Alexandre del Valle

Alexandre del Valle (born September 4, 1968^[1]) is a French writer, journalist, and political commentator. He is known primarily for his criticism of radical Islam and as a proponent of the Red-green-brown alliance theory.^[2] His research focuses on radical Islam, new geopolitical threats, civilizational conflicts, and terrorism, as well as Mediterranean issues such as Turkey's proposed accession to the European Union.

Biography

Personal life

Del Valle was born in Marseille, France, on September 6, 1968^[1] to Pieds-Noirs parents. His father was a Sicilian who settled first in Tunisia and later in Marseille (South of France). His mother came from an anti-Franquist (Spaniard) family partly settled in Oran, Algeria and after in Marseille.^[3] In 2001, Del Valle married a Jewish-Argentine woman, Monica Altmann. The name Alexandre Del Valle is reportedly a pseudonym he uses for safety reasons because he has been a civil servant before writing and because of the controversial nature of his books and broadcasts.

Education

Del Valle attended the Paris Institute of Political Studies and obtained a diploma at the Institute of Political Studies of Aix-en-Provence. He specialized in international relations and the geopolitics of the Arab-Muslim world.^[3]

He also received a Diplôme d'études approfondies (DEA) on Military History-security-defense at the Institut d'études politiques d'Aix-en-Provence (Institute of Political Studies), a Diplôme d'études approfondies of European History of doctrines and political institutions at the Università degli Studi di Milano with Professor Albertoni around 1994.

Alexandre del Valle has studied the political life of Lebanon and the legal status of Jewish and Christian minorities in Muslims states at the Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik, Beyrouth. Del Valle has also studied geopolitics and the Islamic world with Yves Lacoste, Pierre-Marie Gallois, Bruno Étienne, Gilles Kepel.

Columnist career

He is a regular columnist at Atlantico and Politique Internationale, and before that at Le Figaro, France Soir, Israel Magazine, La Une, Risk, Europa dei Popoli, Il Liberal, Il Borghese del Nord, and others. He publishes articles in geopolitical magazines and reviews such as Daedalos Papers, Nova Storica, Herodote, Outre Terre, Geostrategics, Geopolitical affairs, Stratégiques, Géoéconomie, and others.

Academic career

He is the co-founder and member of the Scientific Council of Geopolitics of Daedalos Institute,^[4] based in Nicosia, Cyprus. He is a lecturer at The University of Metz and Sup de Co La Rochelle and has been teaching at the University of Rome (Università europea di Roma).

Since 2004, in the framework of Daedalos Institute, Alexandre del Valle is studying the growth of political Islam in Turkey and its application to join the European Union.

Del Valle claims to work with moderate Muslims such as Mezri Haddad, Houchang Nahavandi, Jbil Kebir or Mohamed Sifaoui, who publicly supported him and explained that Alexandre del Valle was a supporter of a modern and secular Islam and only denounced radical Islam just as many Muslims do.^[5]

Political career

Together with Rachid Kaci, Del Valle co-founded "The Free Right" (French: La Droite libre), a liberal-conservative faction within the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).^[6] Their slogan is "Secularity, defense of the West and Freedom, and struggle against political correctness."^[6] Before joining the UMP, Del Valle was a member of the Rally for the Republic (French: Rassemblement pour la République), a French right-wing political party.

Notable arguments

Del Valle describes what he calls the new Western and European Munich in the face of Islamist fascism. Like Bat Ye'or, he also analyzes the dhimmitude which has gradually been befalling the declining "psychologically as well as demographically" countries of Europe which seem to be sinking into a condition which Ye'or has described as "Eurabia."

Islamist Totalitarianism

Following the September 11 attacks, del Valle published an essay entitled, "Islamist Totalitarianism: Democracies Under Attack."^[7] In this essay, Del Valle asserted that radical Islam was not merely a fundamentalist ideology, but a totalitarian one. He argued that radical Islam is an imperialist doctrine more comparable to Stalinism or Nazism than to other fundamentalist religions such as Judaism, Christianity, or Buddhism as "no other religious fundamentalism is as much universally criminal, globally barbaric, aggressively proselytizing, fundamentally theocratic as is Islamism."

Del Valle contended that Islamic totalitarianism is partly based on the "dominant orthodox Sunni Islam" that has been frozen since the 10th century. After that, this original orthodox Salafi Islamism transformed itself into a "totalitarianism" after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the decolonisation of Arab-Muslim countries, between 1850 and 1920 eas, when the Islamist totalitarianism offered to solve all the evils in the Muslim countries by establishing the Shariah and by settling a score with the Western "Imperialist" – "infidel -Judeo-Crusaders" as well as liberal Muslims, "the primary victims" of Radical Islamism.

