Ghetto sectarianism 20 years after the integration movement:
re-islamization feeds on the disappointment of "elder brothers"

Frédéric Chambon
Translated by Douglas
French original: "Le repli communautaire des quartiers, vingt ans après la mobilisation pour l'intégration"
(Le Monde, 2003/02/11)

Has Lyon become a haven for Islamism in France? Having already been in the crosshairs of anti-terrorist activity in the 1990s, the metropolis famous for its troubled outskirts has once again drawn attention to itself in several terrorism-related areas since 11 September 2001.

Of the six French nationals held at Guantànamo (Cuba), two come from Minguettes, the housing project at Vénissieux (Rhône): Nizar Sassi and Mourad Benchellali. The latter’s brother Menad was himself detained in December 2002 during the dismantling of a terrorist cell. Moreover, Nizar Naour, who committed the 11 April 2002 suicide attack on the Djerba synagogue, is a Tunisian whose family lives in Saint-Priest, a suburb of Lyon. His brother Oualid was named as an accessory in November 2002.

The Islamist attacks of 1995 had already drawn attention to Lyon and its vicinity. Khaled Kelkal, a young delinquent from the Lyon ghettos, and several groups operating out of Vaux-enVelin and Chasse-sur-Rhône (Isère), took part in this wave of terrorism lead by activists claiming to be from the Algerian Armed Islamic Groups (GIA). The large Algerian community, the proximity with Switzerland, the midway position between Marseille and Paris have meant the Lyon region has always been a sounding chamber for Algerian Islamism. Since the dismantling of these networks in 1995, as in other places, extremist influence has centered around the Salafist currents while the mosques are no longer necessarily the radical movements’ lodestones. These movements operate in a manner even more secretive than before and reach a different audience, as can be seen from the fact that none of those from Lyon who were charged following 11 September 2001 had caught the attention of the police or intelligence services.

“IT DOESN’T GO ANY FURTHER THAN THAT”

“Out of approximately 100 places of worship in the greater Lyon area, 20 are subject to particular scrutiny but Islamism is more active in private, particularly in the form of apartment gatherings,” one police source says. “Lyon was has been a testing ground for the Salafists who established themselves in particular by opening neighborhood shops.” But the significance of this phenomenon is negligible: “There are more youths eager to wage Jihad and some do go on a Koranic journeys in Yemen, Jordan or Saudi Arabia. But generally it doesn’t go any further than that.”

The influence of Islamist movements is derived from the youths’ frustrations and search for identity which results in the growth of Islam in the housing projects. Perhaps it is still the case that more than in other places, in the ghettos of Lyon the arousal of Muslim awareness was a reaction to the failure of the ghetto movement of rebellion and mobilization that Lyon symbolized in the 1980s, with riots and the organization of the “march of Arabs.”

“The young aren’t wrong about that. Their elder brothers got conned by the Left in renouncing part of their identities or in getting smacked around,” says Abdelaziz Chambi, an official with the influential Young Muslims Union (UJM), an association with ties to the preacher Tariq Ramadan, who is the grandson of the founder of the Egyptian Islamist movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood. “We do want to get involved in politics and business but without going through the wash cycle first,” he says.

The growing importance of the UJM in the Lyon region has meant the opening of a bookstore, a publishing house and the unification of numerous neighborhood Muslim associations. The latter have often been supported by civil authorities seeking community ambassadors to guarantee the peace. “Elected officials have encourage sectarianism by courting the Muslim associations and marginalizing the others,” says Boualam Azahoum, an official with Diverscités, a an umbrella organization close to the Movement for immigration and city limits (MIB).

In Lyon, a catholic city, the precipitous rise of neighborhood Islam has also benefited from a strong denominational outreach movement that was at first supported by part of the church. Once a close associate of Lyon’s young Muslims, today Father Christian Delorme fears a sectarianism that could serve as a breeding ground for the most extremist ideas. “The UJM is not about closing one’s identify to the outside but where it is present one can see a hardening of religious identities that others may exploit,” said Father Delorme. “Pride in being Muslim and social re-islamization could have unintended effects.”

Frédéric Chambon

[Posted 2003/03/08]

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