Mario Stasi: Open letter to the mayor of Strasbourg

Mario Stasi, President of the Licra.

Madam Mayor of Strasbourg,

President of an association, LICRA, which has been fighting racism and anti-Semitism for nearly a century, I have decided to send you this open letter.

For several days and following the last municipal council of the city of Strasbourg, your city has been at the heart of a controversy whose resonance goes well beyond the walls of your city.

Some accuse you

of

"

Islamo-leftism

", others grant you the benefit of good faith, while others lend you a hypocritical double speech.

I prefer to stick to facts and deeds.

Nothing else.

It is precisely the concomitance of three events that leads me to question you.

The first event, largely unnoticed elsewhere, is the dissemination of a communication campaign from your town hall as part of the anti-discrimination platform.

This campaign in the form of a poster plastered all over your city highlighted, by using the slogan and contact details of the Defender of Rights, the term “

Islamophobia

”.

The trivialization of the concept of "Islamophobia" commits you to a field which, certainly, moves away from the goal pursued and which we share, namely the fight against all forms of discrimination.

The second is the refusal of the Strasbourg city council to adopt a symbolic motion against anti-Semitism.

The third concerns the deliberation adopted by the same council on the principle of a subsidy of 2.563 million euros for the Milli Görus association for the construction of the Eyyub Sultan mosque, in the Meinau district.

These decisions, which you have taken either directly or in support of your majority, and which you must now assume, pose a number of problems.

In the first place, the trivialization of the concept of "

Islamophobia

" commits you to a field which, undoubtedly, moves away from the goal pursued and which we share, namely the fight against all forms of discrimination.

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Indeed, who can ignore today that "

Islamophobia

" is the banner of Islamism, that it served as justifications for the Islamist terrorist assassins of Charlie Hebdo and Samuel Paty.

This word belongs to the register of political violence and this concept intentionally mixes the law of the Republic, which protects individuals because of their religious affiliation, with religious laws, which prescribe the prohibition of criticism of dogma.

By making it yours, out of ignorance or militancy, you give it the credit of universal suffrage, to the applause of the fanatics who have understood the benefit they could derive from such legitimation and for whom, I assure you. , the fight against discrimination is the least of concerns.

I thought that our elected officials would allocate public funds with a responsible hand, in the sense of the Republic and not in the sense of Islamism.

Second, I did not think that one day I should write to the mayor of Strasbourg to regret that her majority refused to vote a motion against anti-Semitism.

Everything in the history of your city seemed to be impervious to this type of renunciation in a city where the presence of the Jewish community is almost millennia and where we undoubtedly know better than elsewhere the price of anti-Semitism.

Everything in the identity of your city refers to the permanent fight against the ever-resurgent forces of hatred of the Jews and today renewed in an anti-Zionism that no one fools anymore, at least I thought, on the reality of their intentions.

Because an anti-Semite, especially since the end of the Second World War, rarely assumes himself as he is and always hides behind denialism, conspiracy and now anti-Zionism.

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Thirdly, I thought that after the terrible years that we have just known, our elected officials would allocate public funds with a responsible hand, inspired by the idea of ​​verifying that each subsidy is deliberate in the sense of the Republic and not not in the sense of rampant Islamism.

You could not ignore that this association refused to sign the Charter for Islam of France and that it defends the primacy of the law of religion over that of the Republic.

Your project to subsidize the Milli Görus association is totally irresponsible: this dispensary ostensibly claims its proximity to the Muslim Brotherhood and advocates "

a conservative Islamism and an anti-Western nationalism

", barely hiding its inclinations to interfere with the ideology of the Erdogan regime among our compatriots.

You could not ignore that this association refused to sign the Charter for Islam of France and that it defends the primacy of the law of religion over that of the Republic.

You could not ignore either that your funding was in a way the complement of other funding, those that the association sought in vain in Qatar.

I heard your argument according to which this file had been initiated by your predecessors and that your deliberation was part of their continuity.

I note, however, that this deliberation is your sole initiative and that you are fully and totally responsible for it.

This letter is fed, you see, by an immense concern, that of seeing relativism weaken the republican base in favor of a trivialization of the concept of "

Islamophobia

", of a blindness in the face of multiple forms of anti-Semitism and of the endorsement of political Islam.

I hope that this alert will lead you to look at your future decisions in the light of their consequences on the Republican Pact.