Irrelevant and Arbitrary Criteria for Denouncing Dérives Sectaires

Irrelevant and Arbitrary Criteria for Denouncing Dérives Sectaires

by CICNS

The “criteria of dérives sectaires” allow the MIVILUDES to transform into a “cult”, in the pejorative sense of the term, any group whose reputation it wishes to tarnish. The abusive and arbitrary use of these criteria deserves reflection. On 11 December 2008, Georges Fenech visited a community in the Jura named “Amour et Miséricorde”, following a citizen’s request for judicial appeal, dissatisfied with the dismissal pronounced after an investigation into this community. The president of the MIVILUDES concluded that there exists in this group “a process of hold over its members, of rupture with the family and social environment and of financial pressures” (AFP, 17 December 2008). The members of the group denied these accusations (Bien Public) but decided, following the media uproar accompanied by the MIVILUDES (G. Fenech, for example, mentioned his visit and his conclusions on the France 2 programme “les Infiltrés”), to dissolve their community before the end of the judicial action (Plein Air). This affair shows once again that the mediatised use of these contested criteria tramples on the presumption of innocence and hinders the serene application of justice, the only institution empowered to sanction disturbances of public order.

Thirty years of anti-cult struggle in France have transformed the members of spiritual minorities into characters more fictitious than imaginary ones. Nothing is known of these citizens, who are nevertheless heavily mediatised, but always for the prosecution and at a “distance”; in a climate of maintained psychosis, they can easily be transformed into scarecrows, so much easier is it to imagine the worst about men and women who so rarely have the floor. The MIVILUDES, helped in this by the media, maintains this ostracisation, first by deliberately keeping away from any approach of getting to know the spiritual minorities (they are thus rendered invisible as human groups pursuing legitimate life objectives around a belief or a practice) and by manufacturing the concept of dérives sectaires.

On 8 June 2008, France 24 broadcast a long report from a Buddhist monastery in Auvergne, whose members were just emerging from a retreat of three years, three months and three days: ”(…) a moving return to the world (…) a unique experience of voluntary confinement in the greatest austerity with 12 hours of daily meditation”, comments the presenter introducing the item. The journalist on the spot continues: ”(…) Heads shaved and smiles on their lips, these men are emerging from a long retreat of more than a thousand days; most are French, but there are also Germans, Belgians and Swiss; the retreatants are reunited with their loved ones; this moment is intimate, our presence is barely tolerated; during their stay, the retreatants were followed by lamas, spiritual guides like Lama Landrup; Lama Landrup was the only link they had with the outside; inside, no radio or television; the news of the world, like the route of the Olympic flame, must not come to distract them”. At the moment of their emergence, auspicious signs are traced on the ground. A flashback shows us the novices before their entry into retreat. Some express their apprehension. The journalist reports the reaction of parents who struggle to accept the retreat choice of their two sons: “[they] had great difficulty accepting their choices; for the family, being in retreat can lead nowhere professionally, and monk is not a career”. A monk comments on the reactions of his circle: “people who don’t know, they are in their fears, so we are there to reassure them, to make them see that we are really happy doing this, that it really comes from us”. Other parents testify positively to this experience, which is also theirs. Throughout the report, the journalist shows respect and interest for all these people who have chosen an unusual path: “I had no preconceptions; they struck me as people who really had their feet on the ground, their head in the stars, perhaps a little more than others because they were drawn by all this Eastern philosophy and by Buddhism, but a very good impression”.

Let us now imagine an analogous item on a spiritual minority classified as a “cult”; would the journalist have shown the same curiosity and the same openness of mind? Assuredly not. Several criteria of dérives sectaires would be applicable to this Buddhist congregation, but it enjoys religious status and attracts an a priori benevolence, one reason for which is, for example, the well-known and emblematic figure of the Dalai Lama. Their members are considered persons endowed with free will even when they decide to isolate themselves from the world for several years. The members of spiritual minorities, for their part, are considered a priori as manipulators or manipulated, and nobody has the chance to see them testify in the media, which unanimously choose to give the floor only to apostates.

In our democratic and secular society, the best means of treating the question of excesses from now on consists in establishing a respectful and permanent dialogue between the parties concerned, within the framework of the law. Going out to meet people makes it possible to understand them while accepting differences. There exists no valid reason, on the part of the public authorities and the media, to refuse this treatment to the spiritual minorities.