religions meet up around their material cultures. Islamic arts museums exist throughout the Maghreb, including the Musée national des antiquités et des arts islamiques in Algiers and the Musée national de l’art islamique in Raqqada (Kairouan). Less common

R. Mielusel (B) Department of Modern Languages, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] L. Reeck Allegheny College, Meadville, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Mielusel (ed.), Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81234-8_13

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in the Maghreb are galleries either within museums attendant to contemporary artistic expressions of Islam, or contemporary art broadly. Exhibits and private galleries have come to fill a void in this respect, as they are less dependent on state sponsorship or public funds. Importantly, privately owned art galleries in the Maghreb are flourishing such as Les Abattoirs, L’appartement 22, and Le Cube in Morocco; Mamia Bretesche Gallery in Algiers or Galerie Air Libre, Arty Show, Kanvas, and El Marsa in Tunisia. These galleries attest to an interest in and a niche for contemporary art in the Maghreb, and they offer contemporary artists an environment where they find few barriers to freedom of expression and where a premium is put on creativity and innovation. In these spaces, creation is free from censorship and official approbation. To date, artistic expression with Islam as a focal point does not figure prominently in what gets exhibited and presented, but galleries, despite being secular in orientation—which is sometimes seen as part of “being contemporary”—could serve as propitious venues for further encounters and conversations. One of the critical issues to arise across this volume is unevenness between the contexts under review. Contemporary art provides one example of a continued imbalance between artists in the Maghreb and European-born or diasporic artists, with internationally recognized artists tending to figure in the latter groups and tending to experience greater mobility. The Algerian painter Nourredine Ferrouki termed this occidentalisme(“Westernism”) (https://www.inha.fr/fr/recherche/ chercheurs-invites/en-2012/ferroukhi-nourreddine.html), which evokes a dependency relationship between the Maghreb and France, or the west more generally. A full history of this relationship would map back to the first art institutions established in the Maghreb, many of them during the colonial era with a colonial-era perspective. A purported rebalancing has often been cast in terms of a new emergent North/South dialogue, but this has been to some degree illusive: “Everyone understands that the initiative of dialogue emerged as an act of ‘deference’ by the North, which for many years has held the reigns and created the rules of this unequal and unbalanced dialogue” (Morato, 112). The North, in this case France, continues to disproportionately influence values and attitudes about art and its circulation. A further challenge for contemporary artists in the Maghreb today lies within their own governments, which Morato claims hold artists in distrust and deprived of government financial support. Artists in the Maghreb must work to revise and reclaim their own history (112), and also to free themselves from “pigeonholing” (112), on which

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we elaborate below in the case of Zahia Rahmani. One result of occidentalisme is keeping a hierarchy in place in which artists who have not acceded to the international stage are limited in their options, visibility, and networks. This unevenness in the contemporary art world can be extended to other art forms, namely francophone literary production, which also continues to be centralized outside of the Maghreb, in this case around France, and Paris in particular. In each case, the unevenness connects to a long history of unequal relations. As mentioned in the Introduction, there is a relative and noticeable absence of critical work on artistic representations of Islam in Francophone postcolonial studies. Also, as previously mentioned, the reduced amount of critical work correlates to a limited amount of artistic expression—one case and point being in the area of contemporary art, as just seen. Reasons for this may include French laïcité and its “neutralization” of religion, self-censorship on topics perceived to be charged, as well as a desire among artists, writers, etc., to not be assigned a role to represent Islam and/or Muslims. But with artistic productions growing in number and also changing in nature—namely by developing rapidly in forms that could be seen as populaires (i.e., graphic novels, stand-up comedy), it seems more critical attention should be paid. As we laid out in the Introduction, we have aimed to extend beyond the francophone context to include the diglossic reality of the Maghreb. Though not studied here in the same number as their French-language counterparts, Arabic-language interventions constitute a very important vector; also included in the volume are visual arts, which do not rely on linguistic expression as such. While we have not rectified the issue of linguistic unevenness, we acknowledge it and hope that future scholarship will continue to work to bring Arabic-language and Amazigh-language writing forward. A guiding pair of related concepts for the volume are representation and self-representation, with self-representation standing in contradistinction to a long history of representing Islam and Muslims. Following in this line of thought, its interest lies in considering (self)-representations that respond aesthetically to a certain imaginaire of Islam and Muslims as a homogenous group with a shared worldview. In the Introduction, we referenced the long history of Orientalism, generated and perpetuated in part through Orientalist artistic representation. While tropes of the mysterious, exotic, and “uncivilized” persist, added to them are neo-orientalist tropes, for instance, the radical extremist and the veiled woman. The works studied here contest a unidirectional perspective on the complexity

