Truth, Values, and Democracy

I’m pleased to report that we have a new French correspondent and translator. She goes by the name of “L’échappée belle”, and has kindly translated a recent article from Bivouac-ID about a newly-formed organization that aims to shine a light on Islam and what it portends for the future of France.

The organization “Truth, Values, and Democracy” adopts a quintessentially French philosophical and intellectual approach to the problem of Islam in Europe:

Great news! The birth of an organization to defend ourselves against Islam: Truth, Values, and Democracy

by Melba, October 11, 2009

Introductory note: In your comments on the forum, you have wished for a organization based on the denunciation of the dangers of Islam, with a real plan of collective action, but which is not a part of or derived from the far right.

Wait no more, Truth, Values and Democracy has arrived. We posed several questions to the founders in order to introduce them to you, and to allow you to form a first opinion. Because it is time to organize ourselves to act…


— Do you define yourself as an anti-Islam organization, or is that over-simplifying?

That is a very interesting question, because it reveals the polarization with which some people try to drive the debate stimulated by the arrival of Islam in our country. Numerous spokesmen for the Islamic ideology are essentially trying to make us believe that this legitimate examination by French society boils down to a dispute about being “for or against Islam”, opposing the champions of religious freedom (which would be the Muslims) and Islamophobic secular extremists, xenophobes, and racists, who are opposed to all religious practice.

To answer your question, no, we are not fighting against Islam. Nobody at Truth, Values and Democracy is calling for the bombing of Mecca, the destruction of all of the mosques on the planet, nor the elimination or incarceration of all the Muslims on earth. Islam does not interest us in any way; that is the concern of Muslims.

Our only interest is in defending our democracy, vigilance in upholding the law, the principles of the French Republic and human rights, and educating ourselves and acting against all that to us seems a corruption of or an attack on these values, in light of current Islamic efforts. Our preoccupation is with the political efforts of Islam on our society and whether or not to tolerate them.

The real issues which underlie our movement is as follows:

• Are the teachings of the Islamic ideology, as it is today, compatible with the rules that govern our society?
  
• Are the teachings of the Islamic ideology, as it is today, compatible with compliance with our laws, which are secular, republican, and based on human rights?

That people have beliefs and want to keep cultural practices based on those beliefs is a constitutional right. As long as they do not disturb the public order, there is no problem. When other people, in the name of their beliefs, break the law, commit crimes, or encroach on the personal liberty of other citizens, they overstep the bounds of religion, and this is where you will find Truth, Values and Democracy, in the camp of Democracy and Law.

If some people come to the conclusion that Islamic values are being attacked in such a battle, that only shows that they themselves recognize that their Islam is not located in the context of Democracy and our institutions, which says quite a lot.

— Can you briefly present the profile of the association’s founders?

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The founders of TVD are perfectly ordinary citizens; we are not members of any political party, and have maintained from the start that this association is politically, religiously, and philosophically neutral. Our members may come from all backgrounds, and we define ourselves around the values of the Republic: democracy, secularism, and human rights, which is the common stand of all French citizens.

Gratuitous provocation and invective do not interest us; our tools are the French Constitution and the laws of our country. Opinionated debates on religion are not our impetus, because religious freedom exists in France. Only acts are punishable if they violate the law and disrupt the public order.

— Was there a trigger, a particular event which made you decide to found this association?

Like everyone, I suppose, I noticed the veiled women who have invaded the streets, the “halal” advertisements that have bloomed in our butcher shops, the bearded men wearing their religious label on their back. The media began to talk about extremists, Islamists, moderate Muslims, terrorism, and rather than falling into prejudice, I wanted to learn for myself what was the basis of this “Islam”, which I didn’t understand and which was all around me.

Therefore, I bought a Koran, and that was the defining moment. I discovered hate, blame, menace, violence, (and pathological excuses for violence), and blind fanaticism; I discovered men reduced to the level of slaves to a psychopathic god who created men in order to eternally torture them.

I was so shocked by this litany, that I reread the Koran twice just to be sure that I didn’t miss something that would alleviate my discomfort, but no, nothing, each reading was worse than the last, women treated as inferior beings, obligatory holy war, mutilations, Jew’s throats to slit, obligatory veneration of an illiterate prophet, terror and coercion until Allah reigns supreme.

Once the book was closed, the first question that I asked myself was: Do people know what is in this book? I could barely believe that people that I passed everyday on the street considered that which I had just read as the word of God and an example to follow, women especially.

So I continued to educate myself. I read the hadith, biographies of Muhammad, the sunna, and I asked questions of people around me, and I realized that non-Muslims know nothing about Islam. Even more surprising, most Muslims I asked knew little more, their faith was a sort of cultural practice, a pastiche of tradition and daily life, a family legacy more or less assimilated as a part of their identity.

But there were also people who knew the contents of the Koran and the sunna very well, and they do not hesitate to say (in private, of course) that our society will change, voluntarily or by force, to accommodate Islam and its values, including those that break our customs and our laws.

“He (Allah) is the One who sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, and will make it dominate all religions, however much the idolaters be adverse” (Koran 9:33)

These people, these preachers of an Islamic ideology who hide themselves behind the shield of religion, are now attacking the foundations of our society with impunity. They try, by deception and manipulation, to transform naïve people into victims of a system which is alien to their rights, and to turn them into more or less conscious instruments in a war of civilization.

The need to react then emerged. To do nothing when one is ignorant is excusable, but to continue to do nothing when one is aware… that is complicity. Truth, Values and Democracy was thus born. Truth is our weapon, the humanist and secular values of the Republic and human rights are our guides, and Democracy is our camp.

