Public lecture IPRA-Le LU : La religion des faibles. Ce que le djihadisme dit de nous.

Thursday, January 10th 2019, 18.30, Le LU in Nantes

For our second event of the season 2018.2019 in the IPRA-Le LU « Labo Utile – Questions de sociétés » program, we invite Jean Birnbaum from le Monde des Livres to animate a public discussion/debate after the release of his book entitled La religion des faibles. Ce que le djihadisme dit de nous (« The Religion of the Weak. What Jihadism tells about us »). This lecture will be coordinated by Dominique Avon (director of studies at the EPHE).

“The believer is the mirror of the believer” according to jihadists such as Oussama Ben Laden or Mohamed Merah. Those words challenge the Western World : You, you who never take us seriously, see yourself in my speech, look at my faith and see what you believe in. So, let’s deal with it. Let’s take this mirror, firmly. Let’s see this image, this reflection, us, who are so reluctant to say “us” just because it would mean to delimit a border with “them”. But the jihadist forces us to do this. “We love death as you love life” he says. By saying “us”, he shows an “us”, however. From its violence a question bursts: “what are the reasons of this us, to what do we stick? And answering this question means to realize an arrogance which is also a weakness : we’re convinced to be the centre of the world, the embodiment the only hope of progress, the only possible modernity. In brief, we believe we’re universally attracting. Yet, jihadism casts doubts. Into the mirror of its powerful faith, we discover what ours became: the religion of the weak.

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