(Toulouse) Judges in
France are set to rule on whether a family in southern France can call their
child “Jihad”. The mayor’s office in the city of Toulouse referred the parents
to prosecutors after they registered the child in August, which could lead to a
family judge ordering them to change the child’s name. Whilst French families
are free to choose first names –until 1993 they had to pick from an approved
list – but local authorities can still refer parents to prosecutors if their
choices are seen as damaging for the child.
The thing is, in naming their child after a state of war,
these parents are simply sticking two fingers up at the West in a much more
subtle form of holy war. Which kind of explains how last year in the city of Nice a family was referred to the authorities after they gave their son
the same name as Mohamed Merah, the gunman who in 2012 killed seven people, including
three Jewish schoolchildren. In 2013, a French mother from Nimes made the headlines after she sent her son, named Jihad, to school wearing a T-shirt that
read “I am a bomb” and “Jihad, born on September 11.”
To the faithful walking down the path of Jihad can be
carried out physiologically as well as physically.