— Do you have a plan of action? In what way and by which means do you plan to act?

On the national level, our priority is informing our institutional leaders, and our national leaders (representatives and senators). Nothing can be done without them; they are proxies of the Nation, they make the laws, and their role is to defend our institutions. However, how can we defend ourselves from something when we don’t understand how and by whom we are being attacked?

People imagine that our representatives, by the magic of electoral mandate, know everything, and thus, have an educated opinion about Islam. That is far from being the case, and they admit it themselves. That is among one of the reasons for the recent creation of the Parliamentary committee on the practice of wearing the burka, to inform themselves as to what brings some women to act in this way. It is indeed possible that they will discover there much more than they expected to find… and that is good! To discover a distasteful truth is not always agreeable, but you can’t deny that it is necessary to keep your eyes open when you are walking on the edge of a cliff.

Locally, we are implementing a regional network in charge of contacting and informing mayors on the contents of Islam. It is the mayors who, concretely, in signing the authorizations to build mosques, financing “cultural centers”, and soon religious schools, allow the Islamic ideology to expand without any control, even while they are ignorant of the subject.

Mayors are representatives of the State are responsible for the preservation of public order in their towns, as well as the protection of the townspeople (including women who find themselves in Muslim environments, as some seem to forget). Their duty is to verify, with discernment and cognizance, the inoffensive nature for society and individuals of every activity or request for construction for a cultural or educational aim, (not only those regarding Islam of course). However, this verification never takes place, or only rarely, due to a lack of information on the part of our elected leaders about the substance of Islamic ideology. The prevalent idea being that “Islam is a religion like any other”, which is unfortunately not supported by a careful examination of the fundamental texts.

We will also put in place “brainstorming groups”, because to castigate is not enough. As citizens, we can also participate in the development of solutions which, if possible, allow Islam to find a peaceful place in our society, in accordance with our institutions and democracy.

To disseminate our ideas to the public at large, we have developed informational conferences, and we intend to record these conferences for mass communication. (note: Anyone with skills in multimedia who is interested in becoming involved in this project is welcome!)

— Do you plan to organize demonstrations like we are beginning to see in the UK?

No, that is not one of our current objectives. Manifestations expose citizens to the violence of Islamist fanatics, only for a questionable visibility in the media. It only takes one frantic xenophobe to join the demo for the media denounce the entire effort as fascist, racist or xenophobic (and very probably all three at once). Our aim is not to provoke problems, even if they are not of our doing, but simply to respect our laws, and it is not in the street that this can be accomplished.

— Are you ready to endure the standard attacks and being called fascist, racist, or Islamophobe which are generally employed by the media in order to discredit anyone or any group who criticizes Islam?

No problem, if those who throw calumnious and defamatory accusations are ready to meet us in court. In Truth, Values and Democracy, all racist or xenophobic declarations are grounds for immediate dismissal. We have nothing to fear from that sector.

Concerning political orientation, I remind you that our association is politically neutral. Some members may come from the far-right, others from the Communist party; that does not bother us. The combat that we are in transcends political divisions; it is a citizen combat, not partisan, and we call on all those who believe in the defense of humanist values, whatever side they are on, to join us.

As to Islamophobia, when we know what that word means (we should definitely ask the “democratophobes”, who invented it), there is always time to see if it is still a crime when it gets thrown in our faces. The problem we have with the Islamic ideology is that it is currently clearly totalitarian. Several of its teachings, under the cover of religion, promote holy war and seem to deny major constitutional rights to French citizens, Muslim or no, and pushes some, the most psychologically weak, towards violent behavior, (bigotry or criminal). All this in order to question the democratic and republican nature of our society by the progressive but constant introduction of Sharia in the lives of the French, which constitutes a major problem to public order when one considers the irreversibility of such operations.

— How do those who want to join your association or to help you go about doing it?

First off, I recommend to those who may be interested in our efforts to go to our website and spend a bit of time to develop an informed opinion with the help of several links that you will find there. There are also links to pro-Islamic sites so that you can compare information from different sources. The site is still under construction, but it is already possible to get a rather clear idea about our plan of action. Important articles will be put online in order to focus some points of our argumentation, and in order to support our position; we will not propose anything that is not based on the fundamental texts of Islam, and will cite our sources.

All those who think, as we do, that indignation doesn’t cut it anymore, and that we must now productively act can join our association by telling us if they want to join one or many of our actions. It is not obligatory of course, the act of joining is important in itself, because our numbers will be a crucial factor when contacting our political representatives (which Islamic propagandists all too well understand).

There will be work for all those who are willing to invest themselves in the defense of their rights and of democracy in France, and probably soon in Europe:

The brainstorming sessions are open to all those who have an story to tell or an opinion to give, or a solution to propose for problems which will be more and more defined.

Multimedia projects should produce clips for the wide dissemination of information on the nature of Islam and the choice of society that lies before us.

The work of contacting the mayors is also extremely important, the establishment of a network of regional delegations will be one of our priorities, because it is a rapid way to have a concrete impact, to put an end to hidden subsidies, and to support mayors harassed by requests for buildings for ambiguous purposes, etc.

And last but not least, to bring together in the heart of the association the greatest possible quantity of citizens in order to bring our demands to our elected leaders. For that, we ask of everyone, to the best of their abilities, of course, to promote the association and its message so that it grows to become a force impossible to ignore, a force that brings to the national level the hopes of the citizens who aspire to see the ideals of Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité to continue to live in our country.

By simply joining, all citizens can show our political leaders that the silent majority is waiting for them to do their duty in protecting them from the preachers of Jihad and the enemies of democracy.

Hat tip: Cyber-résistant.