Playing with Fire

Playing with Fire

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When a minute’s silence was called for before the match as a mark of respect or mourning for the victims of the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, it provoked a counter-demonstration. The crowd—what proportion of it will never be known—began to whistle and to chant Allahu akbar, “God is great.”

The most obvious interpretation of this disgusting episode is that a considerable public feeling exists in Turkey (whose extent is necessarily unknown) that rejoices in the mass murder of “infidels.” But the Le Monde reporter struggled, or rather squirmed, to avoid this most obvious interpretation.

The combination of ‘Allahu akbar’ and ‘The country is indivisible’ signals the return to the ideology of the ultra- nationalists in vogue in the 1970s . . .

We should not allow such evasion—a mere 13 days after the bombings!—to go unremarked.
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Le Monde est vraiment un journal d'ordures. C'est ainsi que le considérait le général De Gaulle. Rien n'a changé.