The day after the attack in Brussels where two Swedish nationals were killed, Monday evening, by an Islamist terrorist and four days after the assassination of Dominique Bernard, professor of literature, the teachers and students of the Gambetta college-high school in Arras are returning to class today.
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We see, with Brussels after Arras, all of Europe is concerned by the terrorist threat. The day after a day of contemplation, marked by a minute of silence in middle and high schools in France in memory of this teacher, murdered by a young terrorist of Chechen origin, the teaching community is traumatized, worried about no longer being able to accomplish its mission. Because Monday was also a day of national tribute to Samuel Paty, this history professor murdered outside a college in Conflans Saint-Honorine. It was 2020. The same two tragedies three years apart. There is something chilling about this repetition which illustrates the extent to which teachers have become targets of Islamist terrorism.
Teachers are the guarantors of our freedoms. And they teach the most precious of all, absolute freedom of conscience. In our contemporary societies, which readily indulge in unbridled consumerism, we have undoubtedly neglected the importance of the mission of teachers. The Islamists measure it perfectly. Throughout the world, education is an obstacle to the advancement of their deadly project. In Afghanistan, the Taliban ban girls from going to school; in Iran or the Gulf countries, education is placed under the close control of mullahs and imams. And it is no coincidence that, in France, school was the first sector of society challenged by the offensive of political Islam; it was in Creil, in 1989, when young girls manipulated by associations refused to remove their veil during class.
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One in two teachers admit to having already self-censored
The government can support teachers when they warn against challenges to secularism in schools. It was thanks to the “black hussars of the Republic” that the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State became accepted. Even today, teachers remain the main shield against obscurantism. According to a recent Ifop study, one teacher in two admits to having already censored themselves to avoid problems and 60% have already seen their teaching challenged for religious reasons. History teachers are particularly targeted and teaching the Shoah or the theory of evolution sometimes becomes dangerous. The State, and beyond that society, must therefore defend its teachers, “whatever the cost”. To preserve our freedoms, it is much more important than tackling the rise in fuel prices.