Interview with Hassan Aourid: "Identities pose a problem when they oppose citizenship"

• After the fall of the Berlin Wall, everyone believed in the end of History, where democracy and Western values would spread throughout the world and enable coexistence. Today, we are witnessing the opposite, with the rise of xenophobia and populism in the West and the return of identity-based passions. Can we say that happy globalization is a chimera?

 
-       I think we are currently living through a global shift that calls into question several benchmarks. It is true that at the fall of the Berlin Wall, we moved from one paradigm to another. Class struggle gave way to the conflict of identities and the clash of cultures. This shift I am talking about has visibly called identities into question. For a long time, it was believed that these were the panacea for marginalized minorities everywhere in the world, particularly in the West. But today, there is an unprecedented drift. The Anglo-Saxon multiculturalist model is running out of steam and degenerating into identitarianism, with the racial question resurfacing. We see it in the United States, where there is talk of white privilege... It is clear that there is no alternative to citizenship for living together. Here, I am speaking about the West because the problem arises in much more complex terms in other societies, including in the Arab world.
 

• Reading your book, we notice that you explain the identity crisis shaking the West in light of what is happening in France, where there is talk of the 'archipelagisation' of society. Why this focus on the French model?

 
-       In fact, I also spoke about the Anglo-Saxon model as applied in Canada and the United States. But, indeed, I devoted a chapter to the relationship with the 'other' in France. It is an emblematic case since it is the model that integrates minorities and populations from immigration the least. Also, it is the case that is closest to me intellectually. It is the only country in Europe that has endeavored to make political Islam a state affair after the release of the recent report on the Muslim Brotherhood. Effectively, the French case deserves an important place in the analysis I have made of what is happening in the West. I addressed problems related to the identity crisis in France, such as the issue of Islamophobia and the reconfiguration of French society, which is transforming into an archipelago.
 

• You also mention Morocco, which does not escape the problem of identity with the Amazigh movement and other identity-based discourses that appear from time to time. Is this a threat to cohesion or a source of richness?

 
-       It all depends on how you see things. For me, identities are plural. I hope my work is useful in this sense. In my book, as much as I defend the right to identity, I remain firmly convinced that identities must be integrated into a common framework, which is citizenship. Identities become a problem when they oppose citizenship. Therefore, I prioritize citizenship.
 

• In France, we see that Islam is becoming an omnipresent political subject in the debate, even a major subject of election campaigns. Is the rejection of Islam a sign of an existential crisis among the so-called 'native' French?

 
-       Undoubtedly, since we are returning to the notion of the indispensable enemy. But there are other factors. I cite the consequences of globalization, which has created winners in large metropolises and losers who feel left behind. Among them are native French people who used to vote for the Communist Party in the past. Today, they vote for far-right parties with a nationalist discourse hostile to immigration. Let us also not forget the legacy of History, which weighs on the collective subconscious.
 

• In principle, secularism is supposed to allow everyone, regardless of their religion, to live together. Yet, Islam is constantly at the heart of controversies as soon as it is expressed in the public space. Is secularism de facto becoming an ideology rather than a system supposed to guarantee the neutrality of the State?

 
-       Secularism and 'laïcité' are different. 'Laïcité' is the neutrality of the State in relation to religions and, consequently, opposes identities. However, we are witnessing a drift today where French-style 'laïcité' is becoming an identity support for both the right and the left. We are ultimately witnessing a shift where 'laïcité' is no longer neutrality but an identity claim. This notion is riddled with epithets. We now speak of 'engaged secularism'... There is a desire to force communities to pledge allegiance to a certain conception of secularism.
 

• In the midst of this identity-based excitement, we notice in the discourse of nationalist parties in Europe and the United States this claim of Christian roots. How do you see this?

 
-       It is not only the right that talks about it, but also the left. There is a kind of intellectual reconciliation that has taken place on this point. I cite in my book the work of Olivier Roy, who wonders if Europe is Christian. The right is appropriating secularism after having rejected it previously, while certain intellectual currents on the left are also trying to reconcile with Europe's Christian past. All this has been done in opposition to a fictitious enemy.
 

• Speaking of the left, we see that its most extreme fringe is trying to woo Muslim communities everywhere in Europe, especially in France, where LFI acts as the defender of Muslims. Is this a political strategy to win votes or an ideological battle?

• There are many thinkers and political figures in Europe, and even here in Morocco, who think that the growing hostility to immigration in the West is just a way of making the immigrant a scapegoat for economic and social crises?

 
-       It is undeniable. In reality, this hostility to immigration is not due only to economic reasons, but it has cultural roots. This is why I speak in my book of the 'manufacturing of the enemy.' I devote an entire chapter to it. It goes without saying that societies in crisis need an enemy to serve as an outlet for their internal contradictions. In France, the enemy has changed its name throughout History. There was a time when it was the Protestant, then the Jew... For me, it is clearly the reflection of an existential crisis.
 
 

• In your book, you mention the touchy subjects, including that of the 'Great Replacement,' which is imposing itself more and more in debates in the West after having been a taboo. What conclusion do you draw from it?

 
-       On this point, a French sociologist spoke of psychosis. That is the term that seems most appropriate to me to designate the reactions that this concept arouses. There are indeed people who think that immigration is not a fortuitous phenomenon but that there is a conspiracy against Western societies. I personally think that the report recently published in France on political Islam leans in this direction by speaking of the 'entryism of the Muslim Brotherhood.'
 

• Faced with this identity-based frenzy, are Muslim communities in Europe condemned to choose between their identity and forced assimilation?

 
-       I am not well-placed to answer that. In this regard, the only conclusion I draw is that France has failed to integrate Muslims.
 

• How do you explain the success of populist discourse in the West?

 
-       The rise of populism is certainly due, in part, to the neoliberal crisis, but that does not prevent xenophobia from remaining one of its constituent elements.