The Union for Islamic Organizations of France Issues a Fatwa Against the Righteous People’s Rebellion!

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Nantes, Lille, Orléans, Rennes, Lyon, Montceau-les-Mines... The righteous rebellion is spreading everywhere.

So what does the Union for Islamic Organizations of France do?

On November 6th it issued a “Fatwa Concerning the Troubles in France.”

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By doing so it has proven that it is an institution, an extention of the State, whose leader Chirac called for calm just a few days ago.

The UIOF is playing on people’s religious feelings to try and divide the people who are rebelling.

The UIOF explains that “In several verses of the Holy Quran, God condemns destruction and disorder and rejects those who carry it out.”

It quotes verse 64 of Sura 5 “Allah loveth not those who do mischief.”; and also verse 60 of Sura 2 : “do no evil nor mischief on the (face of the) earth.” (See also 2/27; 2/205; 7/56; 28/77; etc.)

Thus the UIOF is clearly calling on people to submit to bourgeois society.

As it cannot come out and say so openly, instead it is repeating what all of the bourgeois organizations are saying, that this is not a righteous rebellion but is instead “disorder”: “the need to express one’s distress or one’s unhappiness does not negate the rights of innocent people who have seen their cars and businesses set on fire”, “The grave events that have shaken the Parisian suburbs over the past days show the depths of hopelessness to which many young people have sunk, which leads them to feel that they have nothing left to lose.”

The UIOF supports the tranquility of bourgeois society, so far as it is concerned the events “are disturbing people’s peace, infringing on their safety and their property and could also put their lives in danger.”

Statements like these are simply attempts to defend the position of the comfortable middle class and people from immigrant communities who have been integrated into the structure of the State or the bourgeoisie.

Whether one is Moslem or not, from an immigrant community or not, what counts in France is class struggle, and this rebellion is a righteous proletarian rebellion.

According to the UIOF, “It is formally forbidden for any Moslem to seek divine grace from taking part in any action that blindly strikes private or public property or can harm others. To participate in such actions is forbidden.”

The class struggle does not strike blindly.

It is like a mole that tunnels, looking for its way, and which finally finds it.

Or as Rosa Luxembourg observed at the time of the Russian Revolution :

“Despite betrayal, despite the universal failure of the working masses, despite the disintegration of the Socialist International, the great historical law is making headway - like a mountain stream which has been diverted from its course and has plunged into the depths, it now reappears, sparkling and gurgling, in an unexpected place.

“Old mole. History, you have done your work well! At this moment the slogan, the warning cry, such as can be raised only in the great period of global change, again resounds through the International and the German proletariat. That slogan is: Imperialism or Socialism!

“War or Revolution! There is no third way!”
Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist Maoist) November 2005

Please note that the above text about the past week’s riots in Clichy-Sous-Bois come from the website of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist Maoist) in France and translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French.

Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the PCMLM’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

For background to the riots, including a timeline, check out the Wikipedia entry.

Categories: clichy-sous-bois, france, islam, maoism, translation,