Although the Speedo brand is relatively unconcerned about the elasticity of their swim briefs, high-testosterone teens are committed to exploring the nature of it. The subject of these experiments is usually an unworldly kid, dangling from the pegs of a P.E locker room in an atomic wedgie after swim class. This experience translates as an important life lesson, there is a heightened awareness of what’s expected and accepted in social circles. By being aware of the boundaries of certain circles, personality can be regulated to ensure we exist successfully in them. Having been chafed red for wearing Speedo’s, our unworldly n00b now knows that its better to retweet a Fernando Torres joke than one about how ‘real’ Khloe Kardashian is. This fictitious, well serving n00b has compromised his individuality by diluting it with the image his peers expect of him – spiked hair, cigarettes and trainers with air bubbles in them.

Whilst this all sits well in the peer-sanctioned groups of high school, its inherent limitations are realised when set against the diversity of a University campus. This ‘grey personality’ is paradoxically highlighted when set beside the colour of fellow students – those uninhibited in thought, opinion and experience. It is the colourful ones that find each other in niche fresher’s week societies; soft eye contact bringing couples together as they contest uninformed interpretations of Nietzsche. The Islamic Society is by far the funniest, with oddball liberalists quoting scholars to justify sitting next to a hotjabi in a segregated room. To this polished crowd, it takes more than a vague reference of Noam Chomsky to impress and a sense of not belonging creeps in, bringing out the nebbish that lingers in us all.

Having fallen short of hipster-y activism and realising that general knowledge is too general to be relied on, the highbrow circles are dismissed. This is where the Student Union Rave attracts its minority crowd, those that want the duel function of socialising with girls whilst maintaining the façade of intelligence. Though it may seem to be the case, the rave is not exclusive to attractive people – there are no regulations against acne or wimpy arms. The dark room is forgiving to the pale complexion achieved from scrolling 9gag posts all day and the random flashes of strobe lighting do little more than reveal homo sapien taxonomy. For those with an insipid disposition, 18” speakers boom out the latest MTV tripe, letting conversation to comfortably plateau at the lameness of Meg Griffin and the epic killing spree’s achieved playing COD.

As uninspired as guy talk may be, it’s the safe platform from which lecherous phoarr-ing and corr-ing can de indulged in. The crude, noncommittal nature of these remarks is employed because women at a rave are by default, cold and indifferent; a historian friend described it ‘as if she were Siberia and I, an exiled revolutionary’. If ‘porridge personality’ does manage to strike a conversation with Siberia, a broad and generic disposition is adopted; with conversation limited to how rubbish WhatsApp is and whether Cheryl Cole is getting too skinny. If inanity isn’t prevalent, rejection often follows –in an excruciatingly loud voice, echoed by a less attractive, more animated, somehow involved friend. Following the shameful walk back, Burnt Porridge has two options. The first is to stay and take pictures with platonic female friends, giving the impression of a fun night with hot chicks. Alternatively, he can come prepared for chit-chat with uninterested and uninteresting woman, hoarsely exchanging celebrity drivel picked up from last week’s Grazia.

As it is a primarily shallow environment, Porridge has to simply fit in and get by – the lessons learnt from the atomic wedgie are again relevant – the special snowflake must fall into a bed of superficiality. However, once a porridge persona has been adopted and accepted, approval from Siberia is transitory, effortless and essentially meaningless. Life gets tedious in this cycle of hackneyed relations and it is only when a woman of substance slips in that the snow globe of banality is shaken up and a journey of belated self-discovery begins. There’ll be no flirty cackling coming from her; her cheeks will glow in candlelit delight as she laughs at your Dumbledore impression. The University campus thrives on people leaving their comfort zones in the effort to be well-rounded individuals, but rave night success does little to get you there. If it’s not a social setting that that is natural to you it’ll require a one-dimensional commitment that comes at the price of other, more worthwhile ones. Time is better spent in the Philosophy society; even if your contributions don’t go beyond making jokes about Nietzsche being German with a moustache.

Contributed by Amad Ahmed

The die was cast on the sanctions during the summer of 2009, a senate staffer said, “It was basically understood that sanctions were going to go through.”

Middle East Foreign Policy expert, Trita Parsi, recounts the comment above in his latest book “A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran”,  to underline one of his primary concerns in regards to current American-Iranians relations.

Although Parsi was born in Iran, he moved to Sweden with his family because his academic father faced persecution. Later, he completed his Doctoral thesis on Israeli-Iranian relations under Professor Francis Fukuyama at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Parsi’s diplomatic experience includes his stint working for the Swedish Permanent Mission to the United Nations. He has also advised several Asian governments and the U.S. Capitol.

