Islam and its discontents

Michel Houellebecq's latest book, which envisages a Muslim president in France, comes at a time when protestors in several German cities are rallying against Muslim immigration

In an interview to Paris Review on the eve of the release of his latest book, French writer Michel Houellebecq made some startling statements. The book, titled Soumission (Submission), imagines a world in which a Muslim candidate, Mohammed Ben Abbes, beats far right candidate Marine Le Pen to the 2022 French presidency. Houellebecq, in an eerie coincidence, was on the cover of Charlie Hebdo in the week that terrorists attacked the French newspaper's offices, killing 10 journalists.

Houellebecq has made a name for himself in France for writing books that jolt the national conscience, if not always to desirable effect. He has been accused of everything from obscenity to misogyny, and had to be whisked away to Ireland after the publicity tour of his 2001 work, Platform, for "inciting racial hatred".

Houellebecq's latest book, which looks at the rise of Islam in Europe, comes at a time when protestors in several German cities are rallying against Muslim immigration. Held last Monday, the most recent rally in Dresden attracted 18,000 people.

While granting that the idea of a Muslim president in the near future is unrealistic, Houellebecq goes on to explain in the interview why he thinks it is a very real possibility, given the direction French politics is taking. One reason he cites is the rising attraction of Islam as a political ideology:

"[T]here is no longer such a thing as an 'average' Muslim since we now have people converting who are not at all of North African origin … The sensationalism of the media plays a negative role, really. For example, they loved the story of the guy living in a little village in Normandy, as French as he could be, not even from a broken home, who converted and went off to wage jihad in Syria."

Reading this, I was reminded of Indian Muslims who have joined the Islamic cause. Areeb Majeed's return to India after a tryst with the Islamic State in Iraq and the arrest of Bangalore techie Mehdi Biswas for running the @ShamiWitness Twitter handle confirm this trend.

In the same week as Majeed's return, The Guardian ran excerpts from Mohsin Hamid's latest book, a collection of essays titled Mohsin Hamid's Discontent and Its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York and London. In the extract, Hamid decries the West for its tough stance on migration: "The deepest threat Britain faces comes not from migration. It comes from the relentless transfer of wealth and opportunity from the poor and middle class to the wealthy, a transfer masked and rendered temporarily palatable by the chest-thumping of resurgent nationalism and the paper gains of credit-fuelled property prices."

Ignore the simplistic capitalism-bashing for a moment. What is noteworthy is that Hamid wrote a first novel in which the protagonist, a Pakistani-American, feels a visceral glee at the site of the World Trade Center towers going up in a plume of smoke. That book, called The Reluctant Fundamentalist, was shortlisted for the Booker and subsequently made into a film by Mira Nair.

In that book, Changez - a native Pakistani - is the blue-eyed boy of leading New York management firm Underwood Samson. Backed by an elite education from Princeton, liked by superiors and respected by peers, he is on his way to corporate superstardom. His love for the beautiful Erica ensures him a spot in New York's high society. Then 9/11 happens.

If that novel had ended there, it would have made sense for Hamid to now condemn the divisive debate on immigration in the West. Regrettably, The Reluctant Fundamentalist traced Changez's journey from foolish optimism to inexplicable hatred.

One scene in particular stands out. After the September 11 attacks, Changez returns to the US after a holiday in Lahore without shaving his two-week-old beard. As he explains, "It was, perhaps, a form of protest on my part, a symbol of my identity, or perhaps I sought to remind myself of the reality I had just left behind." One can understand identity as a socio-economic construct but, for all purposes, each of the reasons Changez gives himself to keep his beard are personal and, if I may add, superfluous.

Changez is filled with self-loathing for leaving Pakistan in pursuit of a better life abroad, but does not feel the need to integrate himself with the American way of life. Even so, he has no compunction in milking the bountiful cow dry. That Hamid is now rooting for the other side shows that messy reality has caught up with rank emotion.

Who knows if the Europe Houellebecq imagines will come to pass. What can't be denied is that there is a rising clamour to reconcile the Enlightenment ideals that have led Europe to champion human rights and open borders with the growing reality of political Islam. The outcome of the battle between Houellebecq and Hamid will be both interesting and portentous for our age.