2023-10-21 18:08:00
If they want to move forward, many Muslims in Belgium fear an “following” similar to that of the Islamist attacks of March 2016. Belgium discovered at the time that radical Islam might kill within its own borders. Here too, the assailant expressed his religious motivations in videos posted before and following the shooting. Faced with fears of amalgamations and generalizations, the Council of Muslims of Belgium, the temporary body representing the Muslim faith in Belgium, published a press release overnight. The body condemned with the greatest firmness the events that had occurred earlier, and called on the authorities “to show the greatest firmness for our national community”.
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All terrorized by violence
”The reaction is the same as for all other communities in the country. Everyone was terrified. There was a killer in the streets of Brussels! This goes beyond the community question,” says Hafida Hammouti, teacher of Islamic religion and spokesperson for the coordination of teachers of Islamic religion. “It is more correct to talk regarding Muslim communities, because the Muslims of Belgium are not a monolithic bloc,” she reframes.
Ms. Hammouti, herself from Schaerbeek, did not go to work on the day of Abdesalem Lassaoued’s arrest. He had to wait until Wednesday to find his students and talk with them. “All the students I saw once more following the arrest on Tuesday morning were mainly wondering regarding the reasons which led to leaving the schools open that day when the killer was still in the wild at the time of the first arrivals at school. The students wondered whether the safety of French speakers was less important than that of Dutch speakers whose schools were closed.” More than on jihadism or radicalism, according to the teacher.
In such a turbulent context, the fear of conflation and stigmatization does exist. As a Muslim woman wearing the veil, Mr. Hammouti feels fear. “I saw a man on social media who said that if he met a ‘playful Muslim woman’ he was going to be mean. These are messages that scare me! Why stigmatize a woman wearing a headscarf as part of the problem of a terrorist individual?” she asks. “That women are systematically the victims is cause for concern.”
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The general context is particularly turbulent
Many fear being singled out once more, as was the case seven years ago. However, the climate is not identical, indicates this expert on Muslim representation. “We must remember the lines, in 2016, in front of the Moroccan embassy in Brussels. People fearing acts of violence wanted to return to Morocco for a while. It’s not as strong today. Of course the pressure will undoubtedly be a little greater following the assassination on Monday evening and, more generally, with the conflict between Hamas and Israel. But there have not yet been any acts of violence once morest mosques or Halal butchers.”
This imam, active in several mosques in the capital, points to a global context which might favor tensions, despite condemnations of all forms of violence. “Everyone condemns this Monday’s attack! Here in Brussels but also everywhere in Belgium, in all the mosques. Nobody wants this violence. The proof is that people followed the attacker’s route all evening to try to stop him. He wasn’t someone famous. He was even kicked out of the only mosque he attended because he made extremist comments. More broadly, all the people I spoke with, faithful or imams, condemn violence, even in the conflict between Hamas and Israel. Such a conflict should not be imported here!”, he explains. However, in the numerous discussions he has had with his followers, he hears the fear of a resurgence of Islamophobia. “There is more pressure. We are afraid of the “French syndrome”, where there is a real war being waged once morest religion and where tensions between communities are exacerbated. But respect must go both ways.”
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A huge political issue
Several observers point out that the claims of Monday evening’s attack reveal the survival of the Islamic State and its capacity to convince. “There will always be people on the margins,” sums up one of them.
However, according to this other interlocutor, a fine connoisseur of the mechanisms of radicalization who also wants to remain discreet, there is a groundswell that remains. “For around thirty years, there has been the development of an ecosystem where Wahhabi and Salafist ideas circulate. This creates an area where the discourse carried by the Islamic State, which still circulates particularly online, is audible. It remains audible and has not disappeared, despite the means of control put in place. It’s very local, but it still exists in Belgium. And it’s a huge political issue.”
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