The Germans voted for Nazism. Adolph Hitler was democratically elected Chancellor of the Third Reich. What if the French – or any other “Christian” nation – elected a President to turn the country into an Islamic state ? London has a mayor who is Muslim. But England is not an Islamic state. The France imagined by Michel Houellebecq, just a few years from now, in his 2015 novel “Soumission” (“Submission”), is. Become a best-seller, it makes such a political sea-change credible – and terrifying.
The author is a master of the language and of his art as a novelist. His fictional book is so credible and convincing that it sounds like his own autobiography and historical fact. Marine Le Pen is defeated in the presidential election’s final run-off by Mohammed Ben Abbes, the candidate of his Muslim Federation. Real names of current political figures and even T.V. journalists reinforce the apparent reality of the realization of what is for most of us our worst nightmare. The book’s back-cover blurb accurately states that “this implosion, without upheaval, without real revolution, develops like a bad dream.”
The book is, yes, a wake-up call. In the novel, inexorably and inevitably, the secular state, once so proud of its hard-won separation from religion, becomes a theocracy. Do we really want to allow Islam, which means … “submission”, to rule our lives ? “Tolle, lege”. “Sapienti sat”. You get my drift.
DELENDA RELIGIO
Blind Faith: Blind Folly 
Readers might recall that within living memory a democratically elected government in Algeria was dominated by Islamist hard-liners who were committed to disbanding the democratic election process.
A military coup ensued.
I suspect that something similar would happen in the unlikely scenario that the novelist paints.
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Hitler was “unlikely”. The most insidious feature of this fictional, peaceful transition from democracy to charia is that it did not require a civil war. If it ever happened in France, there would however undoubtedly be a Revolution, or at least Resistance. Better to avoid the need, while there is still time.
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I am delighted that, at last, Franck begin to consider the actual main problem, Islam, instead of searching details, often old one, around Christianity.
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Mon cher ami : you really should be careful about such knee-jerk, off-the-top-of-your-head judgements. Your comment is worthy of Donald Trump, inventor of “fake news”. You insidiously suggest that “AT LAST” I have begun “to consider the actual main problem, Islam.” There are, to date, 676 posts in the Blog. No less than 104 – that’s ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR – speak of Islam !! Put the word “Islam” in the “Search” box and you can read them for yourself. I’ve told you before that I naturally focus more on Christianity because I know a lot more about it. But I have not exactly neglected the deadly challenge that is Islam.
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