“Don’t Shoot The Messenger”
In the echo chamber that is Social Media there is no point Preaching to the Converted. The Third of Three Previews of "Europe- Sooner Than You Can Think". (“Last Post from England” and “Five Years”).
Art work- Copyright 2000 J. Chanel CEDEX ASSOCS
Imago Hominis… The Image of Man is God
“Returning to St. Cyr it all looked the same. Perhaps his friend had got it wrong? Perhaps too much the same, was what worried Pierre.
The same cobblestones, leading to the same worn path by the Church of St. Martin, where he had been Baptised.
But, wait. What time was it? Ten-past-five- and yet no bells on the hour. Perhaps they were broken again? He hoped they were broken again.
There were fewer shops. But that was true all over France, wasn’t it. Only one Boulangerie, Monsieur Serle’s, where there had been six in Mother’s day.
Pierre stopped. Wait, he told himself. He hadn’t noticed that before. He stooped down to read a triangular green sign in the bottom left hand corner of the window.
“Halal-approved Premises. ICF”.
He looked more closely. “Issued by Decree of the Islamic Council of France CEDEX”. Then something in Arabic no one could understand. But all could understand, “Fine 30,000 NE” New Euros”.
He, like millions of nobodies across Europe and beyond, had convinced themselves by convincing others, that “Coexistence” was the “New Way”. That was what Le President had advised, truly “Patriotic Frenchman” to accept. To work with, in the name of “La Gloire, La France”. And he had lived mostly in the Emirates. Very well.
Pierre meanwhile, turned and turned again, wanting to see the School House. Empty now. Waiting “Conversion to a Madrasa”, it said on the cracked window of the door. Some brave someone had obviously attempted to rip the plasticised “Notice Afficihe” in vain. It was, Pierre thought, as France was itself.
There was something unnerving about such places, once filled with children, in silence. As if in a permanent state of holiday. A perpetual Feast Day. A nation in waiting for thirty years now. As was everyone. Pierre himself, wanting to see it and Mother and Father’s grave one last time. Before he left for “safer, happier shores”. Even though he knew nowhere truly “safe” existed. As he would tell them both, lying under his breath and laying the two blackened roses he had brought down from Paris, using his 150km “Permit to Travel for Non-Muslims”.
How he was being “relocated” to make “living space” for a Muslim family- from Senegal. Replaced- though he could not say that. Not without risking being reported to the Theocratic Police who since 2032, were now collaborating with the Islamic Power-sharing Government.
Not, it turned out, that there was much to share. As people said, a cocked Kalashnikov held by a 14 year old “Holy Fighter”, high on chewing Khat for breakfast. The under 2O’s did the practical “governing” now.
He had come across one once, bumped into him literally at the neighbourhood checkpoint in Neuilly. Public Health Security Road Blocks set up between every main street, with locals, even family friends you recognised, made to check your papers and the “ISHTAR App” – the digital stamps to prove you had attended Prayer or one of the “Mass Conversion Programmes”.
Some led by zealous children, French children, indoctrinated in Madrasa in Saudi. The new Eurabians who shouted in your ear and scolded with a little flat wooden stick- a “Holy ruler”- on the back of your hand, stinging it if you did not turn the page of the translation fast enough.
“L’etat c’est Moi- I am The State now- White Pig”.
The Revolutionary Guard grinned. Pierre holding back his full bladder in fear and relief, could not follow the rapid staccato of half-French, half-English Arabic.
“I shan’t kill you now- Inshallah. It is not the Dignity of God. But after Hajr Prayers- you and your face, must cross the road”.
That was the first time, Pierre had realised- there was no one left “in Authority” to call. No police. No army. They had scattered back to their homes and terrified families after the Civil War. Who could blame them after the Government signed the Unconditional Surrender to the Euro Emirate in Tehran.
Not much hope of “Asylum” in Hungary or the US. Not since the Euro War. Wherever they were taking the “White Diaspora”, as some called it. Refugees now in what had been their own country.
Remembering the odd little stranger, he met the day before. Warning him not to drive too far South- into the Caliphate territory that was spilled in blood and more, in kind of stain of fear, across the soft valleys of the Dordogne. Where no “Songs of the Auvergne” could be sung, he supposed. not without the local Imam’s permission. Some were more French than others. “French” on the outside, at least- Les Oeufs durée- some nicknamed them the “under-the-chin beard” was always a dead giveaway. An indicator of what they really believed, they believed. Before they got elected.
Their God kept well-hidden- and shaved- until the time came to them to grasp the power the Westerners and well-meaning Fools far way, gave away.
“They came for us”, the old stranger began as if talking to himself. “One Tuesday afternoon. In the rain. House by house… You knew that”, he looked across at Pierre. Describing how the last gendarme, his brother-in-law, had escaped from France- “and he was 66”.