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and diversity of Islam and Muslims and propose alternative narratives to neo-orientalism. As compared with the colonial era, today writers, artists, filmmakers, and performers from the Maghreb have a far greater intellectual margin of maneuver and geographical mobility, offering them insight into, among other things, perceptions of Islam and Muslims both in their countries of origin and beyond. They are familiar with and use western tools, e.g., language, images, and references; these same tools can serve as a means of disrupting neo-orientalism. The question of self-representation comes with caveats, such as, does a given writer, artist, filmmaker, or performer self-identity as Muslim? The fact of having been born in a Muslim-majority country does not necessarily translate to being a Muslim, and vice versa; belief, will, and identification are also importantly involved. Individual artists, writers, filmmakers, and performers can relate to Islam as a belief system, home of the sacred, set of practices, and relation to the world very differently: Islam is not monolithic, nor are the people who practice it. To return to the question of representation and self-representation, a pure divide between them should be viewed with some caution so as to not overstate them. Nothing demonstrates this better in novel form than the Algerianborn Zahia Rahmani’s novel “Musulman” Roman (“Muslim”: A Novel, 2005). In an interview given on “Musulman” Roman, the second volume of a trilogy that includes Moze (2002) and France, récit d’une enfance (France, Story of a Childhood, 2006), writer and art historian Zahia Rahmani discusses the wrongful generalizations people make when they turn “Muslim” into a monolithic concept. This misunderstands and misrepresents the diversity of Islamic cultures and civilizations, the diversity of a religion embraced by 1.8 billion people worldwide from South-Eastern Europe to South Asia. Rahmani wrote her novel shortly after 9/11 and at a point of high tension during the war on terror. Specifically, she cites having seen the widely circulated images from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq of a female guard peering over the naked and amassed bodies of prisoners as an assault on her senses and sensibility. Her novel scrutinizes at the same time Islamophobia and the danger of having people grouped in a lone category of “Muslim” as one of its consequences. For her, the constructed “Muslim” acts as a contemporary pariah: about the female character in her novel, Rahmani says, “She is seized by expectations that were constructed outside her. It is a phenomenon that one can say has been repeated across groups throughout history […] The new enemy, if the Muslim