According to Del Valle, this Islamic fascism is the ideology of Total Hatred of the Other (the classical paranoid theory of scapegoating), hence the Islamists' rehabilitation of the texts such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion or Mein Kampf. And according to the author, this "Third Islamist Totalitarianism", contrary to Nazism or Stalinism, is the first one which does not come from the "white Judeo-Christians", the first "exotic totalitarianism" which origins in the South, even if its primary victims are none other but Muslims themselves and non-Muslim minorities living under Sharià. That's why it speaks in the name of "Victims", of the "Oppressed" living in the poor Third World, and of the "humiliated ones" in the Arab world (humiliated by Jews, Crusaders, and "Apostates". But its ultimate goal is nothing else but the New Final Solution of the Secular and democratic West and the Free World. It's why main Arab-Islamic leaders never were ashamed to make alliance with Nazis and fascists, from the 1920–30 era (Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, etc.).

After the "red totalitarianism", founded on the notion of the Struggle of Classes; the "Brown totalitarianism", founded on the notions of the Struggle of Races; there comes the "Green Totalitarianism", founded on the notion of the Struggle of Religions and Civilizations...

Red-Green-Brown Alliance

Del Valle describes the emergence of a Red-Green-Brown Axis: the Red of the extreme left, the Brown of the extreme right, and the Green of islamism.^[8] The different components of this Axis have for a common objective the struggle against the new faces of Evil: America, Israel, Imperialism, and even the West in its entirety.

According to his theories, islamism, the third totalitarianism after nazism and communism, extends the aspirations of its two predecessors: seizing the struggle of civilizations and religions then declaring war on the non-Muslim world in the name of the "dispossessed". This totalitarianism seduces as much those nostalgics for the pagan Third Reich, resolved to eradicate Judaism and Christianity, as it does those partisans of communism, determined to come to blows with capitalism and the West.

This junction of "red", "brown", and "green" totalitarianisms around the cause of Palestinian martyrs, Iraqis and Afghans, as much as the revolutionary figure of Osama bin Laden, confirms the leadership, henceforth uncontested, of revolutionary islamism. From now on, this exerts a real fascination upon the other totalitarian options defeated by history (nazism and communism) and, consequently, condemned either to reconstitute themselves or to join the islamist revolution in order to pursue their struggle against liberal democracies. According to Alexandre Del Valle, this alliance between the New Third World (Hugo Chavez's anti-American regime and its Bolivian and Cuban allies), the islamists and the Rogue States such as Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan and pro-Palestinian terrorists movements will be in the future the main danger for both North America and Europe.

Pan-West: the new paradigm

Alexandre Del Valle has advocated for the creation of a new "pan-Western"^[9] organization which would gather more strongly the USA and old Europe. He believes America and Europe should convince Russia to join its alliance instead of supporting anti-Western coalitions led by China, Iran and Venezuela. In 2000, after the Kosovo war, Del Valle wrote that it is necessary for the West to criticize Washington and European mistakes when USA and EU supported the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and continue to do so. He also deplored the anti-Russian and anti-Serbian attitudes that agitated the Cold War period and incited Moscow to join the anti-western Axis. Back then, he condemns those expressing anti-American feelings in Europe, Latin America and Russia. He suggests the promotion of a strategic alliance between the three western keystone states: the USA, Orthodox Europe and Western Europe should build a stronger alliance in the face of Islamic threat.

Post-Kemalist Turkey

Del Valle opposes the accession of Turkey to the European Union.^[10] In his opinion, Turkey is neither European culturally nor geographically (except for Istanbul and Thrace). Even if a small Kemalist minority or the inhabitants of the posh suburbs of Istanbul feel European, the inhabitants of east Istanbul, Ankara or Anatolia feel closer to their Iraqi neighbors than to Europeans or Christian Greeks. Del Valle believes that NATO, which Turkey belongs to, is not the key for the entry into the European Union. Saying that it is necessary to integrate Turkey so as to show that Europe is not a Christian club and does not reject an Islamic candidate is not rational. And seeing Turkey as a secular exception and natural ally against Islamism thanks to the legacy of Kemal Atatürk is erroneous. Because the new post-Kemalist Turkey, led by Erdoğan and Islamic ruling party AKP, allows and claims back all that which was rejected by Atatürk: the hijab, the Islamic political parties and compulsory religious instruction at school.^[11]

Del Valle says that Kemalism was dismantled in the 1950s and 60s with the governments of Adnan Menderes and Süleyman Demirel and became politically dead under Turgut Özal, the architect of the re-Islamization which abolished the article 163 that had prohibited the Islamic parties. A country like Turkey which is ruled by a party stemming from an Islamic movement which has been attaining victory in elections since the beginning of the 90s is not any more a secular and kemalist country. But it is what he calls a "post-Kemalist" state.