Punitive actions and heated rhetoric are not new to the US-Iran sphere of foreign policy. But it was even more troubling to learn that when other countries (Brazil and Turkey) attempted to assume a neutral role in easing the tension, and in fact received positive results, they were not commended for engaging multilaterally. Although Parsi’s new book examines this newer effort conducted by Brazil and Turkey, he connects this book to his earlier observations with his 2007 book: “Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States”. This book is recommended reading for those who recognize that hawkish US policymakers continue to nurture the intransigent paradigm that does little to progress relations with Iran. There are other competing paradigms to view Iran, a nation that also may be consumed by its own domestic challenges and vibrancy. (I am hoping that if I refrain from referencing AIPAC I can still talk about Iran.)

Getting a book review published on “A Single Roll of the Dice…” has been almost as challenging as reading this book on a DC metro without having someone ask me: “So, is Iran going to close the Strait of Hormuz and interrupt the oil flow?”

Despite these personal challenges for me, it cannot be as difficult as Parsi’s effort to conduct and assess over 60 interviews with contradicting voices in order to investigate how the “pre-breakdown” of US-Iran dialogue happened before official diplomacy actually restarted. I foolishly thought that if I discuss a book that serendipitously addresses a ‘hot topic’, then reviewing where the diplomacy option stands in a US election year would make up for the emotional discourse that predictably played out in DC while ‘netizens’ used #OccupyOccupyAIPAC and #Iran.  As The Daily Show noted: national elections tend to increase the vitriolic rhetoric as leaders demonize a potential threat to appeal to voters.

In “ A Single Roll of the Dice…” Parsi outlines two chronologies to represent each track that the US pursued immediately after Iran recognized that shared a message to dialogue:

• The first track represented sanctions, which enhanced the status quo–because the last three decades achieved so much in US-Iranian relations.
• The second track illustrated what revisionists might call an “Obama Doctrine” since President Obama exerted a significant amount of political capital to act on what the Bush Administration chose not to pursue.

Perhaps one could argue that the third track of military confrontation also exists, but as Parsi makes clear: the whole point behind Iran’s intent and the Obama administration’s posture was to avoid confrontation. Nevertheless, the book provides several anecdotes to highlight how “Rather than being an alternative to policy, sanctions have become an alternative to policy,” and what the driving force behind confronting “Iran’s nuclear problem” is .

Fundamentally, US sanctions have operated as a response to Iran’s nuclear potential, and thereby trumped all other recommended avenues to engage Iran on developing issues such as a long-term collaboration on Afghanistan. Moreover, the Iranian leadership has persistently said that it is not pursuing a nuclear weapon for militarized purposes as exemplified by Ayatollah Khamenei’s February 22 statement, “The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons.”

Another book that tackles Iran’s nuclear developed comes from Shahram Chubin, which is more defined by a security point of view: “Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions”. A more hawkish view of Iran may be encountered in “Showdown with Nuclear Iran: Radical Islam’s Messianic Mission to Destroy Israel and Cripple the United States” by Michael D. Evans & Jerome Corsi. In contrast, Parsi provides added value with the back-story of the current situation, which does not fixate on the philosophical definition of “rational actor” because he reviews each participating power’s role, considering its rhetoric and reaction. As a result, I see how a country may be acting rationally according to its interests while another country disagrees with policy. Nonetheless, it is more attractive to question a state’s sanity as opposed to its policy — a tool used by many involved.

In fact, discussing Iran as a rational actor–distinct from what its neighbors think or believe–has been consistently difficult, if not considered unwise. Historically, the US has consulted with he Europeans and Israel when dealing with Iran. But when newer rational actors participated, like the rising economies of Brazil and Turkey, somehow the new kids on the block were begrudgingly allowed to join the P5+1 soccer team. As a result, the US position preferred to spend more political capital maintaining the isolationist path of crippling sanctions rather than leveraging the political capital expended by Brazil and Turkey, which persuaded Iran to accept an agreement that the US had originally proposed. (By crippling sanctions, I mean the updated “targeted” sanctions policy.)

As Parsi commented, “Obama administration invested a lot of political capital in testing diplomacy with Iran …away from public view, Obama had sought to establish a direct challenge of communication with Khamenei via the Swiss embassy direct dialogue” Similarly, Iranian author Hooman Majd, noted in the New York Times, that sanctions on Iran, as a policy, have not been working either.

