Many in France look upon its citizens of North African origins not as French but as “Arab” or as “Muslim”. But the second generation within North African communities are often as estranged from their parents’ cultures and mores, and from mainstream Islam, as they are from wider French society.
Consider, for instance, the Kouachi brothers,. They were raised in Gennevilliers, a northern suburb of Paris. Cherif Kouachi, who appeared to mastermind the operation, only rarely attended mosque and appeared not to be particularly religious, but was driven by a sense of social estrangement. He was, according to Mohammed Benali, president of the local mosque, of a ‘‘generation that felt excluded, discriminated against and, most of all, humiliated. They spoke and felt French, but were regarded as Arabic; they were culturally confused.”
According to Benali, Kouachi was most affronted by the imam’s insistence on the importance of political engagement. “When the imam told everyone to enrol on the register of electors so they could take part in elections, and play their part in society, he refused. He said he wasn’t a French citizen and wanted nothing to do with the democratic process. He then walked out of the mosque.”
Kouachi’s story is not that different from that of Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the 7/7 bombings in London. They are of a milieu caught not between two cultures, as it is often claimed, but between no cultures. As a consequence, some of them have turned to Islamism and a few have expressed their rage through jihadi-style violence.
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