Salut!

L'affaire Mila: how an angry teenager's foul-mouthed rant has gripped France

For my latest column in the Arab Weekly, I suggested writing about the extraordinary row in France over anti-Islam remarks, though also anti-religion of any kind, that have brought a 16-year-old lycéenne called Mila more than 15 minutes of notoriety ...

At last the French have a distraction from strikes over pension reform, ugly clashes between police and protesters and general discontent.

The country is preoccupied by l’affaire Mila, which began as a crude online spat between teenagers but grew into a full-scale national debate on competing notions: unfettered freedom of expression versus the right to worship without fear of insult.

As the French President Emmanuel Macron finally inches towards his long-promised initiative on Islam in France, a 16-year-old schoolgirl has — almost by accident — thrown a hefty spanner in the works of those striving to build a society in which Muslims and non-Muslims co-exist in mutual tolerance and respect.

Anne Sacoolas, Ashley Menser and Sir Julian Brazier. When the law is an ass, justice is poorly served

In a long article for the Daily Mail a former Tory MP, Sir Julian Brazier, describes knocking over and killing a motorcyclist while absent-mindedly driving on the wrong side of the road in Italy 18 years ago. He did what he could to help the man at the roadside and stoically prepared himself to face the music.

Brazier contrasts his obviously proper and responsible response to that of Anne Sacoolas, the American mother-of-three who knocked over and killed a motorcyclist in Northamptonshire but then slipped out of the UK to avoid prosecution, using diplomatic immunity to dodge extradition.

"Whatever the possible consequences," the ex-MP concludes, "my advice [to Sacoolas] is simply this: come back, stand trial."

After Toulouse and Brussels, London and Paris, do we consider terrorists' families reponsible?

Aqsa Mahmood. She may be dead, she certainly subjected loving parents to an appalling ordeal. See https://www.francesalut.com/2014/09/is-and-stolen-youth-the-sorrow-and-shame-of-aqsa-mahmoods-family.html

 

 

Over the years, I have interviewed several people related to terrorists. I’ve heard unconvincing but understandable protestations of innocence and I’ve heard utter disbelief.  I wrote this for the Arab Weekly...

A young man lies dying on a London street, leaving a mother to mourn the wasted, ultimately worthless life of a son drawn into the death cult of the Islamic State. A father laments the transformation of a bright, gentle boy into one of the monsters who slaughtered 90 people at a Paris rock concert.

From the British and French capitals to the Maghreb, the Indian subcontinent, the United States and beyond, the families of terrorists killed or captured ask where they went wrong as they voice their disgust and sorrow.

But the killing goes on and, all too often, families are powerless to prevent it — even if they want to.

The Bataclan massacre. Two fathers of those among the dead - one innocent, one a killer - open their hearts

All photos courtesy of Editions Robert Laffont

On the day terror again struck London, in the form of a knife attack in which people were wounded, and the assailant was shot dead by police, this article of mine went online at The National, UAE.

Interviewing the families of those caught up in terrible events can be emotional occasions for even the most experienced of journalists. Sometimes, it can also be uplifting. Talking to Georges Salines, the father of a young woman cruelly murdered at the Bataclan theatre in Paris on Nov 13 2015, and Azdyne Amimour, whose son was one of her killers, fitted both descriptions* ...

When ISIS terrorists stormed the Bataclan theatre in Paris and opened fire on a rock concert audience, Georges Salines lost a daughter, Azdyne Amimour a son. Both were 28.

As they came to terms with their grief, the two fathers met and decided to write a book together as a simple, therapeutic project.

What made it exceptional was that Mr Amimour’s son, Samy, was one of the three gunmen who murdered Lola Salines and 89 other people inside the hall. He was also killed, shot by police before detonating his suicide vest.

ISIS makes Israel its number one enemy. Has it the capacity to inflict serious damage?

With thanks to Marco Verch (trendingtopics), the Flickr member who posted this photo and made it available under Creative Commons

I do not exist only to wind up those who have inflicted what I call GNASH, a Great National Act of Self Harm, on the UK. In an ideal - for me - world, I would have covered the subject again for my contribution this week to The Arab Weekly. The editor* wisely diverted my attention to the recent claim from ISIS to have made Israel its principal target. After comprehensive military defeats in Syria and Iraq, is its threat a classic piece of sabre-rattling or should the Israelis be taking heed? ....

