France: is the end game official recognition of the “millet” system?
There’s quite a lot of method to the madness in the French Intifada, or so it seems. The car-torching tactic seems highly effective and resistant to police intervention, as the Wretchard notes. And as the FT says: “There have been signs the protesters have adopted a military-style organisation.” But to what end? In Amir Taheri’s piece which we previously excerpted, he said:
Some are even calling for the areas where Muslims form a majority of the population to be reorganized on the basis of the “millet” system of the Ottoman Empire: Each religious community (millet) would enjoy the right to organize its social, cultural and educational life in accordance with its religious beliefs. In parts of France, a de facto millet system is already in place. In these areas, all women are obliged to wear the standardized Islamist “hijab” while most men grow their beards to the length prescribed by the sheiks. The radicals have managed to chase away French shopkeepers selling alcohol and pork products, forced “places of sin,” such as dancing halls, cinemas and theaters, to close down, and seized control of much of the local administration.
With the de Villepin faction of the French government slobbering about understanding and dialogue as a means to end the violence, the French Islamists may be poised for a great victory. If they could get official recognition of their de facto millet system in the Muslim ghettoes, they have balkanized France, and moved one step closer to sharia as the governing law of the country. This appears to us to be an excellent strategy: first, get sharia co-equal status with French law in certain communities, then make it superior to French law. This would be precisely the result of recognition of the millet system, wherein the law of the injured party is the governing law in a court case. From there, it is not too far to ultimate victory.