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is the new enemy, is written in history” (https://lithub.com/zahia-rah mani-on-what-it-meant-to-write-muslim-a-novel/). Rahmani explores in her novel the danger of being indexed or being assigned, which then leads to a salient contradiction explored in this volume, “This is the difficulty and the contradiction of the secular European world: it maintains Muslims and their descendants in a communitarian system, all the while demanding that they emancipate themselves” (lithub). Indexing Muslims to a lone identity, group, or relationship to Islam is reductive—and false, which leads to overgeneralization and the single story. About expressing oneself through the lens of Islam, Rahmani importantly adds, “In a secular country like France, we have a real difficulty in expressing ourselves through an etymology that contains religious elements” (lithub). Rahmani considers herself an atheist but expresses deep affiliation with Muslims, including members of her own family. And in her interventions, while denouncing the excesses of French laïcité, she recognizes what it has afforded her as a writer and intellectual in France. Autofiction allows her a narrative location to cut across all these and a safe space for experimentation in all its forms. It seems that the question of representation and self-representation must be nuanced and not fall within a pattern of assumptions. In other words, we should guard against overgeneralizing who identifies as a Muslim, and as an extension who participates in self-representation. At the same time, the role of self-representation must not be minimized. Self-representation is a form of agency and authentication; in many instances, it disrupts normative and normalizing discourses and stereotypes. Further, self-representation breaks the silence imposed through a history of having been represented. Self-representations in this volume include Muslim Show by Norédine Allam, in which Allam presents Muslims and Muslim traditions for a general (francophone) audience from his perspective as a devout Muslim; Algerian artist Zoulikha Bouabdellah who uses her body in the video Dansons in order to probe female sensuality, prohibitions in Islam, and also integration of Franco-Maghrebis to the French Republic as a sign of interculturality and dialogue between Islam and modernity; Islamic rappers who build on and around their own experiences of being a Muslim in France and, in some cases, their conversions from non-believers to devout Muslims after 9/11. These self-representations show the differences among self-identifying Muslim writers, artists, filmmakers, and performers; they further highlight that self-representation is not synonymous with autobiography, and that it can

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take myriad forms and stages, all of which are mediated in one form or another. They also induce a representivity on a larger scale, given that acts of self-representation often aim to rectify hypervisibility and/or invisibility of a group identity. Meanwhile, some artists of Muslim heritage choose to distance themselves from self-representation, as is the case of filmmakers Merzak Allouache and Kaouther Ben Hania—both of whom live and work on both sides of the Mediterranean—who perform a nuanced analysis of the social forces behind and social consequences of Islamic radicalization, not without cinematic dramatization and, in the case of Ben Hania, humor and parody. The artistic productions featured in the volume enter into dialogue with each other, creating encounters across different forms of artistic expression and mediation. Contributors point to diversity in Muslimmajority populations in the Maghreb as well as the range of perceptions and representations of Islam in France. They explore imams and terrorists as characters, as in Laura Reeck, Nabil Boudraa, and Patrick Saveau’s chapters; Sufism in rap in David Yesaya’s analysis; collective and individual belief in films and literature in Abderrahmene Bourenane and Delphine Letort, Simona Pruteanu, and Sabrine Herzi’s chapters; body-code and dress-code through installations and graphic novels exemplified in Mary Vogl, Pamela Pears, Ramona Mielusel, and Jennifer Howell’s chapters. The artistic productions discussed confront, on the one hand, extreme views like radicalism and terrorism in French and Maghrebi films, and, on the other, an Islam of tolerance and understanding as in the case of the Islamic rap. Films, such as Made in France and Le Ciel attendra, challenge the vilification of terrorists by exposing the systemic failures that surround them in society and community. Other productions question interpretations of Qur’anic verses with regard to women’s presence and behavior in the public space, such as Emna Belhaj Yahia’s novel Jeux de rubans, and others problematized the politics around Muslim communities in France and in the Maghreb, as with Karim Amellal, Zoulikha Boubdellah, Kader Attia, or Norédine Allam. Before we conclude, we want to add a short note about the continued importance of both memory and scholarly work in this field of study. Memory work is afoot in France; while the 2021 Stora Report can be seen as timid, it nonetheless stands on official record as a step toward reconciling the French and Algerian memories of the Algerian War. At the same time, there is a push for memory work and memorialization in the Maghreb, for instance with the martyrs to the 2011 Revolution list being

