Islam, the Republic and the World (Unpublished Preface), by Alain Gresh, Pocket Format

Islam, the Republic and the World, by Alain Gresh, Pocket Format, Pluriel Collection

The fear of Islam took hold of the leaders of the North, relayed by a few intellectuals anxious to defend the values of the “civilized world” against that of the “barbarians”. In France, this fear is all the stronger as it is located at the confluence of two anxieties: that of Islamist terrorism, accentuated by the horrors of the Algerian civil war and the attacks of September 11, 2001; that of the “threat” represented by the new dangerous classes, immigrants from formerly colonized countries, particularly from the Maghreb.

It is the fantasy of this Islamic “threat”, both internal and external, that Alain Gresh dismantles here, based on a secular and rational vision of Muslims in their historical and geographical diversity. He returns to the debates that shook France. Is Islam compatible with democracy? Is the headscarf a weapon against secularism? Can Muslims integrate into European societies? Can French citizens, Muslims and non-Muslims, believers and non-believers, build a common future together?