Benjamin Sire is a composer. He is a member of the Printemps Républicain Board of Directors.
Whether in France or the rest of the world, there is no longer a day when the news spares itself a case of boycott or censorship.
Religion, sexuality, mores, communities, cultural appropriation, supposed racism, all subjects are good for fueling the new moral order which has been sweeping the planet for several years.
In the era of COVID and the social distancing that exacerbates it, this mixture of puritanism, variable-geometry intolerance, sometimes legitimate fights and often hypocritical indignation, weighs down society and is embodied in the words " cancel culture ”, this tricky fashion straight out of the laboratories of the American left.
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The list of these “cancellations” continues to grow and gives us cause for concern.
Case of young Mila (still severely harassed almost a year after her comments on Islam), current complaints against Netflix for its broadcast of the film "Mignonnes", permanent threats received by the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, calls for a Boycott against the daily
Le Parisien
, or this or that artist, dangerous intimidation suffered by personalities like Zineb El Rhazoui and Zohra Bithan orchestrated (as often) by the Islamist Idriss Sihamedi, do not throw any more, the cup is full and we no longer know where to turn, here or elsewhere.
These cases are to be distinguished from those which collide with the law and may lead to convictions.
Because one of the peculiarities of the subjects which concern us here comes precisely from the fact that we only expect their reputation: justice is most often replaced by the tribunal of networks and particular indignations, community and religious, dissatisfied with the law. does not espouse its desiderata.
The list of these “cancellations” continues to grow and gives us cause for concern.
At the head of the gondola of these themes ignored by the legislative body, particularly in France, is the concept of blasphemy.
It does not exist in law and should therefore refrain from being mentioned, but it does exist in the minds of believers at a time when more and more people wish to see the law of God prevail over human laws. local.
This notion of location is important here.
Unlike the application of codes, religion knows no borders, nor does expression in networks in the age of globalization.
The colliding of these territorial differences sweeps away legislative particularities and exacerbates anger while the puritanist wave that overwhelms us goes far beyond the confessional question, which we refer to as the Baroque asks Jean-Michel Blanquer to suggest to the students. to wear "republican outfits", or to the debate surrounding the film "Mignonnes", accused of exhibiting the sexualization of young children that he intends to condemn.
In the game of chicken and egg, we no longer know whether it is a phenomenon of puritanical puritanism from which religion benefits that initiated the movement or if this Puritanism comes from the propagation of religious indignation which modifies social codes.
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In the incontinent cascade of these blasphemy cases, one of them, which has arisen these days, is particularly to be highlighted and concerns the planetary superstar Rihanna.
The object of the crime concerns the last fashion show of her brand Savage x Fenty (Fenty being the singer's real name), broadcast on Amazon Prime on Friday, October 2.
The goddess of Barbados dared, through the intermediary of the London DJette Cuckoo Chloé, to insert a hadith (word of the prophet) in a remix illustrating the event.
Immediately, the procession of the outraged of a God, not seeming able to defend himself by himself, surged on social networks to ask for the boycott of the singer, on the whole range of tones that can be used, ranging from the tearful complaint to the explicit threat.
We no longer know (...) whether it is a phenomenon of societal Puritanism (...) from which religion benefits that initiated the movement or whether this Puritanism comes from the propagation of religious indignation.
One would have expected that the star, accustomed to provocations and considered to belong to the gotha of the most influential personalities in the world by Time magazine, would have assumed this alleged offense to believers in a dogma whose most literal readers dedicate the music to moaning.
But no.
Not that in the USA where the sanctification of communities is increasing, even less if the controversy becomes global ...
Not that for a wise business woman, concerned about her image and her charitable lavishness ... Not of that in the age of identity where the law of God is imposed every day more on the law of men and where that of minorities is imposed every day more on that of the majority.
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So, hand on heart and on the keyboard of contrition, our icon split a long text of apology on his Instagram account, going so far as to "
thank the Muslim community for having reported a huge oversight that was unintentionally offensive in our Savage x Fenty show.
Above all, I would like to apologize to you for this honest but no less thoughtless mistake.
We understand that we have hurt many of our Muslim brothers and sisters, and I am incredibly demoralized by all of this!
".
Demoralized!
Just that.
However, the singer could consider the consequences of the case, she who, in 2013, had been expelled from the mosque of Abu Dhabi during a photo shoot during which she appeared however entirely veiled in black, on the pretext how suggestive his poses were, oh sacrilege!
The times are thus made that a woman, beautiful moreover and made up, covered from the feet to the hair and taking a simple pose, is considered offensive by an audience, at best frustrated, at worst unable to curb its impulses.
So, hand on heart and on the keyboard of contrition, our icon split a long text of apology on his Instagram account.
Just before Rihanna, and cutting the grass a little under her feet, Cuckoo Chloe had also beaten her ass on Twitter with cynical innocence, although her song had been broadcast for two years:
“At the time, I didn't did not know that these samples used texts from an Islamic hadith.
I take full responsibility for not researching these words properly and would like to thank the people who took the time to explain them to me. ”
But things did not stay at the apology stage.
