Avenging Jihadists Attack 'Charlie Hebdo' -The iPINIONS Journal

A shooting at the offices of a satirical magazine in Paris has left at least 12 people dead [10 journalists and two policemen]…

Witnesses report that two masked men entered the building with guns and open fired on staff of Charlie Hebdo, a weekly newspaper that had [drawn repeated threats for its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, among other controversial sketches].

The gunmen fled the building [shouting the prophet has been avenged] and are believed to be on the run….

(Al Jazeera, January 7, 2015)

Late reports are that the editor and three celebrated cartoonists are among the dead. The gunmen are still at large; and the police are searching, house-to-house at times, in an increasingly anxious operation to apprehend them….

Like Pavlovian dogs, politicians are all over TV venting feckless expressions of defiance. So too are anti-terror experts offering boilerplate insights about who these gunmen are, what the French government needs to do to find them, and what it needs to do to prevent further attacks.

Never mind that:

It must be understood that no matter their collective resolve, there’s absolutely nothing our governments can do to prevent such attacks. That Americans reacted yesterday as if those explosions went off in Washington or New York should compel Westerners to focus on calming our collective nerves, instead of fretting about (or worse, trying to figure out) the motivation for and timing of terrorist attacks by Islamic fanatics.

(“7/7 Terror Attacks in London,” The iPINIONS Journal, July 8, 2005)

Indeed, what is most notable about saturation media coverage of this attack is the groundhog-day nature of it all. If you didn’t know better, you’d think these politicians and experts were still blathering on about the terrorist attack in Ottawa three months ago.

Meanwhile, raising the terror alert to the highest level and mobilizing troops all over Paris, like coalition forces patrolling Kabul, will offer comfort only to fools.

In fact:

I feel obliged to repeat my wonder that such attacks are so relatively rare. Not to mention my oft-stated and abiding fear that only God will help if/when al-Qaeda deploys not one lone wolf, but packs of wolves to open fire at airports, shopping malls, and/or sports stadiums in the United States (a la Westgate shopping mall in Kenya).

(“Lone-Wolf Gunman Terrorizes LAX,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 5, 2013)

This point bears stressing; not least because reports are that just two former pizza-delivery boys perpetrated this attack. Yet they are commanding 24/7 media coverage worldwide, causing political scrambling from Berlin to Washington, making French police and security forces look like keystone Robocops in (ongoing) hot pursuit, and evoking public grieving reminiscent of 9/11. Again, I shudder to think what feckless, fatalistic spectacle would unfold if/when twenty seasoned terrorists launch ten coordinated attacks at different locations in a major Western city….

That said, I am on record defending freedom of expression – even when that expression offended the sense and sensibilities of Muslim Jihadists.

Here, for example, is an excerpt from “U.S. Grants Asylum to Celebrated Islamic Reformer after Dutch Government Deports Her,” May 17, 2006, which attests to my declared solidarity with two documentary filmmakers who were prepared to die for this cause.

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Anyone who thinks that Europeans have not cowered in the face of intimidation by Islamic extremists needs only consider the unfortunate fate that has now befallen Ayaan Hirsi Ali – Islam’s most progressive voice in Europe.

I wrote two commentaries last year about Hirsi Ali’s daring campaign to expose and reform the misogynistic and provincial tenets of Islam. The most controversial and provocative part of her campaign was a film she wrote and co-produced with iconoclastic Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. That film, Submission, portrays how conservative interpretations of Koranic verses compel Muslim women to submit to the most demeaning and abusive treatment – all to show appropriate obedience and devotion to the men in their lives, as well as absolute faith to Islam.

It did not matter that Hirsi Ali’s film presented a wholly accurate depiction of the scars (to bodies and minds) that conservative Islamic practices inflict on Muslim women. Many of them are forced to wear chadors. But, arguably, these are designed more to hide the scars men inflict than to preserve their modesty. Immediately upon their film’s release, Muslim clerics in the putatively liberal and progressive Netherlands issued a fatwa (decree of death) against her and van Gogh. Within short order, van Gogh was found dead in the streets of Amsterdam with a note stabbed in his chest warning Hirsi Ali that she was next….

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By the way, I have the virtual scars from the Muslim fanatics who duly trolled me….

With my advocacy for the cause of freedom of expression thusly established, I feel constrained to make this critical distinction:

It’s one thing to expose human rights and other abuses, which even so-called moderate Muslims commit in the name of Islam. This is what Hirsi Ali did with her critically acclaimed film, Submission. It’s quite another to willfully insult Muslims with caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. This is what Charlie Hebdo did with their incendiary cartoons.