…Discussing Iran as a rational actor–distinct from what its neighbors think or believe–has been consistently difficult, if not considered unwise.

Additionally, Parsi tackles the sub-theme of the Iranian presidential elections in his book – something that many commentators and observers have quickly forgotten to take into consideration when analyzing current Iranian-American dynamics. Ironically, Iran continues to stump the US even though Iran experienced virtual civil war within the Iranian elite–which happens in even the most “liberal democracies” (consider how two powerful groups like the Republicans and Democrats–aka entrenched elites– are deadlocked in a heated debate regarding women’s reproductive health choices.) The discussion of election fraud signifies how the internal dynamics of a country may distract, if not outright detract, from efforts to engage with external actors. Similarly, just as the American 2012 elections create divisions and refocus Americans’ attention domestically, Iran can also sub-prioritize international relations to address issues at home.

In Iran, the Green Revolution served as a response to their own politics–it was not about “us” or the US. Essentially Parsi tries to advise American policy to:

1. See Iran as a country capable of pragmatic decision-making;
2. Recognize that the “lost in translation message” occurs in English between legislative and executive branches; and
3. Domestic uprisings can be just that: internal movements that have nothing to do with anti-American sentiment.

Those interested in going beyond the narrow but ubiquitous framework currently provided to understand Iran should pick up this

book.

Trita Parsi

A country cannot be simply be the sum of  manipulated perceptions or foreign interests, but also a result of its own consumption of domestic challenges. Perhaps the greatest parallel, ironically, is this country.

Before the book hit the stores, I attended one of Parsi’s book chat discussion because I had a few questions that related to his body

of work, such as “Do hawks in the US purposely mispronounce Iranian to rhyme with uranium to galvanize Americans into confronting the perceived nuclear threat of Iran?” I seriously proposed this theory to Trita Parsi. Thankfully, he did not take me too seriously. However, after reading his assessment, I cannot help but believe that the “Iranian, uranium” exchange is a little more than a Freudian Slip when I consider some of the conclusions. I am hesitant to trace the Iran-US latest diplomacy debacle to 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium–and I am grateful that Parsi pauses to reflect on moments of indecision versus procrastination.

Mehrunisa Qayyum is the founder of PITA POLICY and a Political Economy of MENA Consultant, based in Washington D.C. Follow her @PITAPOLICY

Illustration by Nabil Hanna for KABOBfest, 2012.

]]> http://www.kabobfest.com/2012/04/palestinian-and-israeli-prime-ministers-discuss-peace.html/feed 6 http://www.kabobfest.com/2012/04/the-gazan-dark-ages.html http://www.kabobfest.com/2012/04/the-gazan-dark-ages.html#comments Sat, 14 Apr 2012 11:45:20 +0000 Hanitizer http://www.kabobfest.com/?p=18044 I called my older brother Mazin the other day, but he was not at home. I learned that due to the power shortage in our town, he had been spending more time at his workplace. They have a generator, and thus he can utilize actual electric light bulbs there. Most people do not have this luxury. Power supplies have been eliminated. Candles and other antiquated light sources are used widely.

My younger brother Mahmoud also did not come home that night because he was camping out at a gas station 30 minutes away from home. He was hoping to score some gas to run his tok tok, which he uses to transport boxes.

Indeed, Gaza is out of fuel and more and more people are using horses and donkeys for everyday transportation.

My sister has told me that it has been two days since she showered last. I know she is keen on showers, so this came as a surprise to me. It turns out the water to our block has been shut off for several days now, even though our town has traditionally had abundant supplies of water. These days, people have to look at their calendar before they can take a shower. Fortunately, it has not been too hot in Gaza — not yet.

No power, no fuel, and little water: darkness is everywhere, the public is deeply distrustful, and the only people making a living are those who walk around town flaunting big guns often accompanied by a huge entourage. Which also reminds us of Lords, Dukes and courts’ jesters.

My mom told me last week that the local cooking gas truck had not being making its rounds, so she has not be able to bake bread in more than a week. With irregular water supply and no fuel or power, keeping our home running is increasingly difficult. My mom is now baking using a clay oven and burning wood. This technology has been around for ages.

Our next door neighbor called me and asked me if I could buy him some prograf — a medication used by people who have had a kidney transplant. He was unable to score some in Gaza due to limited availability and skyrocketing prices. The abject conditions in Gaza have left many people unable to access medicine and led them to seek alternative medicine and bogus treatments for very real ailments.

