Online commentators try to distract us from the real issues at hand.
Rabat – The proverbial saber-rattling over France’s official pronouncement can be heard all the way around the world. With every crisis that unfolds on France’s soil, the official discourse is that secularism is under assault.
I often joke that France’s spin doctors have tried to pin Covid19 on Islam and Muslim migrants. The recipe to mount a smear campaign would be too weak and would ultimately fall flat on its face.
This polemic is not new but rather one that seems to pit France’s gatekeepers and proxies against those whose understanding of France’s imperial legacy is nothing short of traumatic. Africans can easily be diagnosed with PTSD for what their collective psyche retains of the colonial past. On the same token, France’s obsession with former colonies is unmistakable even to the untrained and to the non-professional.
What jumped at me this time around is the great number of self-loathing Muslims who are adamant that a boycott is an exercise in futility. They never provide a viable alternative. Their activism is tantamount to a ridiculing troll. These keyboards for hire speak not out of principle but are in it solely for the money.
The most ridiculous post I read is that of a Moroccan who goes by the name Sana El Aji. A quick search revealed that she made headlines when she plagiarized the work of a highly respected Moroccan sociologist and sexologist. My contempt for plagiarizers is so strong that it didn’t take much from her to get on my muck list.
Her argument is that her two sisters are French and she wonders, facetiously of course, if she should boycott them. This is how serious debates get highjacked.
Last time I checked no one called for severing ties with family members. Sana El Aji is just one example of many detractors and polluters whose goal is not to present a perspective but to throw off the entire debate. For this boycott to bear fruit, we should all learn to disengage from the noise coming from these voices.
Even the simplest layperson understands that calls for a boycott are an attempt by consumers to exert pressure on corporations who then shift that pressure onto their legislators. Sana and others don’t lack the intelligence to understand the devastating efficiency of a boycott. They have seen how relatively successful it was when implemented in Morocco.
Sana and her ilk are not stupid and their strategy is actually very well calculated. They know that in order to win this debate, they just need to derail it.
This is an old tactic in argumentation known as a “straw man” argument, where one with the flimsy stand resorts to derailing or reframing the argument in a deliberate attempt to confuse a solid counter-argument. Don’t fall prey to this tactic and force them to stay topical.
Macron decided to run his mouth in order to build political capital among his unlikely allies.
Politicians are known to say the darnedest things. Trump is a perfect case in point. Macron is not a trailblazer in the area of hate-mongering. In fact, he’s just playing the game.
The strategy is yanked right out of the Machiavellian playbook. Macron’s camp has decided to appease the rampant number of French hate groups and those who wish for the colonial past to make a comeback. Macron is appealing to the same kind of segment of society that Trump sought support from in the US.
France has fallen into a state of complacency with the Muslims. France has gotten too comfortable with the tamed Muslims suffering from Stockholm syndrome who don’t believe they can eke out an existence outside of France’s perceived benevolence. It’s about time that France gets a rude awakening so that it sheds its smugness and pomp.
In order to put false prophets out of commission, let’s be wise to their Orwellian gambits. You are not boycotting France; you are merely making a patriotic decision to buy local. These contaminators often stumble over their words when you evoke patriotism albeit they would not hesitate to hawk patriotism to the highest bidder for their own gains.
Please buy local until pressure bears down from within. Buy local until Macron stands on that same podium with his tail tucked between his legs and makes an unequivocal apology to the 1.6 billion proud men and women and their beloved prophet.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial views.
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