Is religion compatible with the Republic? This difficult and tricky question comes up regularly on television sets and criticism of Islam and Muslims is legion. Faced with yet another controversy – which opposes Michel Houellebecq, Michel Onfray and the rector of the Great Mosque of Paris – the philosopher Rémi Brague takes stock of Europe 1. At the microphone of Sonia Mabrouk this Wednesday morning, the author of the book After Humanism returned to the confusions at the heart of these debates.
As a reminder, after a conversation between Houellebecq and Onfray, Chems-eddine Hafiz, the rector of the Paris Mosque, denounced last Thursday the “violent” and “extremely serious” remarks of the writer Michel Houellebecq towards Muslims. published in a magazine, and announced its intention to lodge a complaint.
Do not stigmatize
“I believe that what traps us from the start is the confusion – either involuntary, or on the contrary cleverly maintained – between religions and their followers”, he warns. “Islam is one thing, it is a religion with its dogmas, with its practices, with its rules, and then there are on the other hand the Muslims, of flesh and blood who have, towards their own Islam , relations either of total adhesion, or on the contrary of distant esteem”, describes the specialist in Arab philosophy.
According to the author, who wishes not to stigmatize a community because of individual acts, it is important to remember that there is “a range of attitudes” and that “the same thing can be said for Christians or for the Jews”.