Up shagging the corpse. Again.

For various reasons, including personal ones, I debated writing this piece, but ultimately decided to give it a go primarily as a means of my own amusement.

So, Michel Houellebecq, the so-called enfant terrible of contemporary French literature, quite an ageing kid, I must say. Polarising, controversial figure, I am not denying that. But I am not interested in the slightest in his personality. If anything, I couldn’t care less for the guy.

Today I am writing about one of his later novels, ‘Submission’, which I have recently had the pleasure of having a read. I have to admit, the guy has some literary prowess, he doesn’t live for spite and belch alone; if anything, his novels depict themes of atomisation of society and the search for real relationships in the post-industrial France, with varying degrees of success (‘The Elementary Particles’, and ‘The Map and the Territory’ are surprisingly good, whilst ‘The Possibility of an Island’ is tedious, and ‘Submission’ is sort of okayish).

‘Submission’ picks up from ‘The Possibility of an Island’, which saw people uniting over a cult, and double-downs on the idea of societal unity: here we have a middle-aged literature professor François, your average insecure asshole, one of the two types of protagonists in Houellebecq (the other is the detached guy two steps away from blowing his brains out), observing general elections where a candidate from the Muslim party eventually wins the elections, whilst the party in a broad coalition with the Socialists, forms the government. In the meantime, the university, now defunct Sorbonne Paris IV, where he teaches, becomes privatised by the UAE, prompting changes to the faculty and the curriculum, the biggest of which is now that only Muslims are allowed to teach there.

To be honest, both the plot and the main character’s tribulations don’t concern me in the slightest. What I want to talk about is the sensibility with which Houellebecq presents his ideas. Underneath it all, racism, sexism, Islamophobia, and other stuff hides a simple one-word notion: imperialism. Scepticism of gender equality, of women’s rights, of liberalism, is directly tied to the current atomisation and the polarisation of the French people, to the disillusionment in their own country, and to the mourning over the loss of the imperial status France used to have. People are divided more than ever, and state politics can’t bring them together any more, for, as one of the characters mentions, ‘patriotism became a slander since Verdun’.

From that perspective, Islam becomes just a means of uniting people over religion, again, just like it used to be with Christianity, with the difference being that Islam is more deeply connected with the field of law and politics. It becomes especially apparent when one character speaks about how the Koran is all about the declamation of the sacred text becomes apparent: to be a good ulama is to deliver the message persuasively.

But this notion of imperialism goes deeper in history: it’s an ancient European obsession over the Third Rome, a new empire worthy of the Roman one. As the story goes, and more European countries become Islamic, the current president of France suggests moving headquarters to Rome and Athens, whilst also preparing the inclusion of Tunisia, Algeria, and later Egypt. All within the borders of the old Rome. This is nothing but the white male’s wet dream, or so Moses supposes. What previous empires were unable to achieve, what Fascist Italy poorly mimicked, now is to be attempted to achieve with the help of Islam. 

Which leads to my four points exactly.

One thing about it is, of course, complete disregard for what women have to say. I guess, they just would have to be sacrificed again. Not like this is the first time men do that to women. But, don't you worry, women, because minorities would get screwed as well. Yup, again. They ought to be familiar with it by now, they know the drill.

Second is the regression that is followed by it. The dismantlement of not only large corporations, but also of heavy and complex industries, of educational standards. Forget about planes, microchips, complex surgeries, and the space program. Everyone is dumbed down, but now able to open the bakery. Nothing but respect for the bakers, though.

Three is — of course, polygamy, which exists solely to reassure those ageing insecure professors that they are still relevant, that they could be loved despite being pieces of shit, that they are still attractive to women, especially those under the age of consent. It’s obviously catered to the old pricks with fractured egos. Do I even have to stop here?

Four, and this is my last and most personal point: in ‘Submission’ one can see the classic Western European complete blatant disregard over the other parts of it. That snobbish sense of superiority which could be found anywhere: even Tomas Mann in ‘The Magic Mountain’ has a character, Lodovico Settembrini, who supports his notion with him saying that Germany is the last bastion of democracy before the East, albeit both the protagonist and the narrator are more ironic about this sentiment.

As a character in ‘Submission’ remarks that if even France and Germany succumb to the decline of democracy, what is it to say about the rest of Europe? The world, as depicted by Houellebecq, is the one where there is nothing between Germany and Russia, where Northern Europe’s opinions are inferior, where only the empires and their former colonies exist. It is nothing but the self-assured arrogance of the indeed more developed society that makes them callous and blind. And Orientalist towards their fellow Europeans, as mind-boggling it is.

People like François want a restoration of the Roman Empire so badly, ultimately, because they are afraid of being irrelevant. That other countries would not grow stale, and their societies will be able to remain united in the modern world, negating the experiences of people like François, of countries like France. Imagine how it would feel for their fractured egos to be called insignificant, to be replaced?

And so they shag the corpse again. Fruitlessly.

Such is ‘Submission’. Offcuts of Western Europe’s imperialism, in a Muslim wrapper.