Un racisme imaginaire: islamophobie et culpabilité par Pascal Bruckner

The islamogauchisme discourse, or the power to create the inner enemy

“…He claims that the term is 'a weapon of mass destruction of the intellectual debate'. 88 For Valérie Toranian, former editor-in-chief of the Revue des Deux Mondes, the islamogauchistes minimise Islamism to oppose Islamophobia. 89 Bourseiller lists organisations and academic conferences dealing with Islamophobia as representative of the Left's alliance with 'Islamist clerical forces'.…”

“…132 This self-victimising stance is quite common, and typical of Bruckner, who equates the status of victim of racism with a 'nobility title'. 133 During a televised debate with the antiracist activist Rokhaya Diallo, he stated point blank that 'as a woman, Muslim and black' she had 'privileges' that he did not have, presumably as a white, well-known, best-selling male author courted by the media. 134 Inversion of reality goes hand in hand with demonisation, as he then accused her of having called for the massacre of the Charlie Hebdo staff.…”

The ‘Islamo-gauchiste threat’ as political nudge

“…French essayist Pascal Bruckner contended that islamo-gauchisme originated from Chris Harman, a political activist associated with the British Socialist Workers Party (SWP) (Bruckner, 2017). He posited that Harman, who was at the time one of the SWP cadres, floated the idea of a partnership between leftists and 'extreme Islamists' in an article published in 1994 (Harman, 1994).…”