<<I am not a historian>>

Dear George,

You have repeated that disclaimer several times. One need not be a historian to have opinions on history. Even if one is a historian one generally concentrates on specific periods in specific areas at specific times. Outside of their specialised areas of study they are as much a lay person as the rest of us. People are often overeager to accept the voice of authority. The voices of authority may be as subject to prejudices as any of the rest of us. Historians often have ideological predilections which determine their view of history.

Professional historians as well as professional economists often disagree. These disagreements are often most vociferous in their areas of specialty.

I did a course in the history of early nineteenth century English protest movements. There was a schism in the Manchester Methodist Church in England. Some of the congregation went off to form their congregation when the governing board wished to put an organ in the church. Methodist historians interpreted this as a doctrinaire difference between those who wanted to retain the simplicity of Methodism as against those who wanted to be closer to the practices of Anglicanism. Marxist historians perceived the split as a instance of class conflict. The congregation was mainly workers, and the board was made up of industrialists.

I got a look at the source documents and came up with a different idea. The board wanted to finance the organ by raising dues. They apparently looked at it as a capital raising venture and, as is done in such ventures, wanted to get somebody else to invest the money. Most of the congregation did not want to pay the increased dues. I think it was that simple, but both Marxist and Methodist historians had ideological blinders. IMHO if the board had come up the money for the organ there would not have been a schism.

Although you are not a historian you have sound instincts and a reasoning brain. You may be right while they may be wrong.

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Dear david f,

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« <<Though I have not seen the report, its author was interviewed by “Le Monde”, a reputable French newspaper. He stressed that the terrorists should be referred to as Salafists, not Muslims - who have nothing to do with terrorism.>>

The above statement is silly and wrong. All Salafists are Muslims, and some Muslims have much to do with terrorism. »
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At the latest count, there are 66,300,000 people living in France, of which about 5 million Muslims and 600,000 Jews – 40% of the total population (26.5 million) declare that they have no religion. The black African population is estimated at roughly 4 million (though ethnic statistics are not allowed in France).

Apart from the occasional isolated incident (which can be quite odious and make the headlines) everybody lives in reasonably good harmony in France.

The two recent terrorist attacks against Charlie Hebdo and the kosher grocery store were carried out by three jihadists born and raised in France. The two Kouachi brothers who attacked Charlie Hebdo were of Algerian parents and Amedy Coulibaly was of Malian extraction. The Kouachi brothers claimed allegiance to Al-Qaeda and Coulibaly claimed allegiance to Daesh (Islamic State).

The Islamic authorities in France have been active in the media, vigorously condemning these attacks, declaring that the terrorists have nothing to do with Islam and that there should be no amalgam of Muslims and terrorists.

Politicians here are promoting the idea that there should be a net distinction made between the ordinary, mainstream or moderate Muslims who reject extremism and terrorism, and violent, radical, intolerant Muslims.

To make it simple they suggest that the term Muslim should apply only to the former, the latter being called Salafists.

In addition and, perhaps, more importantly, it is suggested that people of Islamic faith in France should become totally integrated as French Muslims and not just Muslims in France as at present. In other words, Islam in France should be made autocephalous.

This would empower the national leaders of the cult to get rid of the Salafists and other radical imams.

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Dear Banjo Paterson,

The fact that many Muslims do not approve of what some Salafists do does not make them any less Muslim.

I have heard many Christians deny that Hitler was a Christian. That did not make him any less a Christian. This is the same sort of thing.

Abraham Lincoln was cross-examining a witness in court before he became president:

"You see that calf grazing? If we call the calf's tail a leg how many legs does the calf have?"

Witness: Five

Abe: No. Four. Calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg.

One can make a distinction between the ordinary law-abiding Muslim and the Salafists without denying that the Salafists are Muslims. One can be a Salafist and still be law-abiding.

Saudi Arabia is Salafist. I doubt that the French government is going either to break off relations with Saudi Arabia or deny that they are Muslims.

Dear david f,

>>Although you are not a historian you have sound instincts and a reasoning brain. You may be right while they may be wrong.<<

What I mean by saying I am not a specialist is that my knowledge is not enough critical. Some physicists support the superstring theory (I think it is still mainstream), some don’t. I like it (as far as I can understand it), but this opinion of mine is uncritical: I could not defend the theory versus a physicist who has an insider (specialist) understanding of the problems and can argue against it.

Dear George,

Views of history are not equivalent to views on superstring theory. Most physicists accept superstring theory. However, there has been no experimental verification of the theory. There has also been no experiment which denies its applicability. Lee Smolin in "The Trouble with Physics" argues that fundamental physics, the search for the laws of nature is losing its way since physicists are concentrating on string theory which may not have a possibility of being tested. Since he wrote the book the Higgs boson has been found. That is an important advance since speculations as to the existence of a particular particle has been verified. However, superstring theory, unlike views on history, is, as far as I know, unaffected by ideology.

Historians and economists may continue to disagree since there generally are no reliable standards by which we can evaluate either the data on which their theories are based or the results of the applications of those theories. The results when the reliability of social theories are confused with that of the physical sciences can be most horrible. Lysenkoism and Nazi racial theories are examples.

Treitschke and Marx were both historians. I regard your judgment of history as more reliable than theirs.

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Dear david f,

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« One can make a distinction between the ordinary law-abiding Muslim and the Salafists without denying that the Salafists are Muslims. One can be a Salafist and still be law-abiding. »
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That is very true, david. There are many ideas that are being bandied around here in France in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. Having Islam in France made autocephalous is one of them. How to avoid stigmatising the entire Muslim population and treating them all as jihadists or potential jihadists is another one.

The government is listening closely to what is being said. It has already taken a certain number measures to tighten up security. Today it announced an important package of measures placing greater importance on the teaching of the “values of the Republic” in the national education system: separation of religion and State, moral education, rights and duties of citizenship, etc, …

We will have to wait and see what measures, if any, will be taken by the government in order to encourage the country’s Islamic community to tighten-up its organisation, eliminate any radical elements and exercise more effective control over its operation, perhaps to the point of becoming completely autonomous, free from any outside influence.

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