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Why would anyone direct a terrorist attack at a church in supposedly secular France? It would seem to suggest that the notion of France as a Christian country is not quite so dead as some would have us believe.
It feels like the West is suffering an existential crisis. There is a lack of clarity about who “we” are, and what identity looks like in the 21st Century. It is notable that it has become seemingly impossible for anyone to make a case for Britishness, Europeanness or Western values that doesn’t descend quickly into vapid cliché or rank xenophobia. Populist rallying calls dominate politics with little coherence about any content to back up the rage.
In this context of existential doubt it is worth taking note that those that would do us harm seem to have a very clear sense of who we are. The real power of terrorist attacks is not the number of people they kill (tragic and awful though those deaths clearly are), but the symbolic ability to strike at the heart of our culture. This is an obvious point if you consider the simple element of scale.
9/11 shocked and appalled the world. 3000 people died. It was an appalling atrocity and, in terms of numbers of casualties, still the biggest terrorist attack in history. But in statistical terms even that scale of death is actually fairly minor (in the same year 42,196 in the USA died in traffic accidents). More Americans have now died fighting in Iraq than died in New York during 9/11.
It is not the death count that has made 9/11 the most significant moment in 21st century geopolitics, but the fact that the symbolism of that attack shook the USA to its core and has led to the war on terror, and all the fruits that that has borne across the globe. With that symbolism in mind the targets of those attacks are illustrative of what your enemies see as the most fundamental aspect of your existence. In 9/11’s case the targets were the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and the White House.
In the same way there are lessons to be seen in the targets of the terrorist attacks in France. Bastille day is a celebration of French Republican values, and thus makes for an obvious target. The choice of a Catholic church, as we saw this week may well come as more of a surprise. France is a country renowned for its vision of secularism, and polls regularly show it as being one of the world’s least religious countries. Yet here we are, digesting the news of an attack which saw an octogenarian priest have his throat cut while he celebrated Mass.
Nor is the inclusion of a Church a simply random choice. ISIS’s propaganda has long used Rome as one of the most fundamental symbols of the West, and proclaimed its desire to conquer it and throw down the Pope.
This might come as a shock to those who think it is controversial to say that France or the UK or Europe are Christian places. Any time a politician makes such a claim is to open him or herself up to ridicule and criticism. It should not do. We are not only Christian, but we are a Christian continent, and France is a Christian country. Just as the fundamental culture of the USA is struck by an attack on the World Trade Centre, so the fundamental culture of France is struck by an attack on its Catholic priests.
You don’t make yourself safer, or challenge your enemies by subjugating that identity and trying to sweep it under the carpet. To do that only undermines yourself and contributes to this Western existential crisis. It is in the eyes of our enemies that our identity is shown most clearly. Perhaps it is time for #JeSuisCatholique?
Ben Ryan is a researcher at Theos
Image obtained via Pixabay available under this Creative Commons license