The main theory of Del Valle is that Europe and the US have become the main allies who are capable of dismantling the militarist-Kemalist power in Turkey in the name of western democracy. The first goal of AKP is to avenge, after having perfected the de-Kemalization of the country, the affront suffered in 1923 at the time of the abolition of the Caliphate and the Sharia. If Turkey would access the European Union, Europe would have for its immediate neighbors Iran of the Mullahs, Syria – both sponsors of Hezbollah – and Iraq.

Finally, he advocates that the best way to preserve the Kemalist exception and secularism in Turkey would keep Turkey outside Europe and to build what President Nicolas Sarkozy calls a special partnership.

Christianophobia

In his essay "The new christianophobia, Why Have Christians Around the World Become Murder Targets?",^[12] Alexandre Del Valle explains the Christianity is today the religion most systematically and violently persecuted around the world. The specific nature of the new global Christianophobia consists mainly in its impunity and the silence that surrounds it. Indeed, a new litany of hateful atrocities is stirring up fanaticism in many nations against Christianity, the religion of the hated "westerner white man", in the name of a desire for revenge and the "right" of colonized peoples "humiliated" by the West to be "different." This new teaching of contempt, which amalgamates Christians from all backgrounds with the western "executioner," is impervious to any blame. Totally uninhibited, driven by the global wave of anti-western sentiment and often exotically presented as anti-imperialism, it is the source of countless acts of violence against Christians, killed just because they are Christians, according to Alexandre del Valle (this book will be soon published in the USA and in Brasil).

Western guilt and Syrian chaos

In "Le Complexe occidental" (see bibliography infra), del Valle explains the complexity of the Syrian conflict and describes the origins of the Islamic State (ISIS). He proposes new and pragmatic proposals to find peace solutions in the Middle East and to fight against the islamic totalitarianism that plans to organise a "cultural and religious genocide" of Christians and other non-sunni minorities in the Muslim world. Alexandre del Valle describes the genesis of ISIS and proposes new solutions based on pragmatism and political dialogue to bring peace in Syria and fight efficiently against the islamic totalitarianism and protect the Christian and other non-sunni minorities victims of a "cultural genocide". Del Valle says that the most dangerous threat for the West is not China, Radical Islam or the anti-West Third World or emerging countries, but the "feeling guilty of the "judeo-christian white man".

Controversies

Del Valle's first book, Islamism and the United States: An Alliance against Europe,^[13] sparked controversy in France and in the United States. In the book, Del Valle claimed the U.S. government was deliberately using Islam to destroy Europe.^[13] This theory was criticized by Bat Ye'or in the Middle East Quarterly published in September 1998.^[13] Although Ye'or reproached Del Valle for his hostility to the Clinton administration, she congratulated him for his attempt to "courageously expose the dangers of Islamism."^[13]

In another article published in the Middle East Quarterly in Spring 2000,^[14] French-American geopolitician Laurent Murawiec characterized Del Valle as hostile to Muslims and criticized his analysis of the United States' pro-Muslim strategy during the Cold War. In his response to Murawiec,^[15] Del Valle wrote that "history and the tragedy of September 11 have proven me right." He claimed that Murawiec omitted to mention that his later books, such as Le Totalitarisme Islamiste a l'assaut des démocraties, have been labeled as both "pro-American and pro-Zionist."^[16] Additionally, since the September 11 attacks in 2001, Del Valle has written articles published in Le Figaro and Politique Internationale where he calls for a union to be formed with the United States and in which he denounces all forms of anti-Western and anti-American feelings. Murawiec himself has written an essay which also deplores the present pro-Saudi and pro-Islamist strategy and politically correctness of American presidents who never dared nominating Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism as the real enemy and the supporters of radical Islam.^[17]

