We need more authentic voices to beat extremism

The rise of Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen doesn't bode well for the fight against ISIL, argues Alan Philps

President of the French far-right Front National party, and chief candidate Marine Le Pen. Philippe Huguen / AFP

To judge by some alarming opinion poll numbers, ISIL is on the way to winning the propaganda war. In the wake of the Paris terror attacks last month, the French far-right party, the National Front, has emerged as the country’s biggest party with 30 per cent of the vote in the first round of regional elections. This is its biggest score ever, and suggests that its leader, Marine Le Pen, is on course to win at least the first round of the presidential election in 2017. The established French political parties are in a panic.

In the US, the property developer and TV personality Donald Trump is milking the gun attack in San Bernardino to call for a ban on all Muslims entering the country. This impractical and probably unconstitutional idea has propelled him even further into the lead for the Republican presidential nomination in next year’s election.

This is grist to the ISIL mill. They want to exacerbate tensions between Muslim minorities and host communities, a certain way to encourage more confused volunteers to migrate their self-declared “caliphate” in the Syrian-Iraqi borderlands.

As the director of the FBI, James Comey, has pointed out, Mr Trump’s call for war on Muslims will make it harder for the security services to rely on Muslim help in combating extremism. Another win for ISIL.

The two politicians have much in common. Both rely on a harsh anti-immigration message, wrapped in calls for war against political Islam. They are both fluent and relaxed speakers, and appear to talk from the gut at a time when most politicians are guided by opinion pollsters.

According to their supporters, they “tell it like it is”. This is nonsense. They may be adept at entertaining the crowds, but they do not actually speak honestly: if they were honest they would admit that politics and the economy in a globalised world are complicated and anyone who has a simple solution is wrong.

That said, the political elites in both the US and France have left plenty of space open for populists to thrive. The French elite is so cosy with itself that it is bad form to ask a rather simple question: how come France had a healthy economy before it joined the euro, the European common currency, in 2002, but now languishes with 10.2 per cent unemployment? (The rates in Germany and Britain, by contrast, are 6.3 and 5.3.) A good question.

But as for real policies, the National Front has none – just a cocktail of xenophobia and protectionism which appeals to the classes that feel crushed by the forces of European integration and globalisation.

For Mr Trump, a broad element of his appeal is that he is the opposite of Barack Obama. The president’s bloodless and professorial approach may appeal to policymakers, and he is right not to whip up a witch-hunt against the Muslim population of America. But there is a broad section of the US electorate that wants the president to speak to the fears whipped up by conservative commentators who see Armageddon round the corner.

Mr Trump’s call for banning Muslims entering the US has deep historical roots. As Juan Cole, a US expert on relations between Muslims and the West, has pointed out, nativist angst has in the past led to bans on immigration of many nations and religions: Chinese Buddhists; Japanese Buddhists; Hindus, Sikhs and virtually all other Asians; Syrians, Lebanese and all other Middle Eastern nationalities including Armenians; and Jews, who were turned back from the shores of America in the 1930s. Mr Trump is a throwback to the anxieties of a darker age in America.

Ms Le Pen also has historic roots: her father founded the National Front in 1972, to attract the votes of those who had been on the losing side in France’s turbulent history since 1940 – the wartime collaborators with the Nazis and the supporters of “Algerie francaise” who could not forgive De Gaulle for allowing Algeria to become independent in 1962. She has detoxified the party brand by sidelining her father and focusing on more modern concerns.

The Trump discourse has brought a harsh anti-Muslim message across the world and it has found an echo chamber in France and elsewhere. Muslim communities are understandably anxious that it is now permissible to hold them responsible for every jihadist attack since 2001. It is a worrying time. But the context suggests that the danger is not as great as many fear.

Mr Trump is all talk and his popularity probably does not exceed 12 per cent of the US electorate. His stump is all about him and he is not going to found his own right-wing party. He may blow the Republicans off course, but he will not be president of the United States.

As for Ms Le Pen, she has a party, but she does not have the answers to France’s problems. The existence of the National Front is an expression of some of the darker parts of the country’s modern history, and it would not translate to other European countries.

But they do highlight the need for politicians with conviction and authenticity and the ability to speak to the hearts of their voters – something incidentally that Vladimir Putin has in spades. This is tough in Europe, where the demands of the bond markets and the straitjacket of European law allow for little manoeuvre.

Authentic voices can come from unlikely sources. After a mentally disturbed man with a knife attacked Londoners on Saturday, a bystander was recorded shouting to him: “You ain’t no Muslim, bruv!”

These simple words – the speaker is still unidentified – stopped the incident being Trumpified into a threat narrative, and Londoners got on with their business. More voices like that – from politicians and community leaders – are the best way to combat ISIL propaganda and inoculate society against the infantile rhetoric coming across the Atlantic.

Alan Philps is a commentator on global affairs

On Twitter: @aphilps