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made public in Tunisia in March 2021, and the Bayt Dakira museum in Essaouira that exhibits the history of Judaism in Morocco. The French government’s recent pronouncements against “islamo-gauchisme” (a term suggesting a convergence between extreme leftism and Islamism) could serve as an obstacle to memory work as well as to the very type of scholarly work that has been done in this volume. To Minister of Higher Education Frédérique Vidal’s claim that university research and teaching drive a leftist, activist, even radical, agenda, and her demand that an assessment on how Islam is being taught and researched, 600 signatories signed a letter published in Le Monde, saying that the initiative aims to suppress intellectual freedom. Putting such controls on the production of knowledge, which includes memory work as well as the sort of project undertaken here, would leave intact the very perceptions and misunderstandings this volume has attempted to unearth. We began the Introduction with the idea that representations of Islam sit at the tension-filled interface between the domains of art and politics. We can push this idea further with Jacques Rancière’s dissensus , which leads us to consider the role of the imagination, affect, the senses and sensibility in aesthetics and politics. If for Rancière consensus is associated with the “proper,” and by extension the logic and organization that motivates and explains social hierarchies, dissensus counteracts consensus through disagreement—which he calls a method (“The Thinking of Dissensus: Politics and Aesthetics,” 2)—and dissonance: “Addressing an author or a concept first means to me setting the stage for a disagreement, testing an operator of difference” (2). According to Rancière, dissensus is based on “a difference between sense and sense” (1), which relates to both meaning and the field of perception; forms of belonging based on assumptions and over-simplification, making way for them to be recreated and re-imagined. And in this way, the field of perception becomes a privileged terrain for change. In turn, artistic productions do not offer solutions but show a range of possibilities through engaging affect and the imagination. All of this leads into Rancière’s definition of critical art: “… art that aims to produce a new perception of the world, and therefore to create a commitment to its transformation. This schema, very simple in appearance, is actually the conjunction of three processes: first, the production of a sensory form of ‘strangeness’; second, the development of an awareness of the reason for that strangeness and third, a mobilization of individuals as a result of that awareness” (Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, 142). And so, for those engaging with artistic expression,

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doing so can expand perspectives or generate new ones. In this vein, we believe that Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims: Perspectives Across France and the Maghreb contributes to showing how “critical art” breaks apart assumptions and false equivalences, in that way opening up a range of understandings of Islam and being Muslim, whether in France, the Maghreb, or in/between.

References Morato, Maria Elena. 2014. Visual Arts in the Maghreb. Perspectives and Stances. Quaderns De La Mediterrània 20–21: 111–118. Rancière, Jacques. 2011. The Thinking of Dissensus: Politics and Aesthetics. In Reading Rancière, ed. Paul Bowman and Richard Stamp, 1–17. London and New York: Continuum. Rancière, Jacques. 2010. Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, trans. Steven Corcoran. London and New York: Continuum. Nourreddine Ferroukhi. 2014. https://www.inha.fr/fr/recherche/chercheursinvites/en-2012/ferroukhi-nourreddine.html. “Zahia Rahmani on what it means to write ‘Muslim’: A Novel”. 2020. Literary Hub. https://lithub.com/zahia-rahmani-on-what-it-meant-to-write-muslima-novel/.

Index

A Abd Al Malik, 168, 171, 176–180 aïta, 132, 133, 142, 143 Algeria, 114–116, 120, 122, 124, 125. See also Gigérie Algerian GSPC (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat), 55 Ali, 171, 173–175, 177, 178, 180 Allam, Norédine, 185–199 allegory. See also imagery; metaphor; symbol in Christianity, 115 Medieval, 115 post-colonial, 115 Allouache, Merzak, 46, 47, 49, 50, 52 Amellal, Karim, 148, 149, 152–154, 156, 159–161. See also Bleu Blanc Noir AQMI (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), 55 Arabs, 155 Arab Spring, 95, 109 artistic representations, 2, 11, 18 artistic (self)-representations, 227, 232