In 2002, Del Valle was criticized by far-right, left-wing^[18] and extreme-left magazines such as Le Monde Diplomatique'"^[19] and the pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist MRAP.^[20] Some extreme-right movements, believing that Alexandre del Valle had been close to their visions in his early writings on Islamism and America, denounce now his Zionism and the fact he was very close to the Jewish community.^[21] or The "outing" of Alexandre del Valle, reveals its close links with the Zionist ultra-right.^[22]

In an article published in April 2002,^[23] French far-left-trotskyst organisation Ras l'front claims that Alexandre Del Valle had originally set out its arguments in far right-wing circles, especially during lectures at meetings of the ultra right or the New Right. Del Valle refutes the claims and bring the matter in courts.^[24] These trials with peripeteias eventually resulted in a decision from the 11th Chamber of the Court of appeal of Paris in 2005, which dismissed Del Valle who carried out an action for defamation against Ras L'front (diffamation).^[25][26]

In two other trials, Alexandre del Valle and his lawyer, Gilles-William Goldnadel, the French President of "Droit à la Sécurité" and "France Israël association" (who also was Oriana Fallaci's lawyer in France), won two other cases : one in 2006 against the MRAP, an anti-racist organization led by French communist Mouloud Aounit, and a second against Canal+ (TV Channel), in 2007 (17th court of Paris).^[27] The 17th court of Paris dismissed the MRAP, who had published in 2003^[28] a special report on anti-Arabs, Zionists and Far right networks in France. This MRAP Report blamed Alexandre del Valle and other intellectuals such as Guy Millière, Michel Darmon (former France-Israel's President) or William Goldnadel to be Islamophobes and to support Zionist organizations such as the UPJF (Union of French Jewish Chairmans), Likoud, KKL, or Bnai Brith. The 17th Court of Appeal decided that the MRAP did not have the right to accuse Alexandre del Valle to be "islamophobe" and was dismissed after having tried to make Del Valle and Guy Millière condemned for abusive action for defamation.^[27]

Del Valle does not deny that he made errors in the past making speeches with controversial intellectuals from every political creed in the context of the presentations of his books. But he precises that his political "godfathers" were gaullists and former popular "resistants" such as Alain Griotteray, Pierre Marie Gallois, the former nuclear and geopolitical adviser of Charles De Gaulle, Gabriel Kaspereit and Jean Matteoli.^[29]

Bibliography

• Islamisme et États-Unis, une alliance contre l'Europe, L'Age d'Homme, Lausanne, 1997, ISBN 2-8251-1060-4
• Guerres contre l'Europe, Bosnie, Kosovo, Techétchénie, Syrtes, 2000
• Le Totalitarisme islamiste à l'assaut des démocraties, Syrtes, 2002
• La Turquie dans l'Europe, un cheval de Troie islamiste?, Syrtes, 2004
• Le Dilemme Turc, les vrais enjeux de la candidature d'Ankara, Syrtes, 2006
• Perchè la Turchia non-deve entrare nell'Europa, Guerini, May 2009, Torino, Italy
• A Islamizaçao de Europa, A civilisaçao edit, Lisboa, Portugal, June 2009
• I Rossi Neri, Verdi: la convergenza degli Estremi opposti. Islamismo, comunismo, neonazismo, Lindau, 2010
• Pourquoi on tue les chrétiens dans le monde aujourd'hui, la nouvelle islamophobie (The New Christianophobia, Why Have Christians Around the World Become Murder Targets?); Maxima, Paris, 2011, (soon published in the USA)
• Le complexe occidental, Petit traité de déculpabilisation, Editions du Toucan, Paris, 2014.
• Le Chaos syrien, Minorités et printemps arabes face à l'islamisme, [written with Randa Kassis a Syrian-Christian opponent]; Dows éditions, Paris, 2014.

His book^[8] is entitled The Reds, The Browns and the Greens (Communists, Nazis and Islamists) and is based on his PhD research. The book describes the new anti-Western and anti-American totalitarian Axis composed of Islamists, Communists, and neo-Nazis.^[2]

See also

• Persecution of Christians
• Union for a Popular Movement
• The Free Right

References

External links

• Alexandre del Valle – French Official Website (French)
• Alexandre del Valle – French Official Blog (French)
• Alexandre del Valle – Italian Official Website (Italian)
• Interview with Alexandre del Valle about Islamist Totalitarianism
• Debate between Tariq Ramadan and Alexandre del Valle
• Debate at the French Public Television with Gilles Kepel and Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou on Al Qaida