No power, no fuel, and little water: darkness is everywhere, the public is deeply distrustful, and the only people making a living are those who walk around town flaunting big guns often accompanied by a huge entourage. Which also reminds us of Lords, Dukes and courts’ jesters.

This is why my sister-in-law and her husband are coming to visit us here in the States this month. They are fleeing the siege, the

Image from SueHepworth.com

lack of power and water, and the abundance of weapons to be with us for three weeks. We are really thrilled about their visit, but because life is so hard in Gaza right now — and many other places too — I want to take them somewhere that will make them feel better about life in Gaza.

It took me some time, but I have finally figured it out: I will take them to Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament. Think about it…everyone at the show is bearded and scary-looking, and look like they might really hurt you. There is little food, everyone is armed, and there’s no power, just candles. There is no fuel and no cars, so people use horses. Plus they don’t bathe as often. And yes, wars and disease surround you. Perhaps being part of this show will allow them to see some of the good things about Gaza. Or maybe they’ll just feel at home…

Joking aside, this senseless suffering induced by the Israeli siege and political gridlock in both Palestine and Israel is completely preventable. The people of Gaza set free. There is no reason why three little children -conceived after a difficult in vitro procedure — should have to burn alive in Gaza when their bed sheet catches fire from the light of the candle left by their mother to ward off their fear of the dark.

For first-hand account of the current humanitarian situation in Gaza Bus Boys And Poets Tuesday, April 24, 2012 7:00pm until 9:00pm

[Hat Tip: Benyamin]

Illustration by Shubnum Khan for KABOBfest, 2012

Illustration by Husam Zakharia for KABOBfest, 2012

Now, I have a lot of issues with Mr. Oren’s pathetic attempt to explain the so-called “plight of Christians” in Palestine mainly because I am a Christian and I am a Palestinian, and I happen to live in the West Bank. I’ve worked closely with both Christian and Muslim communities in most areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and can tell you with absolute certainty that the Christian Palestinians are not suffering due to the actions of Muslim Palestinians. Last I checked, it wasn’t Muslim Arabs that spray painted “Death to Arabs” on our churches, or smashed the tombstones in our cemeteries.

Rather, Christian Palestinians are suffering for the same reasons that Muslim Palestinians are suffering, namely land confiscations, movement restrictions, checkpoints, home demolitions, crop razing, military raids, flagrant human rights violations, illegal detentions, violence and destruction perpetrated by settlers. There is a reason why George Habash, a Christian, founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and it wasn’t to because Muslim on Christian violence, I can assure you. In fact, although there are occasional incidents between Muslim and Christian shabab, they are quite rare. The majority of the time, Israeli settlers are to blame for violence against Christians; the Israeli authorities always claim to conduct “internal investigations” but you’ll never see anything come of them. Since the start of 2012, there have been many Israeli settlers’ price tag attacks against churches, Christian cemeteries and schools. One need not look further than Israel’s own Haaretz newspaper for Israel’s tolerance of Christians.

Christian Palestinians are suffering for the same reasons that Muslim Palestinians are suffering, namely land confiscations, movement restrictions, checkpoints, home demolitions, crop razing, military raids, flagrant human rights violations, illegal detentions, violence and destruction perpetrated by settlers.

In truth, Israel is the biggest perpetrator of crimes against Christian Palestinians while attempting to convince the world that it’s an inclusive Western Democracy. However, a true democracy is a secular democracy that doesn’t favor one type of citizen over another. Yet, Israel’s state-funded Rabbis often issue racist religious decrees referring to non-Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, as animals which are OK to kill; and it’s orthodox Jewish men in the Jerusalem, the holy city of all three religions mind you, have been seen spitting on, kicking and attacking Christian clergymen while the Israeli police constantly turn a blind eye. Let’s not even mention that all of the Christian Palestinians living in Jerusalem, Beit Hanina and other areas, are constantly under the threat of having their residency rights confiscated. According to Israeli law, they can be “residents” but not “citizens” and Israel can confiscate their residency anytime it wants. At the same time, anyone of the Jewish faith from anywhere in the world can come to Israel, become a permanent citizen and purchase property. Certainly these are not the actions of a state that protects, and is tolerant of its Christian populations, is it?

Perhaps Michael Oren was talking about Bethlehem city which has been effectively fenced in as a large open air human zoo, while its lands have been confiscated and added to one of 5 surrounding settlements? I’m sure he knows that 78% of Bethlehem Governorate has already been confiscated by the Israeli state. However, he did forget to mention that in his article.