Put another way, I doubt so many people would be standing in solidarity with these cartoonists if they were propagating racist caricatures of Blacks—complete with liberal use of the word “nigger” in speech bubbles; or, perhaps more relevant to Europeans, if they were propagating anti-Semitic caricatures of Jews—complete with hooked noses sniffing for financial schemes.

In fact, regarding the latter, a respected German daily newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, provoked public outrage last year with a cartoon of Facebook Founder Mark Zukerberg:

…drawn in the style of the worst anti-Semitic caricatures: adorned with a greedy fish-lipped mouth and a long hooked nose under a hat emblazoned with Facebook’s logo and a fringe of Zuckerbergian curls.

(Tablet Magazine, February 24, 2014)

Sustained and widespread protests forced that newspaper to apologize and delete the cartoon. Charlie Hebdo did neither, adding fuel to the restive fire of disenfranchised, disillusioned, and disaffected Muslims across Europe.

Therefore, those declaring unqualified solidarity with the cartoonists in this case might want to consider how liable they are to charges of brazen hypocrisy. This applies especially to student activists – who are enforcing politically correct litmus tests on guest speakers at their respective campuses.

Freedom of expression gives one the right to offend. But prevailing standards of decency and respect have always put generally accepted limits on that right.

Apropos of which, I am also on record declaring solidarity with the American Indians. They, of course, are every bit as offended by an NFL team using the image of an Indian chief and the nickname “Redskins” in its logo, as Muslims are by a newspaper using the image of the Prophet Mohammed in its cartoons.

In point of fact, the editor of the newspaper at issue displayed even more wanton disregard for the sense and sensibilities of Muslims than the owner of that NFL team continues to display for the sense and sensibilities of Indians. Mind you, if Indians were still as inclined to scalp heads as Muslims are to chop them off, the owner of that NFL team would’ve stopped using his offensive logo long ago. But I jest/digress….

As it happens, I warned it would be thus. Here, for example, is a foreboding excerpt from “Caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad Incite Fiery Rage, Part II,” February 6, 2006.

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Muslims in Asia joined the protests, which spread like wildfire throughout the Middle East last week after European newspapers published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad by Danish cartoonists. Unfortunately, most Europeans seem as dumfounded by their grievance as the French were about the grievances that ignited a fiery rampage amongst Muslim youths three months ago.

I can understand how centuries of cultural arrogance made the French ignorant of (indeed inured to) simmering rage amongst disenfranchised, disillusioned, and disaffected Muslim youths. I can even understand how a gaggle of 12 cartoonists thought they had creative license to perpetrate this religious insult. I find it utterly deplorable, however, that European editors published these caricatures knowing full well that Muslims would consider them a desecration of their religion.

This was a callous, pernicious and blasphemous provocation – made all the more craven by the specious justification that it was done in the spirit of freedom of the press.

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This is why I’m eschewing the virtual activism now going viral under the banner, #Je Suis Charlie. Those participating in this viral campaign appear too busy to be concerned about Boko Haram terrorists slaughtering another 100 innocents in Nigeria today. Never mind that, this slaughter, to say nothing of the continued kidnapping of schoolgirls, constitutes a defiant response to the virtual activism against their unconscionable acts of terror, which went viral nine months ago under the banner, #Bringbackourgirls.

Of course, I suspect that ninety percent of the twits who tweeted in solidarity with those kidnapped girls had never heard of Boko Haram and had no clue about the full extent of its reign of terror. In a similar vein, I suspect that ninety percent of those tweeting in solidarity with these murdered cartoonists have never heard of Charlie Hebdo and have no clue about the truly offensive nature of its cartoons, which seem more about hate speech than free speech.

There’s no denying, though, that this attack will have a galvanizing effect on anti-Muslim sentiments that are becoming epidemic across Europe. And so onward we march towards The Clash of Civilizations Samuel Huntington warned about….

But I shall end here with two prevailing points:

No amount of religious or cultural offense can ever justify the kind of jihadi justice meted out against Charlie Hebdo and its staff today – no matter how repugnant, or indeed sacrilege, their offense.
No amount of rhetoric or security measures can ever protect us from the wrath of fanatics who are hell-bent on acting out in this way to avenge grievances (real or perceived). We are all sitting ducks; and, far from ensuring safety, mobilizing tens of thousands of troops all over major cities just smacks of the kind of chest-thumping performance spectacle normally associated with totalitarian regimes.

Accordingly, my thoughts and prayers go out to the loved ones of those killed and injured in today’s terrorist attack in Paris. I am all too mindful though that: