RUTHFULLY YOURS

People have, it seems, often been arrested or detained on the basis of a rumor; then convicted without trial, counsel or often even the chance to mount a defense.

As Amnesty International points out, “In many countries where people were sentenced to death or executed, the proceedings did not meet international fair trial standards. In some cases, this included the extraction of ‘confessions’ through torture or other ill-treatment”.

The laws under which these people are sentenced to death are often not only vague and open to interpretation. Charges that warrant the death penalty, for instance, include being “corrupt on earth”, “enemies of Allah on Earth”, or alleged “crimes against chastity”. What exactly does “corrupt on earth” or “enemies of Allah on Earth” mean?

Just how strict and brutal it is to enforce Islamic law, sharia, has now been revealed by Amnesty International.

Amnesty’s study, which details the number of reported executions around the world, clearly maps out the most at-risk populations. Lands ruled predominantly by sharia are apparently the most vulnerable to multitudes of executions without fair trials. At the top of the list, with the most executions, are those nations that enforce Islamic sharia law. Despite many human rights violations, these nations, apparently undeterred, continue to execute their citizens.

Sharia makes those in authority infallible and untouchable. Therefore, whatever the government or those in power deem to be “just” can be carried out without question or consequence. Under sharia law and the Islamic penal code, executions can be carried out in sickening forms. Those convicted may be beheaded, hanged, stoned, or shot to death.

As disturbing as the numbers in the report may be, they do not represent the reality that the citizens in these nations across the world face every day. There is, evidently, a connection between radical Islamist governments and extremist groups. The report does not include the gruesome executions that are carried out on a regular basis by extremist Islamist groups and non-state fundamentalists, such as members of the Islamic State (ISIS) and their affiliated groups.

The outcome of yesterday’s French presidential election is easily explained. In the qualifying round two weeks ago, Emmanuel Macron defeated all the other non–Front National candidates in the competition to be least like Marine Le Pen. And because he was obviously much less like Marine Le Pen than Marine Le Pen herself in yesterday’s final round, he defeated her by roughly two to one.

Indeed, it is looking as if Le Pen underperformed even the low expectations of those who thought she would lose, getting only 34 percent when some observers expected her to break the 40 percent barrier. Michael Barone points out that she lost la France profonde as well as Paris to Macron, winning just two regions outright, and doing relatively well only in areas hit by recession or by high Muslim migration.

Though its size is remarkable, however, Le Pen’s defeat is the opposite of a surprise. It’s long been clear that most French voters would not support Le Pen or the National Front at any price. Earlier polls had shown that every other presidential candidate would defeat her in a run-off. The entire French establishment and all the other parties called for her to be crushed. And she suffered from the standard bias of the media and political elites that the most extravagant charges can be leveled against “right-wing” politicians with no need for evidence or penalty for error.

That said, there were surprises buried — and not far down — in the statistics. No fewer than 12 million voters cast “spoiled” ballots when confronted with these two candidates (some writing rude remarks on the ballot paper, I regret to tell you). If you count those abstentions as votes, they mean that though Macron won two-thirds of the Macron–Le Pen total, he won less than 50 percent of all who went to the polls either to vote or to protest. Other Macron supporters told pollsters they had voted against Le Pen rather than for Macron. And since turnout itself was slightly lower than usual in presidential elections, everything suggests a very high level of disaffection among French voters.

It contrasts oddly with the unqualified expressions of euphoria among European and national leaders welcoming a historic victory for France and Europe with “Ode to Joy” as their anthem. All that seems a little unreal. Indeed, before a single vote had been cast, observers such as Charlie Cooke and Christopher Caldwell pointed to the curious likelihood that a country moving right was about to elect a leftist president and that a nation angry with both the governing Socialists and the establishment was about to choose an énarque graduate of an establishment training ground who was in the Socialist government until yesterday to govern it.

Now it’s happened. So it inevitably seems less odd. But common sense suggests that some serious clashes are about to erupt between Macron’s ideas and political realities and between some of the different ideas wrestling inside for mastery of his mind. He is, for instance, a passionate Europhile who wants to relaunch the European Union. His commitment to the euro goes to the extent of wanting a fiscal government with a single finance minister for the eurozone that would then become a transfer union with “mutualization” of debts. Germany will like almost all of this because it promises to impose fiscal discipline upon otherwise unruly eurozone countries. But the Germans are determined to avert the threat of a transfer union with debt mutualization, which, as they see it, would amount to giving Greece and Italy the keys to the German treasury at the very moment that the U.K. will have opted out of subsidizing Europe in any way. Expect communiqués written in vanishing ink.

Macron is also talking up his intention to reform the over-regulated French economy and dash for prosperity. We’ve heard these plans before — in particular from Jacques Chirac (in his first presidency) and Nicolas Sarkozy. But they were very soon abandoned. They inevitably bump into obstacles such as the labor unions, the entrenched belief in the “French social model,” and not least the chains of an overvalued exchange rate, today’s euro, that makes French industry uncompetitive (and German industry highly competitive).

A restructuring of the euro (probably into a northern and southern one) would seem to be the practical solution to France’s and Europe’s problems here. But Macron is viscerally opposed to that particular reform, and so is Germany. Worse, if the euro were divided, France would probably be compelled by its sense of prestige to remain in the northern euro when its economic interests plainly indicate that it seek the relief and greater competitiveness of a southern euro. All in all, the prospects for Macron’s “pro-market” reforms — which explain why some conservatives and classical liberals support him — look distinctly gloomy. But it was Europhiliac French bureaucrats who designed the euro to be a house with no exits.

Macron must be considered an apprentice Man of Destiny—one facing difficulties as harsh and complex as those facing more experienced such figures as de Gaulle and Napoleon.

That brings us to perhaps the most fateful of Macron’s instincts on policy: his passionate multiculturalism, his post-nationalism, his hostility to “Islamophobia,” and his belief in a liberal migration policy or, in the jargon, “an open society.” He seems to believe in the limitless capacity of France to absorb more migrants and more cultures in a common multiculturalism even to the extreme of saying, “There is no such thing as French culture.” Yet France is at present divided bitterly between the native-born and migrants, facing another surge of lawless migration from the Mediterranean, and disturbed by near-constant acts of murder and terrorism. It is not yet in a state of civil war, but scores of automobiles are burned every night in the major cities, the spread of “no-go areas” continues steadily, and the imposition of Muslim rules on both Muslims and others living in these areas becomes increasingly oppressive. It is hard to see how all this can go right, especially if Macron’s economic reforms don’t produce the prosperity on which any social easement will depend.