Personally, I’ve worked closely with over 300 Palestinian grassroots non-profit organizations, including quite a few in Bethlehem. One that comes to mind is Wi’am, the Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center….which happened to be wedged between the

Image from the Electronic Intifada

Separation wall and an Israeli settlement. Wi’am plays a prominent role in advocating for non-violence, human rights, justice and secular democracy. However, like most areas Palestinian NGOs, its work is affected by illegal and unilateral annexation of Bethlehem’s lands, for “closed military zones” and settlement expansions that continue to suffocate Bethlehem governorate and restrict access to travel within the West Bank and Jerusalem. The latest target of Israel’s land annexation is Bethlehem’s Cremisan Monastery. Civil administration has already delivered that eviction papers and perhaps by the time you read this article, I’ll be a new tourist attraction in Israel’s guide to the Jewish state at the expense of its original Christian owners; ironic, considering Oren’s claim that Bethlehem’s Christian population under Israel grew 57%.

While Israel, the so-called Jewish Democratic state, continues to employ and fund racist Rabbis, turn a blind eye towards Israeli/Jewish settler violence against Christian holy sites, and continues to build facts on the ground to railroad the two state solution in favor of state expansions at the expense of both Christians and Muslims, the Palestinian Authority -a secular government made up of both Muslims and Christians – is working to secure the establishment of a Palestinian state through international diplomacy and non-violent popular resistance.

In the end, Oren can speak all he wants about how great Israel treats Christians; However, Bethlehem, Beit Hanina, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Zababda, Aboud, Taybeh Jifna, Beirzeit and Ein Arkeek are Christian villages that are directly affected by the on-going Israeli occupation of Palestine. Until Oren speaks of this, his words are not worth the paper they were printed on.

If tagged pictures are anything to go by, my default look is a gormless one. It’s a look that’s enhanced by yawps of irritation, showcasing an undeniably Neanderthal ancestry. This unseemly response occurred as I struggled to tie a bow around a red box for my almost-but-not-quite girlfriend. Twenty minutes later, the tying and untying compromised my authority and the box took on a sardonic attitude; belittling the loose bows that sat limp across its sharp lines. I could sense it patronizing me, the luscious red bastard.

Valentines Day is a bizarre experience. Gifts are centered upon teenybopper clichés, made staple by cherubic love sharks. However, they must be imbued with enough personality to prevent them being interpreted as lazy or derivative. Finding an object that shows personality requires vision, a process aided by a double espresso, three sugars and chocolate dusting. Mad instinct and a Rainman-esque recollection of conversation will take over, moving you through aisles in a jittery trance. This bottle of nail lacquer (not polish, because then they couldn’t justify the overpricing) was red enough, designer enough and peculiar enough to be used as a token of me and my affection.

It’s understandable why hedonism seems so attractive. There’s a glamor in having tattooed Kerouacian friends and acting the Lothario as beauties immortalize themselves with you in pouty pictures.

The process of buying and wrapping brought on the realization that I live in the same straights and narrows as the gentle souls that don’t indulge in hedonism. It’s been years since I was in a spin the bottle circle, years since I smelt the sickly sweet odor of a dance floor. Instead, I arrange cabs and concoct hangover cures like a witch doctor. It takes a particularly potent type of neurosis to ask if your form of happiness is superior to the alternative. Does sharing a skinny latte with Her supersede getting off with hot chicks in a drunken haze? I’m convinced it does, but lets think about the squares. Should bacchanalia still hold its appeal for those on my side of the straight and narrow?

It’s understandable why hedonism seems so attractive. There’s a glamor in having tattooed Kerouacian friends and acting the Lothario as beauties immortalize themselves with you in pouty pictures. A typical, or at least ‘traditional’ night out involves a bar, a club, or both. Men aren’t there for enlightening conversation but because holding the attention of attractive women massage an oft-bruised ego. In clubs, verbal exchanges involve asking generic questions arbitrarily in the opening eight seconds of a song, before ear-bleeding bass kicks in. The subsequent shouting is tedious, with responses being as predictable as they are dull.

Love defined by Dior.

