Je Suis Charlie
http://chersonandmolschky.com/2015/01/07/je-suis-charlie/
By: Rachel Molschky
Freedom of speech was attacked in Paris on Wednesday. It was attacked in the form of 12 dead bodies, and the attack came from one source and one source only- Islam. Now the world has come together to show solidarity with the victims and to defend the right to speak our mind.
Tens of thousands gathered in Paris Wednesday night, holding signs, “Je Suis Charlie” and “Not Afraid,” chanting “Charlie” and “Liberté” and holding up pens to symbolize the right to free speech. Thousands more gathered in cities across the world in support of the French as well as the victims, knowing full well that France is not the only target of jihadists.
ISIS has beheaded American and British journalists, and not long ago ISIS called on its followers to kill disbelieving Americans, Canadians, Australians and Europeans- “especially the spiteful and filthy French.” And Charlie Hebdo editor and cartoonist, Stephane Charbonnier, who was murdered in the attack, was on Al Qaeda’s most wanted list.
This was by far not an isolated attack on free speech by Muhammad’s followers. Muslims have called for blasphemy laws, in 2005-2006, after the Muhammad cartoons were published, after the “Innocence of Muslims” film came out and after anytime Islam is criticized. Islam is the religion whose adherents are so thin-skinned, that any and all criticism of the prophet Muhammad is met with violence.
That violence was realized once again at the offices of a French satirical magazine whose cartoonists were not afraid of that “blasphemy” or the threat of violence from angry Muslims.
After the magazine published a special edition entitled “The Life of Muhammad,” filled with Charbonnier’s work, enraging the Muslim community, the cartoonist dismissed the death threats, saying that “I’m more likely to get run over by a bicycle in Paris than get assassinated.”
Unfortunately, the odds were not in his favor.
Defiant against those who attempted to curb his freedom of speech, Charbonnier refused to tip-toe around Islam. “If we can poke fun at everything in France, if we can talk about anything in France apart from Islam or the consequences of Islamism, that is annoying,” he once said.
In fact, no one was immune from criticism in the pages of Charlie Hebdo, including Jews and Catholics.
This attack was ruthless, and no one can debate the immorality of it, though Muslims on social media celebrated this “feat,” and politicians and journalists were careful to say there was no justification for violence, all the while justifying it by questioning the magazine’s decisions on what it publishes.
A multitude of world leaders, including President Obama, condemned the attack. Two years earlier, however, Obama said that “the future does not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” Now he and his camp formulated the official condemnation in a deliberate effort to distance the violence from Islam and to, as usual, minimize the amount of these “radicals” to just a few, as if there are a few crazies running around, nothing more.
Even Senate Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell while on Fox News, called the terror attack the result of a “perverted” version of Islam, even as he said that we should not be politically correct and we need to call these types of attacks what they are.
If the radicals are “perverting” true Islam, and there are only a few of them, those few are quite effective. Since 9/11, that handful of crazies (a.k.a. “mentally ill”) has committed nearly 25,000 acts of terror in the name of their religion. Hundreds die each week, and thousands die each month as a result. Those few crazy extremists are killing a few too many people.
Of course there is no perversion of anything when Quranic verses call for the killing of the unbelievers, and the hypocrisy in these attacks and calls for blasphemy laws are astounding.
Anti-Semitic cartoons are commonplace in the Muslim world, yet the Jewish response takes on the form of mere complaining, while Muslims often turn to violence and murder when their religion is in question. And what could be more hypocritical than drawing cartoons to mock a people and/or religion while not allowing others to return the favor?
This hypocrisy comes from a culture where hate and violence often prevail over the freedoms we try to enjoy in the West, freedoms gradually being taken away if they are deemed offensive to the one group of immigrants of which far too many refuse to assimilate. Instead, we are asked to assimilate to them, an expectation leading to the unfortunate consequence of a constant struggle, a clash of cultures, in certain cases, culminating in violence.
The final Charlie Hebdo tweet before the attack.
One example in addition to the social media toasts? Writes John-Thor Dahlburg for the Associated Press, “As news of the killings in Paris reached the Middle East, celebratory gunfire was reported in a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon.”
Is it any wonder? Palestinians, remember, were caught on camera celebrating the 9/11 attacks and celebrate every time Jews are murdered by Arabs. They take their cue from Palestinian leaders who praise the killers of Jewish babies, teenagers, Holocaust survivors, Rabbis, anyone.
Jews in Israel are not the only ones Muslims are after. Jews in France have been targeted by the Muslim immigrants for many years now, but things are getting worse with the number of those leaving and making Aliyah to Israel increasing each year.
Roger Cukierman, the President of French Jewish communal organization CRIF, described the Paris attack as an “awful attack on French democracy,” warning that the sense of insecurity among French Jews will increase as a result, reports Algemeiner.
“This is a fight the Islamists are fighting all over the world – from Syria to Iraq, from Mali to Gaza, and now to Paris,” Cukierman continued. “The Islamists want to impose shari’a law on the rest of the world. We have to understand that this is a matter of life or death for western democracies.”
Israel battles Muslim terrorism on a daily basis, and as a result, unlike Western leaders, in his condemnation of the Charlie Hebdo attack, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu did not shy away from uttering those forbidden words of “Islamic terror”:
“Radical Islamist terror does not know borders, and therefore the struggle against it must be cross-border…”
“I was standing UN podium a few months
ago and I said that if Hamas terrorism, Hezbollah terrorism, ISIS and
al-Qaeda terrorism does not stop here and now, it would spread all over
the world,” he said, adding that “if we do not fight it consistently,
with unity and determination, the horrible acts we saw today in Paris
will not be the last or the worst.”
“The purpose of Islamic terrorism is not
an agreement, is not based on borders, and is not based on Israel – not
mainly Israel and not even first and foremost Israel,” he continued.
“The main goal of Islamic terrorism is to destroy societies, and
countries, to stamp out human civilizations based on freedom and the
culture of choice, and to impose in its place a fanatical dictatorship
which returns humanity to another era.”
“Therefore, free societies and all
civilized people must unite and fight this terrorism,” he urged. “To
fight it means both physically and against false arguments, and to no
way accept their justifications for their motives. Above all, we must
support each other on the same cohesive and assertive front [against
it].”
This is not the time to dance. With the attacks becoming more prevalent, it is time to get serious, recognize the problem and address the elephant in the room. It is not “radical Islam.” Islam is radical, and this violence is not acceptable.
To paraphrase the cynical comedian and political commentator Dennis Miller, there are none so blind as those who cannot hear gunfire ricocheting down the hallway.
Let’s not be so blind. Or deaf.
Related Reading:
12 Dead in Paris Terror Attack
France: Revolutionary Treatment for Muslim ‘Mental Illness’
The Support for Sharia Law Around the World
Islam Hasn’t Changed: We Have
The Hypocrisy of Anti-Blasphemy Laws
BBC, ‘Free Speech’ and Islam: A Potent Mix
The “Hate Speech Police” Strike Again: Aussie Radio Personality Dumped
Islam: Silencing Its Critics with Violence
Swedish Politician Fined for ‘Hate Speech’ Against Islam
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment