Je Suis Charlie

On the 7^th January, the world was shocked by the dreadful slaughter of 10 journalists and 2 police officers at the offices of the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in the centre of Paris by two brothers who were Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. This was followed up by the killing of another Parisien police officer on Thursday in a copycat attack. Events came to a head two days after the initial attack when the three terrorists were shot by French police in two separate showdowns.

The motive behind the attack on the magazine was because they published the infamous cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad that had originally been penned by a Danish cartoonist in 2005 and also a 2011 front cover featuring the prophet with the magazine’s title overwritten with the words ‘Charia Hebdo’. Satire is the branch of comedy that gives an exaggerated view of the truth, as if walking through a hall of mirrors. It is best to be viewed as tongue-in-cheek rather than being taken too seriously. Charlie Hebdo is designed to appeal to the far Left and usually only sells around 60,000 copies per week, meaning that it was on the fringes of serious debate.

There was a prelude to the French attacks in the shape of the protests that occurred in many Muslim dominated countries following the original Danish cartoon controversy a decade earlier. Denmark only ever seems to appear on the international news whenever there is a survey on countries with the highest level of living standards and the cartoons hardly registered on the global media radar.  It is likely that the cartoons of Muhammad would’ve been in the archives of media history in the section marked ‘Who Cares?’ had there not been a dramatic overreaction, leading to the publications being given a level of cult status that was barely deserved.

Whenever Islamist terrorism occurs, the media always brings out prominent Muslims who are both respected in their own faith and society in general. The narrative is usually one where the attack is condemned and condolences offered to the families affected. This will be followed by a disclaimer that such activity is not part of Islam and the terrorists are not true Muslims. A caveat about differences over foreign policy is commonplace in their rebuttal of terrorist actions though there is no universal endorsement of Western foreign policy on the War on Terror with other faiths. An example was the protest marches against the Iraq War in London which saw around 2 million people take to the streets which uniting people from all faith groups and political persuasions. It is estimated that at least a million copies of Charlie Hebdo were published in the week after the attack.

According to census data in 2011, there are over 2.7 million Muslims in the UK, almost 4.5% of the population. No one can dispute the sincerity of the horror of the Islamic community when fundamentalists commit atrocities, but the uncomfortable truth is that these attacks occur in the name of Muhammad and the terrorists are giving praise to Allah. There is barely a week goes by without an image of Jesus or God being published, indeed the UK satire magazine, Private Eye, published a spoof of the Nativity though this passed without any controversy and reports of Militant Methodists marching to Westminster.

The time has come for moderate Islam to isolate the terrorists from an ideological point of view. There was some recent precedent for this type of action when a group of Imams made video appeals directly to ISIS terrorists for the release of Alan Henning, some of whom pointed out texts from the Koran to justify why he should have been released.  Ultimately, there was no happy ending in the Henning story but moderate Islam must be seen to deal with the extremist elements that are adding poison to their religion. It is important that they explain what Muhammad stood for and how he would’ve reacted to terrorism. One of the core principles of democracy is to have freedom of speech and the Voltaire mantra, “I don’t agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it”, has allowed a diverse media that covers the whole political spectrum rather than just being the public relations arm of the government.

One possibility for Islam to cut off extremism at its source is Mosques assigning mentors to teenagers. These mentors should be responsible, professional young men in their late 20’s or early 30’s who are young enough to understand modern society but old enough to have experience of life and enough gravitas to be respected by the younger generation.  This would be a quick and easy system to administer. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, caused controversy by suggesting that many jihadists are usually young men rejected by women who lack self-esteem and feel like losers. Unlike some of his proclamations, Johnson’s thesis on the typical jihadist profile is not too far from reality and calls to attention the need to catch potential troublemakers before they are radicalised.

Since the attacks in France, there has been other high profile Islamist atrocities such as the Jordanian air force pilot burned alive and the death of American hostage Kayla Mueller. Islamic State have also brutally slaughtered 21 Coptic Christians of Egyptian origin who were working in Lybia. There has also been a gunman in Denmark who shot a film director at a freedom of speech debate and a guard at a Synagogue which has been likened to a copycat attack to the Charlie Hebdo atrocity. Formal details of the Danish born gunman have not emerged at the time of writing but the mood music from Copenhagen has hinted that he may have been inspired by Islamic State and are investigating if he had travelled to Syria or Iraq.

Islam has a big job ahead in rooting out extremism but everyday Muslims must divorce themselves from those that commit terror in the name of their prophet and god. The foreign policy argument can only be seen as a flag of convenience as Jihadists by their nature would find another reason to inflict atrocities if the War on Terror hadn’t happened. The only thing that the terrorists in France achieved was to make martyrs out of a group of journalists affiliated to a magazine on the fringes of the political debate. Terrorists will no doubt take more cheap shots in the future but they will never take away the freedom that was bought over two world wars or the right to freedom of speech. For this reason, we can say je suis Charlie.