However, the tedium is tolerable in the twilight zone of the night – a state in which you’re not so intoxicated that words come out as a slur, but not so little that they’re a murmur. This state silences inhibitions and whooping your way onto the dance floor is not only a good idea but also something you should totally do. Except, there isn’t any dancing happening once you get there. It’s grinding, a move that’s at best frustrating and at worst sexual assault – a line too fine for those that don’t want to risk being sassed by the chubby one. But, if chubbs stays out of it, the grind could be escalated and the physical hoopla indulged in is considered a success. The feelings of regret begin with the saccharine stench of cheap deodorant and sweat, a potent combination that taints and permeates for days. For the effort put in the gains are sparse, the satisfaction fleeting and the smell nauseating.

Disillusion about the night before is buried under a hangover the morning after. Harsh truths are rarely realized – you’re not Diddy, this isn’t LA and intelligent, witty women can switch off into vacuous Tila Tequila types. This is at odds with the rose-tinted illusions that the love of a good woman brings, transforming grey pavement and dull roads into strawberry fields. There’s no need for smoke machines to create dramatic effect, ribbons of incandescent light will radiate from her. She’s looking for a man with kind thoughts, good shoes and everything in between. To not invest in the idealism she will inevitably expect is to jeopardize the warmth of her celestial light. Let bacchanalia hold its appeal for those that let it, these straights and narrows lead to a place that doesn’t need Jägerbomb’s to bring out the color in life.

Contributed by Amad Ahmed

Illustration by Husam Zakharia for KABOBfest, 2012

He died in Toulouse.

In 2008, he attempted to join the French army, but was rejected. The motivations for his murders: the French military presence in Afghanistan, and French society’s attacks on Islamic forms of dress.

These are all French issues. Mohamed Merah is a product of modern French society, a symptom of the many terrible problems that that society faces. A society that propels far-right fascist politicians to seriously compete for the presidency, only 67 years after the end of a war where the French themselves fought fascism.

And yet in no way has he been described as a Frenchman gone bad; a product of the French environment. No, he is a Muslim, an Islamist, an Algerian, an Arab.

See, the word ‘terrorist’ cannot be associated with the word ‘French’. Put it next to the others and we’re good.

But isn’t France’s failed attempt at creating a one-size-fits-all homogenous society also partly to blame? Aren’t these attacks also a result of a society that places its poor, deprived ethnic minorities in squalid banlieues, out of sight on the outskirts of the main cities? A society where an unpopular president plays on racist and Islamophobic themes to garner more votes, rather than confront them.

That is the reality of today’s France.

You put people in a corner, and eventually, horribly, they’ll lash out in a terrible manner.

And how exactly are French Muslims being put into a corner? Well, let’s look at some recent examples.

We have Sarkozy’s recent statements on immigration, where he declared that there were ‘too many foreigners in our territory.’ The irony, of course, being that Sarkozy’s father was a Hungarian immigrant, and his own wife, the glamorous Carla Bruni, is Italian. Those who the speech was directed to understood who Sarkozy was attacking. The French far-right don’t care so much about European immigration – it’s the Muslims that are their main concern.

In fact, Sarkozy is trying so hard to win the anti-Islam vote that he is stealing extreme right policies, even when he has previously criticised them. When Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Front National announced that halal meat was invading French society, Sarkozy said that she was whipping up controversy. However, he then went on to announce that halal meat was the “issue that most preoccupies the French.” Well, the ones he’s seeking to get the votes of, anyway.

And of course, there is the ban on Muslims praying in the street. Whilst it is definitely preferable that Muslims not pray on the streets, in many instances they are forced into it, because of a lack of mosques. There are only 4 in France’s second city, Marseille, a city that’s population is 10% Muslim. If the issue of praying on the streets were about public safety and congestion then Sarkozy would seek to rectify this issue of a lack of mosques. Instead, the ban can only be seen as yet another attack on Muslims as elections near.

But isn’t France’s failed attempt at creating a one-size-fits-all homogenous society also partly to blame?

These issues aren’t new. Muslims have lived in France for over 100 years, and the problems remain the same. Muslim resentment of the situation is also longstanding. Whether it’s the riots that rip through France’s cities every so often, or the government’s continued refusal to apologize for the atrocities committed in Algeria during the colonial period; French Muslims are made to feel like the enemy within.

What Mohamed Merah did was a vicious crime, and one that shouldn’t be swept away by simply describing the man as crazy – unlike certain soldiers in Afghanistan. This piece should not be read as a justification for his crimes. However, let’s remember that, even if it has been barely mentioned, Merah killed Muslims too, Muslims who put their lives on the line for liberté, égalité, fraternité. Yet many in modern French society do not see them as equal. They are still the guestworkers, the foreigners, only in France temporarily.

But that does not take away from the reality – the Merah killings are a product of France, and not of Islam.