Attia, Kader, 205, 206, 208–218, 220

B banlieue, 79–81, 84, 85 BDouin, 185, 196, 198 Binebine, Mahi, 129, 130, 135 Bleu Blanc Noir, 148, 152, 155, 156, 160 body, 97–99, 102, 104, 109. See also veiled body; women’s body Bouabdellah, Zoulikha, 206, 208, 209, 212–214, 216, 217 Boukhrief, Nicolas, 80, 82, 83, 90, 91 Bouteflika, Abdelaziz, 46 Boutouba, Jimia, 85–87, 91 Butler, Judith, 86, 90

C Charlie Hebdo, 186 chikhates, 130–133, 135, 137–139, 141–143 Christianity, 114–116, 121–125, 127 citizenship, 186–188, 195, 197

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Mielusel (ed.), Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81234-8

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INDEX

civic engagement, 188, 193 colonial history, 2 colonialism, 114, 115, 124 comics, 185, 186, 189–192, 195, 196 communitarianism, 197 consumerism, 206, 208, 209, 212–214, 216 contemporary art, 226, 227 contemporary politics, 2 cross-cultural identities, 205, 206, 217

D Dante The Divine Comedy, 115 de-radicalization, 63 de-westernize, 70, 74, 75 dissensus , 231 diversity, 2 Divine Wind (2018), 46, 55, 56 Djebar, Assia, 114, 126, 127 documentary, 25–27, 34, 38, 39

E Emna Belhaj Yahia, 95, 102, 109 Ennahdha, 101 eroticism, 133, 141, 143

F far-right, 147, 148, 151, 153, 155, 159, 160 female Muslim body, 134 female performers, 131, 132 FIS (Islamic Salvation Front), 45 framing, 86, 87 France, 25–27, 33–39 Franco-Maghrebi identities, 206

G gender, 62, 63, 65–67, 74

Gigérie, 113, 114, 116–119, 121–126 globalization, 195

H Herrero, Dolores, 149 hijab, 65–67, 69, 96, 102 Hollande, François, 186 Houellebecq, Michel, 148, 149, 151, 153, 156, 157, 159, 160. See also Soumission houris (celestial virgins), 52

I imagery, 117, 119 imaginaire, 227 imams, 25, 27, 33, 34, 36–39 Investigating Paradise (2016), 46, 52, 56 Islam, 1, 2–5, 9–18, 96, 99–101, 103, 109, 110, 114–117, 121, 122, 124, 125, 148, 151–153, 155, 158, 167–171, 173–175, 177, 180, 181, 185, 187, 188, 190, 192, 206–216, 218, 225–231. See also Muslim; political Islam; radical Islam Islamic jihad, 59 Islamic radicalization, 62, 72 Islamic rap, 168, 170, 181. See also Islamic rappers; Muslim rappers; rap; rap music Islamic rappers, 170–175, 177, 178, 181 Islamic terrorism, 81 Islamism, 1, 3, 4, 12. See also Islamist separatism Islamist separatism, 3 Islamophobia, 4, 5, 9, 11, 18, 187, 194

INDEX

J James, Kery, 168, 169, 171–173, 175, 178–181 Jasmine Revolution, 25, 26, 40, 98, 102 Jeux de rubans , 96–98, 102, 109 jihad, 84, 88. See also jihadist cell jihadist cell, 80, 90

K Kaouther Ben Hania, 25, 26, 39 Khalfallah, Amira-Géhanne, 113–115, 117–126 the Koran, 58

L laïcité, 4–6, 187, 196 Le ciel attendra, 62–66, 75 Les Imams vont à l’école, 25, 27, 33, 34, 36, 38–41 Les Pastèques du Cheikh, 27, 28, 30, 32, 39, 40 Liogier, Raphaël, 81, 82 Louis XIV, 113–115, 116, 117, 119–121, 125. See also Sun King love, 168, 171, 174–178, 180, 181

M Macron, Emmanuel, 186 Made in France, 62, 71–75, 80–84, 88 Mazmouz, Fatima, 129–131, 142 media, 81–85, 89 mediatization, 81, 88. See also media Médine, 171, 173, 175–177, 179, 180 metaphor, 115, 118 (mis)représentations, 206, 207–210, 214, 218. See