Israel is back in the Islamic State firing line. Following the terrorist group's “declaration of war”, analysts have been assessing whether it has the ability to mount seriously damaging assaults on the state it might be expected to hate more than any other, including the United States.

Four years have passed since Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, then the Islamic State (ISIS) leader, boasted “we are getting closer by the day” to attacking Israel. Little happened to suggest ISIS was able, however willing, to organise operations of major significance on Israeli soil.

Ah for the eloquence of Brexit. A jubilant Leaver sums up the will of the people

CR writes:  my update is that the clip and the tweet that introduced it have disappeared,. No idea why but see it here

https://twitter.com/cristo_radio/status/1223391485976072194?s=20

 

 

Salt of the earth. Telling it how it is. The voice of the people.

However you look at it, this clip captured the popular mood - in all its passionate and patriotic glory - as Britain took to the streets to celebrate shaking off the shackles of Brussels.

Getting Brexit Done: how to be nice to gloating Leavers, and them to us

Guess who came to the celebratory Brexit dinner? Credit to my friend and confrere Gervase Webb for what he calls a damning indictment of the state of political journalism, a'list of liars and charlatans troughing triumphantly in Brown's Hotel'. Oops, I know and like at least a few of those named and shamed!

On this gloomy day in British history, with no reasons to be cheerful, it seems appropriate to update the list of things we can all do to repair all the damage done by the divisive, snarling debate on leaving the EU

Olive branches must naturally be offered both ways. Please feel free to add suggestions either camp might usefully adopt in a spirit of national reconciliation. And read, if you like, my farewell to Europe at this link.

Prepare for a bleak new Brexit age, starting now. But hey, Leavers 'love Europe'

Let us not descend to the nastiness of many, though I accept not most, Leavers.

There should be no talk of stench from Friday night's Brexit celebrations polluting everything for miles around.

It remains - great word - unbecoming to describe those left of the 17.4m (not the 17.4m or 67 per cent who voted Remain in 1975, but 2016's 52 per cent) as racist, xenophobic, far right or economically illiterate. Still less should we call them gammon, actually a key ingredient - with egg(s) and chips - of one of my favourite comfort food dishes..

We know that anyone fitting one or more of those descriptions will have voted Leave on 23/6/16, but we also know that not everyone voting Leave is any such thing. Try not to doubt it - hard, I know - when Brexiters declare "I love Europe but ..." and try even harder not to tell them they are from now on restricted in their EU travel to Magaluf. Not that a certain kind of Brexiter would mind that much.

Macron, Muslims and a forlorn search for le vivre ensemble

 

Picture courtesy of Nanda Gonzague, the photographer who worked  with me on a 2015 report on Muslim mothers campaigning for an end to the ghettoisation of education in Montpellier. See more of his photography at http://www.nanda-gonzague.com/

In case you wondered why news reports about France often contain no obvious official input, this may help.

 

The article that follows, an updated look at France’s perpetual struggle to understand and assimilate its large Muslim minority, cried out for a comment from the Élysée. There is none.
 
When I think of President Emmanuel Macron’s service presse - the first of those two words being a little Parisian joke - I imagine a bustling team of earnest, educated young fonctionnaires or perhaps graduates of the sort of grand public relations colleges you see in the smarter arrondissements. I don’t know for sure, though, because I have so rarely managed to have a meaningful exchange or conversation with anybody there. What, I keep wondering, do they actually do?

In 16 years on (mostly) and off,  I can recall a few invitations to the Élysée (merci), lots of requests to put my questions in e-mails and not a single response or hint of guidance. For this article, I got as close as an exasperated ´je suis complètement débordée (I’m swamped)’ and, miraculously, a returned phone call when I followed la débordée’s instructions to write. Unfortunately the line went dead immediately when I answered and, despite my follow-up  call and e-mail, that was that ....

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Islam, the West and the right to offend - but also to take offence

I have a new outlet for my work, Arab Weekly. It is a serious newspaper with some fine regular contributors and its editorial team includes a valued friend and colleague from my Abu Dhabi days, Richard Pretorious. This is the fifth item of mine to be published so far; all can be seen at this link. My thanks to the editor for his permission to reproduce these articles here ...

A trawl through history for evidence of countries permitting unqualified freedom of expression would be long and, almost certainly, fruitless.

The common cry on Western lips, more shrill than ever in an age of keyboard antagonists on social media, is: “It’s a free country. I’m entitled to speak my mind.”

The reality is that there always have been limits on what may be said, written and published. Obvious needs to protect national and individual security make it easy to work out why that should be the case.