![]() The reality of history is that the relationship between Islam and Europe is a conflictual one of invasion and counter-invasion, war and conquest in both directions. The fact is that the theme of Islam in the West that Submission places at the centre of its narrative is an ever more importance subject. While critics are divided about the literary value of the book, nobody doubts its effects at the political or ideological level.” Nearly all get to grips with the fact that “no other work of fiction published in the last fifty years has had the impact of Houellebecq’s Submission. Several are truly exceptional and help the reader view both the novel in question and the world it portrays in new ways. As in any book of this kind, some chapters are better than others. ![]() The essays approach this multilevel fictional comment on France and its crisis of self from a variety of perspectives: philosophical, political, religious and psychological. This does not detract from the substance and force of many of the arguments, however: impact is not always felt from polemic. The detached tone in this book matches that of Francois, the narrator in Submission. This is both necessary to gain some perspective on a complex novel, and to gain some detachment from real-world events. The tragic and violent backdrop against which these essays are presented is a stark contrast with the academic tone of the essays and their arguments. This slim novel “reflected current and dramatic political developments in real time and, at the same, explored the philosophical, ideological, and psychological meaning of these events and wove them into the fabric of European art and literature.” The book Michel Houellebecq, the Cassandra of Freedom: Submission and Decline, features ten essays on this, his most notorious novel, all of which are written with the sound of gunfire echoing in the background. Houellebecq, like increasing numbers of writers and thinkers, and whom Charlie Hebdo mercilessly satirised, was rushed into hiding under police protection. Houellebecq’s novel portrayed an Islamist take-over of France through its political and educational institutions. In some sort of surreal synchronicity, Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission was published the very same day as the black terror of ISIS landed on Europe’s streets in blood and fire. It felt like a darkness was falling over the nation that helped bring the illumination of the so-called Enlightenment to Europe. The day the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was attacked, and its editorial staff killed by Islamist terrorists, a sense of apocalypse fell upon Paris, city of light. Michel Houellebecq, the Cassandra of Freedom Submission and Decline. “Let’s not forget: even Harvard was a start-up once.Michael S. We need to “found new universities”, she says. But it became apparent “that the elite educational institutions are doing the next generation a fundamental disservice”. Hirsi Ali recently taught classes at the new University of Austin, and these students – “many… hailed from established institutions” – were “hungry for knowledge”. If universities in the past “made promises to teach their undergraduates how to think, they now aim to teach them what to think”. And while “it’s clear these institutions are still in high demand”, that “doesn’t mean they are fulfilling their function”. Activism is demanded.” This writer thinks “Yale and Harvard have come to resemble the mythical Ouroboros, eating their own tails to satisfy an insatiable appetite for conformity”. Now, it’s “taken on an altogether narrower character”, she says. When Harvard was founded in 1636, it was “‘to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity’”. “What is the point of university?” asks Ayaan Hirsi Ali at UnHerd. “No one wanted to celebrate a past that took the lives of innocent children.” Cole asks: “Will this year be different?” Last year’s Canada Day was “a day of national grief”. Cole says that “time alone may not be enough to heal all wounds” but “honouring the past, focusing on the present and future helps”. Francophone culture “has continued to fight for its identity” and BIPOC populations “have struggled for equality”. Macdonald, “placed economic expansion ahead of cultural sensitivities”. The country’s first prime minister, John A. That “cannot be denied” after the discovery of unmarked graves of multiple residential schools of First Nations children, she says. The holiday is “a poignant reminder of our harmful colonial past, and crimes against humanity not so long ago”. ![]() Writing in the Toronto Star, she explains that her maternal ancestors came from England and Ireland to start a life on First Nations territory in New Brunswick. Jennifer Cole requires some “soul searching” to celebrate Canada Day.
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