(FR) L’exercice de possession coloniale procède d’un geste de re-nomination. Le nom colonial vient toujours par-dessus un autre nom, une autre histoire, une épistémologie qui dit d’autres rapports au monde. Il est une manière de d’imposer une origine, de marquer une propriété, de dire que la chose commence à exister comme objet ou comme sujet à partir d’un nom qui la convoque depuis le néant sur une scène de la dignité en même temps que sur un marché qui lui attribue une valeur – de transaction ou d’épouvante, c’est selon. Pour cette bouche coloniale donc, tout ce qu’il y avait avant le nom qu’elle prononce ne peut être que sauvagerie inarticulée, obscurité sans valeur, vaines croyances improductives. Cette manière de nommer par-dessus est ainsi un geste d’appropriation mais également de dissimulation et d’effacement qui rompt les généalogies, les alliances, les attachements, embrouille l’Histoire. Une geste qui sépare et rend les relations impraticables. Dans « islamo-gauchisme »,  le préfixe « islamo » est donc d’abord une façon de nommer sans le nommer l’antiracisme politique en France (…)

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(ENG) The exercise of colonial possession proceeds from an act of re-naming. The colonial name always comes on top of another name, another history, an epistemology that speaks of other relations to the world. It is a way of imposing an origin, marking ownership, of saying that the thing begins to exist as an object or subject from the moment a name calls it forth from the void into a scene of dignity and at the same time into a market(place) that attributes a value to it – of transaction or of horror as the case may be. For this colonial mouth, everything that existed before the name it pronounces can only be inarticulate savagery, valueless obscurity, vain and non-productive beliefs. This tendency to name over is thus an act of appropriation, but also of concealment and erasure that disintegrates genealogies, alliances, attachments and generally obfuscates history. An act that separates and makes relations impracticable.

            The prefix “Islamo” in the French term “Islamo-leftism” is thus firstly a way of naming without naming political anti-racism. Thanks to many years of struggle and the recent dynamic set in motion by the Black Lives Matter movement in France, the sensitivities, words, and grip of the anti-racist movement have vastly and abruptly widened their audience. Police violence has mobilized people more than ever, systemic racism has suddenly seemed – even if only briefly – an obvious fact which has even invited itself onto radio and television programmes during prime-time hours. The party was short-lived. It couldn’t last. But anti-racism cannot be countered on its own territory, except by demanding legitimacy for being racist – which Donald Trump constantly did during his mandate as President of the largest democracy in the world. The least we can say is that no one expected the success of this approach, which smashes the negotiating table with an axe and destroys any debate of ideas. The method exhausts through the transparency and outright avowal of its violence. It has served as an inspiration. What is inconvenient is that it makes a confession that certain European leaders refuse to do themselves: it recognizes privilege and domination and even the impunity of white patriarchy. Where Donald is at ease, others are not yet comfortable. Not yet. But in France, the government has a few aces up its sleeve. It is arriving at the same place by way of a shortcut indicated to it thanks to a few choice guests: indigenous Muslims.

This forces us to redefine in a situated manner – rather than finding a translation for it – what “Blackness” means in the particular context of French postcolonial society. Because a political Black Matter has erupted into French postcolonial society and is being attacked there and because the only available French term, “négritude”, is not sufficient to designate this disturbing apparition.

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