235

also representation(s); (self)-representation(s) modernity, 212, 214, 217 moon as feminine, 121, 122 crescent, 116, 117 in Islam, 121, 122, 124 The Moon (ship), 113–116, 118–120, 123, 124 Morocco, 129–131, 134, 138, 143 multiculturalism, 168, 179, 205, 206 Muslim, 1–6, 9–18, 114–117, 121, 122, 125, 126, 148, 149, 151, 152, 154, 155, 157, 160 Islam, 61, 62, 66–68, 70, 72 Muslim body, 216, 217 Muslim rappers, 168, 171 Muslim’Show, 185, 186, 188–192, 195–197 Muslim subjectivity, 207

N narrative spaces, 225 nation, 4, 18. See also national belonging national belonging, 2 neo-orientalism, 2, 228

O occidentalisme, 226, 227 Orient, 150, 159. See also orientalism orientalism, 2, 10, 118, 150, 158. See also neo-orientalism Edward Saïd, 118 ‘Orient’, 118 orientalist, 65, 70, 73, 75 Ottoman Empire, 115, 116

P Papicha, 62, 68–70, 74

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INDEX

peace, 168, 169, 171–174, 178, 181 Peau de colle, 27–32, 40 pluralism, 186, 196, 197 Policy of Pardon and Reconciliation, 47 political Islam, 1, 4, 7, 97, 101, 109 postsecular citizens, 205 public space, 207, 210, 211, 218. See also public sphere public sphere, 207, 208, 210–213, 215, 217

short fiction, 27, 39 social media, 185, 195 Soumission, 148, 149, 151, 153, 154, 157–159 sun as King Louis XIV’s device, 113 as masculine, 121, 122, 125 in Christianity, 116, 121, 122 The Sun (ship), 118–121, 124 Sun King, 115, 118, 120 symbol, 115–117, 120, 123, 124

R Rachida, 62, 67, 69–71, 74 radical Islam, 1, 83, 84, 88, 89. See also radicalization radicalization, 62–64, 66, 69, 71, 73–75, 80, 83, 85, 87 rap, 168–174, 178, 181 rap music, 168 Raw Queens, 129, 142 religious charlatanism, 50 The Repentant (2009), 46–48 representation(s), 2, 9, 10, 14, 15, 17, 18, 206, 208–211, 218. See also artistic representations; (self)-representation(s) republicanism, 186–188, 197 Republican values, 167, 168, 180, 181 The Rooftops (2013), 46, 50, 51 Rue du Pardon, 129, 134–136, 138, 139, 141, 142

T taboo, 130, 131, 134, 143 terrorism, 80, 81, 83, 85, 86, 88, 186, 189, 194–196. See also Islamic terrorism; terrorist attacks terrorist attacks, 80, 81, 84, 85 terrorist violence, 46, 56 transgression, 130, 132, 142. See also transgressive transgressive, 129, 132, 134, 143 transmediality, 208 Tunisia, 25–27, 29, 39, 40 Tunisian Revolution, 110. See also Arab Spring; Jasmine Revolution

S Salafist discourse, 52–55 secularism, 4, 6, 9, 15, 18, 25, 26, 29, 34, 148, 160, 186, 187, 197, 206–209, 211. See also laïcité (self)-representation(s), 2, 209 shipwreck, 114, 120

U ummah, 195, 196 unity, 168, 171, 178–181

V veil, 62, 63, 66–68, 70, 95–100, 101–110. See also hijab; voile; voile intégral veiled body, 97, 109 Versailles, 116–119, 124 vivre-ensemble, 168, 171, 176 voile, 100 voile intégral , 100

INDEX

W women’s body, 96, 98, 100, 102, 109 women’s emancipation, 95, 99, 106, 109

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women’s status, 95. See also women’s emancipation