Gold rush in the rubble: why vote for Le Pen?

You’re on a train. You lucked out; The train is packed but you still manage to snag a seat. You find yourself a nice corner by a cold window and just wait for the train to get going. It was a long night. It’s early, too early, and you want to fall asleep, but you can’t, because there is no bodily contortion that is comfortable enough.

You admit defeat, your earbuds drone on, and your vision hazily drifts in and out of focus as you stare through the glass pane. It is almost frustrating at first that you can’t fall asleep, but you quickly settle into your half-awake-ness. It feels comfortable in its own way.

Eventually the train bucks into life. Half-awake and indifferent to anything that passes your eyes, you look forward to something just taking you forward. 15-year-old cars scarred by dents and abuse and small suburban homes with paint older than the cars, with American flags erected on the dead grass of their front lawn: These are just some of your sights.

You see them, you know they’re real, you aren’t trying to deny their existence, but the only time you see those sights are through the glass pane of a train.

In the back of your mind, you still really want to sleep, to escape the boring monotony of being on a train and to fully envision the fantasies and emotions that your music is feeding you. You try to compromise with those desires by daydreaming. You don’t become blind to what you see, but your mind is certainly not really paying attention. But who cares, right? You’re just on train.

As you continue reading and, if I’m lucky, even after you’re done reading, remember you’re on a train. This column, and especially this piece, is about perspective. What you see and what you think are far from the same.

You don’t know why they hang their flags as proudly as they do. You don’t know what is “in their interests.” You’re on a train and everything you see is through a glass pane that is both a window and a mirror. Keep reminding yourself of that.

Here’s a quote from someone who lives in the neighborhood outside the train in Aubervilliers, Paris. “If she wins, it will be a good thing. The left and right are all bastards. They promise things and they don’t deliver. Let’s vote for Le Pen and see what happens.”

He’s Muslim. He’s voting for President of the National Front political party Marine Le Pen, a woman whose anti-Islam message has been a cornerstone of her entire campaign for president of France. Social progressives have been on the offensive when it comes to hateful, xenophobic language.

Le Pen’s message is deemed racist and to some even analogous to the words of Hitler or Mussolini. Why would a Muslim vote for her?

I don’t know. I’m on the train, just like you. I’m trying to stay awake, stay focused, but it is so damn hard. How am I supposed to tell you what French Muslims think? I can’t, I wouldn’t be fit to. I have no answers. None of us do. Who do we think we are? God?

We are all Faust. We have studied so hard only to pretend we know something, to get a piece of paper that says people can trust us without looking like idiots when we are wrong. So instead of searching for answers, look for questions.

Ask the why’s, the who’s, the what’s and never be satisfied with an answer. We won’t ever leave the train, but kill the desire to fall asleep. Look through the glass pane and live to distinguish between the window and the mirror.

Here are the questions that I am posing myself:

1. Why would a Muslim vote for Le Pen?

2. Is Le Pen an anti-Islamic fundamentalist?

3. Why would a Muslim not vote for a conservative or a socialist?

4. What have either of those parties done for Muslims in France?

5. To what extent have the traditional parties driven Muslim voters to the extremes?

6. What do Muslims think of each other?

7. Is an attack on Islamic fundamentalism an attack on all of Islam?

8. Why do we people ignore that Muslims are a large constituency of far-right movements?

9. To what extent is the following quote on some Muslim’s views on immigration true: “It’s a case of the last to arrive closing the door?” (Spectator)

10. To what extent is the following true: “Some children of immigrants imagine that to be truly French, they must be a little racist and pick on foreigners?” (Spectator)

11. Will Le Pen or any far-right movement really destroy the “system”?

From what I understand, that’s what many hope for: a wrecking ball to the entire French government. I doubt there is anyone who would call Le Pen “pro-Islam,” but maybe what Muslims are hoping for is that when Le Pen brings the wrecking ball, there will be something for them in the rubble.