Time to end the ignoble debate on national identity

For several weeks the debate on national identity prompted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been raging in France. The theologian Soheib Bencheikh writes in the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur that it is time the debate was put to rest: "For all reasonable people 'community' and 'identity' have no real existence. They are simply a nominalism used for the sake of linguistic convenience. I have never shaken the hand of the Muslim community, nor have I taken it in my arms. I don't know its address. By the same token I've never met or made my way around a fixed French identity. But what I have experienced is the influence of a Muslim presence, and the dazzling radiance of a French culture made up of a multitude of contributions. Wanting to fix an identity is tantamount to wishing its death. ... Dear Mr Sarkozy and members of the [ruling party] UMP, please let us close the ignoble brackets of this debate."

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