A victim was needed and the title took on the role, being withdrawn from streaming platforms by its author.
We still smile at the idea that the producer pretended to ignore the origin and meaning of the words she had inserted in her title.
It would probably have been more honest to admit that, which was still vaguely possible two years ago, although already risky, can no longer be today, seeing religions dictate the new rules of "decency. common ”.
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One thinks with irony of the recent case "Freeze Corleone", named after this rapper, accused of anti-Semitism and of apologizing for Nazism in one of his titles distributed everywhere by a major who claimed not to have listened to the song before the diffuse, then withdraw it consecutively to the outcry.
Besides that these excuses border on the ridiculous, they are not likely to fix the image of lazy negligence which surrounds a musical environment in which gravitates, with regret in these circumstances, your servant.
The buzz could have stopped there.
After all, a demand for a global boycott is almost banal in these times when obscurantism is adorned with modernity.
As we have seen, the world of music is far from being the only one concerned and these attempts, often crowned with success, affect many areas, including those that we would think of the least, such as that of video games, which has been at the heart of several businesses in recent years.
It would no doubt have been more honest to admit that what was still vaguely possible two years ago (...) cannot be today.
Thus, the opus Little Big Planet saw one of the songs illustrating it be withdrawn, this one taking up a Koranic prayer.
The publishers of the game Zack & Wiki were forced to delete the words “Allahu Abkar” which were present there following a complaint from the CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations).
It was the same for Modern Warfare 2 where the word Allah was inscribed on a toilet decor and Tekken Tournament 2 where the name of the prophet was readable on a floor.
In short, the buzz could have stopped there ... He could especially have saved France outside of its integration into the globalized network enclave, a country where, once again, the notion of blasphemy is legally non-existent.
But no...
And this is where the matter climbs the ladder of absurd gravity.
In his program devoted to this abominable outrage to believers consisting of integrating a hadith into a piece of music, Cyril Hanouna saw two of his chroniclers literally go freewheeling in a style that a Grand Inquisitor could not have disowned.
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Thus the newcomer of the program Touche Pas à Mon Poste, Meriem Debbagh, was able to quietly make the following remarks, cropped by a host yet defender of blasphemy, but seeing the wide legal field of freedom of expression being exceeded: "
Me, I find that limit I want to kill her ... because that is not done at all!
Already her show is shit, her show is catastrophic and the lingerie sucks!
Plus, she dated a Saudi prince before, so she knows what she put on her show!
".
We will spare you a return on the considerations specific to the quality of the lingerie and the parade staging it, an area in which our skills are quickly reached, especially as the said considerations, as vulgarly expressed as they are, are perfectly audible .
On the other hand, that we have arrived at a time when, for religious reasons, a small star of the PAF believes he has the right to be able to freely communicate his desires for murder on the air, leaves speechless.
Me, I find that limit I want to kill her ... because that is not done at all!
Meriem Debbagh, on Touche Pas à Mon Poste
But Meriem Debbagh was not alone in her indictment.
She was joined in the choir of mourners by journalist Gilles Verdez, former pen of the Team and of the Parisian, who became a full-time infotainment polemicist, the latter declaring: “
I am extremely shocked!
[It is a] provocation [] unworthy [and] an insult to Muslims
”.
If the sieur Verdez had every right to be shocked and to say it (freedom of expression when you hold us), we are also entitled to be "extremely shocked" by the fact that he was.
Because, once again, and without here again appealing to the law or the absence of a law defining blasphemy, it will be recalled that the "crime" attributed to Rihanna is in no way linked to a deliberate insult or to a some mockery.
And this is a testament to how far we have come in terms of tolerance of the most radical and susceptible believers.
First, we attack the assumed irreverence of cartoonists, secondly we condemn the promoters of secularism, then we come to prohibit any evocation of religion or its dogmas by the common non-believer of mortals, until 'to put a cover of lead and fear on society, demonetizing the institutions and their legal framework, increasingly powerless in the face of citizen diktats.
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There are many other topics that deserve to be debated at a time when the COVID pandemic looms the specter of an unprecedented economic crisis, where international tensions are increasing and where ecological peril threatens us all. .
But the identity (and religious) era and their media relays and networks are placing their pawns everywhere, managing to create notions that must be confined to the private sphere, the subjects benefiting from the greatest echo.
We could, in turn, be accused of participating in this process.
But how can we be silent when we are ordered to bow down under the weight of the increasingly numerous and more and more extensive ultimatums of believers carrying their indignation as a banner to impose their totalitarian normative fantasies on us?
How to keep silent when, every day, like Rihanna, more and more personalities meet in the Munich of the abandonment of freedoms?
We come to prohibit any evocation of religion or its dogmas by the common non-believer of mortals.
Because finally, what world will be born from a society where everyone, on the pretext of the offense, even the smallest, that he could feel, would be able to silence all the others?
Imagine, as Charlie Hebdo ironically did recently, that atheists and agnostics get down to it and decide that the mere sight of a church, temple, synagogue or mosque constitutes a insurmountable offense in their eyes?
Let us imagine that some feel themselves attacked at the mere contemplation of others and order their extermination.
We know the result.