“The Boys”, he called them, in the IEA- The Islamist Euro Army. From everywhere and nowhere. They couldn’t have been sixteen. “Grandsons” in another life. Crazed on victory, he supposed. It was in their red bloodshot eyes, dancing round the bloated corpse of Madame Capel, the florist I don’t suppose you remember, who would not hurt a fly. Gave them tea they didn’t like. Shot her...
Then he remembered the cold, shark-like grey eyes of the older man, an African mercenary with perfect “Sorbonne French”- nouns and all. He was, it seemed, in charge of the chaos. The Madness.
Pierre, like thousands, hadn’t heard. It was suppressed, as all News was by the Central Censor. By the Emir in Riyadh. But Pierre nodded, as if it was the only way left to show, an old-fashioned compassion. He hadn’t had to be polite in so long, he had almost forgotten how. A nod that said he was still human. Still “fluent” in French.
Beard or Western suit-and-tie, or no. Some were Tin-Gods. “Moderates”, within weeks, became stroppy Tartars. Motorcades of pick-ups driving around their local Arrondissement to their personal Sharia Court. Justice decided with a wrong look. If they had a migraine, or an argument with one of their six wives in the morning, they sentenced a man to hang in the afternoon for some Blasphemy. One, he often did not know he had committed. Three homosexuals were pushed off the Grande Maison, the Town Hall roof in Arles. (The Koran forbade strangulation). It “offended” God. A Mercy, apparently.
At first, the old man had scoffed at all those overly-polite, precious English second-homers. Les Anglais, who had had to pack up their gingham table clothes into their Range Rovers. Destroy their forbidden wine collections for fear of some new Infidel fine. And leave overnight. Heading for the North and uncertainty. The homes, the scrubbed-wood perfection and all, taken over by “Brave Jihad Fighters”, from Sudan and God alone knows where.
By those who didn’t speak French, or even want or need to, or any language, except that common language – the lingua franca- of fear. The new European conquistadors. It was their “France” now. Whatever “France” now meant.
There was no Saint Martell of Poitiers to save France- from itself. Or Americans to loathe ever after for doing so. Not this time. Everyone had been too busy debating “Multicultural Challenges”. Busy, while others had simpler plans.
“This Future”, as the old stranger had said, pointing all round him to the deserted village perche beyond- now renamed something unpronounceable in Urdu.
This was France, no? Shrugging a tiny Gallic shrug with his shoulders. Yes. Yes. This had been decided forty years ago. “By puppets like Macron”- remember “that”? (He did not even refer, dignify the long-dead “First Eurabian European President” as “Him”...
Even then, thirty years ago, back in 2025, some of us knew. Knew what we could not put into words, not quite. Even if had been given a voice. A silence that shook the world. We lemmings, huddling together on the edge of the white cliffs. As if we all knew, a little piece, of the something that was wrong. With Life itself perhaps.
We should have guessed the Future. After “Le Con-vid”- The Cull. And the White Diaspora. Ever further West. The perpetual Pandemics and “Climate Crises” that never were. Or what it seemed they were. We were once so certain. That we had at least somewhere to live. And never thought twice about it. Somewhere to be, us. French or British or… “Now. Not now”.
The stranger, who wisely never told anyone new his name, began to shuffle away. No need to say “Au revoir”- See you later- he smiled without looking back. We only say “Adieu”- Goodbye- nowadays. In case we get “stopped” and taken away for Re-Education in Montrey, the next town. “Douceur de vivre, mon garcon”, he waved over his shoulder.
Alone again, Pierre felt cold for the first time even in the low afternoon sun. He thought of the faces. Some so young, who had “disappeared”. Taken either by the successive mandatory Vaccine campaigns. Or by the Quranic Police. It did not matter in the end, and the end, even less than that. Except for those teenagers, autistic, who they had executed en masse in the town square for “Ignorance” of the Hadith.
“The Dead tell no Tales”. Not even they can be arrested for telling the Truth. Even the living now, Pierre realised, were dead. Like him and like his parents, as he laid the two blackened rose.
At least the cemetery had escaped the worse. Pierre turned by the flint wall of the Church. There propped up against it, a crucifix. He knew yet did not know what it was. The body of the Priest, he guessed. Young or old, it was hard to tell under the yellowing black and blue. Inverted. Upside down in some unspeakable parody of St. Peter. Castrated. Imago homini... The image of Man is the image of God...
Someone had risked being spotted, reported, by covering the mutilation of the Christ-like, twisted torso with a white surplus. It flapped back and forth in the Mistral wind. As if it were the only thing, it seemed to Pierre, for miles and miles, in the whole of France, that was moving. Still alive”.
“For how may Man die better,
Than facing Fearful odds?
For the Ashes of his Fathers.
And the Temples of his Gods”
ABRIDGED FROM JAMES CHANEL AMAZON KDP
Scary future if UK and France keep trying to appease the ‘immigrants,’ who only plan to take over and never assimilate.