With Karol Wilczyński, we discuss, in the context of recent events in France, the radicalization of believers, as well as the secular state and attitudes toward refugees in France and Poland. Karol Wilczyński completed philosophical studies at Jagiellonian University and has now completed a doctorate on Arab philosophy. He is a co-author of the Islamista blog. Karol Wilczyński collaborates with Tygodnik Powszechny, Magazyn „Kontakt” and the ngo.pl portal. He regularly publishes in the Slovak daily SME.
Karol Wilczyński:
In France, during a lesson, Samuel Paty showed his students a caricature—as an example of insulting others (a negative example). He had shown it several times before.
This displeased the father of a student, who began an online hate campaign against the teacher. The teacher was brutally murdered by an 18-year-old who had come to France when he was six. He came to France with his family from Chechnya.
If it had not been for the hatred online, the teacher would be alive.
The attacks in France have a terrorist background. The threat must not be underestimated.
There are groups that benefit from attacks carried out by very young people. This is terrorism.
Personally, I do not know any Muslims who would support such acts of violence.
Mufti: the attacks are carried out by ignorant people, residents of ghettos. These people are not religiously educated. They are often manipulated.
France has a colonial past.
There are entirely different Muslims in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. They cannot all be lumped together.
In Poland, we are dealing with radical Catholicism, for example Armia Boga. It is frightening to see the direction in which such Catholicism is heading.
In Islam, abortion is permissible up to the 120th day. It is allowed in cases where the mother’s life is at risk, the fetus is impaired, or in cases of incest or rape. Egypt is an exception.
Muslims and Arabs are the most disliked groups in Poland, alongside Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses and transgender people.
The Murder of Samuel Paty
On October 16, 2020, a 47-year-old history teacher was brutally murdered by 18-year-old Abdullah Anzorov, a Chechen born in Moscow. The victim was found decapitated approximately 200 meters from the school building. The perpetrator was shot dead by police during the officers’ intervention.
On October 28, a ceremony paying national tribute to Samuel Paty was held in the courtyard of Paris’s Sorbonne. The teacher was posthumously awarded the Légion d’honneur, the highest distinction awarded by the French Republic.