IT seems the controversy over the Manhattan mosque is not the only one, nor is it going to be the last. Opposition to the building of Islamic centers and mosques in Western cities looks to be the new fashion these days. Such is the latest of anti-Islamic forms of expression. A story reported lately on National Public Radio says that there is a controversy over the building of a mosque in the French city of Marseille. It says the project is not welcomed by many of the citizens of this supposedly ‘melting pot' old Mediterranean town. The story though reports that “despite opposition from the far right, the Mayor of the city and the majority of its non-Muslim population support the construction of the new mosque”. However, the report quotes a French citizen of Italian ancestry, named Stephan Ravier, who complains that while his immigrant grandparents assimilated into French culture and gave their children French names, the North African Muslim immigrants “don't make the same effort to fit in”. The story identifies this person as “a member of the right-wing political party, or The National Front”. (No wonder he thinks this way!) Apparently, this seemingly zealot doesn't appreciate the cultural differences between the Arabs and the French, and wants the Algerian French to change their religion and names to “fit in” like his grandparents did when they walked into France from a sister Latin country a few miles away. (What a cultural leap his grandparents took!) According to the report, this paranoid fanatic expresses a concern that the French people and the French culture are “being replaced by another people and their culture, religion and way of life”. He also thinks that the French people are “being submerged” by other kind of people! Personally, I think if at all there will be a culture in the world that is in danger of being replaced by another, or a people who may become ‘submerged' by another people, it certainly won't be the French culture or the French people. I think what this zealot and his likes are being submerged by is ignorance. Unfortunately, the world community is infested with people like him, including my own community! According to the report, the scene of French Muslim ‘Halaal butchers', ‘Islamic schools' and ‘Muslim women with their heads covered', as Ravier rides his motorcycle in Marseille's streets, like a proud Frenchman, seem to represent a problem for him and believes that to build a mosque on top of all this is “the straw that will break the camel's back”. (How awful!) With this mentality, he probably thinks that, with all this ‘foreign invasion', the French culture is about to give in to an alien culture, and only true patriotic citizens like Ravier and his National Front Party fellow members, can save it through hateful means, such as blocking the building of a mosque. Marseille, like all other French cities, already has tens of makeshift mosques which, according to the report, “operate from garages and storefronts” which are not big enough to accommodate French Muslim worshippers who are forced to pray in the streets on cardboards. Can't people like Stephan Ravier see that Muslim worship places are already faits accomplis in Marseille and all other cities, and would be better to convert them into, or replace them with, more beautiful buildings, to make their beautiful country look more beautiful? The new mosque is supposed to accommodate 7,000 worshippers and will have all the facilities. Marseille is said to have more than 200,000 Muslim inhabitants, nearly a quarter of the total population of the city. In the report, another elderly French citizen, identified as Rene Gabila, says he doesn't have a problem with the fact that the Algerians wanted to have their independence from France. But, he says he does have a problem with them “invading France”! He says they come to France and do not want to be integrated in the French society. In the report, Gabila complains about the way Muslims dress and asks “how he can be expected to love people who dress like that”. Maybe he could've just said that he's a prejudiced person who hates people of different colors or ethnic origins, period. How does he want French Muslims of Algerian origin to integrate? Does he want them to convert to Catholicism, or abandon a religion that they have had for 1,400 years so they can become complete French (like him)? Perhaps he wants them to change their skin color too so they can look French! Possibly, what Mr. Gabila wants is for them to just leave France alltogether so that he won't have to look at how they dress! French Muslims, especially those of Algerian origin, are there to stay and it would be better for Stephan Ravier, Rene Gabila, and the National Front (gang) members to accept this fact and allow the “different” French citizens to live with dignity and rights like everybody else. The more these “different” French citizens feel rejected, the more they will hang on to their old countries' cultures and continue to identify less with the French culture. I don't suppose that's what La Belle France wants!
