A French philosophy teacher on Tuesday entered his third week in hiding after writing a newspaper comment piece calling the prophet Muhammad a merciless warlord and mass-murderer.
Robert Redeker (52) who teaches at a suburban Toulouse high school, this week won the support of famous French intellectuals including the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who warned that death threats against him were an attack on freedom of speech akin to the persecution of Salman Rushdie.
But the case has divided opinion in France, with some human rights groups and academics condemning the death-threats but at the same time accusing Redeker of deliberately writing a ”stupid” and ”nauseating” provocation.
The teacher, whose latest book, Depression and Philosophy, is about to be published, does not shy away from controversy. A member of the board of Les Temps Modernes, a review founded by Jean-Paul Sartre, he criticised French pacifists at the start of the Iraq war.
In a comment piece in Le Figaro on September 19, he said Muhammad was ”a merciless warlord, a looter, a mass-murderer of Jews and a polygamist”.
He called the Qur’an ”a book of incredible violence” and contrasted what he said were Christianity’s peaceful roots and Islam’s violent ones, adding: ”Jesus is a master of love, Muhammad a master of hate.” He said this year’s ban on g-string bikinis at Paris’s artificial beach, Paris Plages, was an example of the ”Islamicisation” of minds in France. Egypt and Tunisia banned the edition of Le Figaro.
The French government was at first cautious when commenting on the case, with the Education Minister, Gilles de Robien, saying: ”State employees must show prudence and moderation in all circumstances.”
But Redeker went on radio last week complaining that he had been abandoned by the education ministry and had to arrange his own safehouses when police bodyguards moved him every two days.
”If Mr de Robien were right, there would never have been any intellectual life in France,” he said, adding that he had ”no regrets”.
The case has become a political issue. Philippe de Villiers, head of the far-right Movement for France party, suggested that President Jacques Chirac should shelter Redeker at the Elysée Palace.
De Robien on Tuesday told the French Parliament that Redeker would return to teaching ”whenever convenient”, adding that freedom of expression was an essential part of the French Constitution.
Redeker has received the backing of several groups, including the press watchdog Reporters sans Frontières and two teachers’ unions — although one of those said ”we do not share his convictions”.
Justin Vaisse, author of a new book about Muslims in France, Integrating Islam, told the Guardian he felt obliged to defend the principle of freedom of expression, but added that Redeker’s article stemmed from an ”anti-Islam agenda” and was ”stupid, politically irresponsible, intellectually inconsistent and very weak and feeble”.
The French Human Rights League criticised Redeker’s ”nauseating” ideas and ”hateful discourse” while condemning the threats against him. ”You don’t fight the ideas expressed by Mr Redeker by turning him into a victim,” it said.
France has the largest Muslim population in Europe and is battling to improve community relations and end violence such as the recent defacement of mosques in Quimper and Carcassonne, in which they were painted with swastikas and slogans including ”France for the French”. – Guardian Unlimited Â