---I do not wish to make a commentary on the root causes of the attack or the underlying problems of Islamic fundamentalism. Any fair-minded person knows that we cannot hold Islam or Muslims responsible for these attacks; we can hold the attackers responsible for the attacks. These people, and their supporters, are a fraction of a fraction of a religion with 1.7 billion adherents. How many differing views are there in America? Islam has a population of over 5 Americas. We should work together, with Muslims, to help moderate those extremist elements and work together to provide an alternative to those who feel there is none. Placing collective blame is foolish and wrong. Let us not forget that those who suffer most from Islamic fundamentalism are Muslims.---
I was not surprised when I heard the news of the attacks in Paris, nor was I surprised to hear that Charlie Hebdo had been targeted. Charlie Hebdo had been targeted in the past, firebombed in 2011 after releasing an issue that was "guest-edited" by Muhammad. The cover of the issue displayed the name of the magazine as "Charia (Sharia) Hebdo" and showed a cartoon of the prophet, with the words "100 lashes if you don't die of laughter!." In 2012, following the release of the YouTube video, "Innocence of Muslims," the magazine released more cartoon depictions of Muhammad. One of the cartoons depicts Muhammad naked, being filmed from behind while laying on a bed with the caption, "My ass? And you love it, my ass?." France shuttered its embassies, consulates, cultural centers, and schools in 20 countries as a result. Charb, the magazine's editor (who was killed in the attack), was dismissive. "A drawing has never killed anyone," he said. If only.
This sort of violence as well as threatened violence is not new and did not start with Charlie Hebdo. In 1989, Salman Rushdie was forced to go into hiding after a fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran called for his death following the release of his book, The Satanic Verses. A Japanese translator was killed in 1991, while Italian and Norwegian publishers would both survive assassination attempts. In 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was murdered on a busy street in Amsterdam following the release of his, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali's movie, “Submission,” which was harshly critical of the treatment of women in Islamic society. Danish cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, and Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks, have both been threatened, and attacked, after drawing cartoons depicting Muhammad. In 2010, Molly Norris, a cartoonist from Seattle, helped to create "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day!" before distancing herself from the project. No matter. Radical Yemeni cleric, Anwar Al-Awlaki, placed her on an execution list, forcing her into hiding. She remains in hiding today.
There are a few important points to make generally about Charlie Hebdo. Before the attack, most people had never even heard of Charlie Hebdo. Its circulation was just 60,000. That's less than Atlanta Magazine (which you've probably never heard of). This was a magazine that had struggled to fund itself. Its rival, Le Canard Enchaine, has a circulation over 10 times as large. Outside of France, and especially here in the United States, you'd be unlikely to find very many loyal Charlie Hebdo readers, if any at all. This was a magazine that you had to look for in order to find. And yet, the feeling you would get from reading the reaction to the shooting was that it was far bigger and more prominent, and that Islam was its main target. If there ever was a "focus" of the magazine, it was most certainly was not Islam, but rather the far-right and the National Front party in particular. The magazine has been publishing since 1970, and including its hiatus in the 1980s, as a weekly magazine, it has published somewhere around 1,800 issues. How many issues have caused controversy as a result of their depictions of Islam or of the prophet Muhammad? Maybe a half-dozen? How could this satirical magazine possibly target Muslims when it supposedly targeted Muslims on just 1/3 of 1% of all their issues? As Charb said in 2012, "We do provocation; its been 20 years since we've been doing provocation, and it's being noticed only when we talked about Islam or this part of Islam which raises problems and which is a minority?"
------------------------=------------------------=-----------------=----------------------=---------------
The attacks are shocking and the outrage has been widespread. Condemnations have come from every corner of the Earth. A huge march occurred in Paris, and thousands of others have marched in solidarity across Europe. But the marches have focused, in large part, on the heinous killings at the offices of Charlie Hebdo. The slaughter at the Kosher supermarket, however, seems to have been overlooked. As Philip Gourevitch wrote for the New Yorker,"The attack on the press shocked the conscience of France and of the world. The attack on the Jews, not so much."
This is a topic I'm familiar with. I've written about it previously and have followed the subject for a few years. When I spent the summer of 2013 in Italy, I made an effort to look at Jewish life in Europe, now seven decades after World War 2. In Italy, there are only remnants of the Jewish community; maybe thirty thousand Jews in the country, half of whom are in Rome. In Torino, where I lived, there are around 1,000 Jews in a city with a population of around one million. Yet, even with its small and barely visible Jewish community, the precautions taken to protect Jewish institutions is staggering. The synagogue in Torino sits in a plaza protected by metal safety bollards, encircled by a fence with pointed tips, and watched over by armed soldiers, who sit in an army-camouflaged vehicle. When I went there for services on a Saturday morning, I had to go through a security check similar to that of an airport. Now think about the fact that there are about 10 times as many Jews in Paris than in all of Italy.
I visited Paris in the Spring of 2010. I visited the major Jewish sites, including the famous Rue Des Rosiers, and the magnificent Grand Synagogue. The shops on Rue Des Rosiers would be closed due to the attacks, while the Grand Synagogue was reportedly shuttered for Shabbat services for the first time since World War 2. I remember going to the Holocaust Memorial in Paris, tucked neatly in a residential area, and having to pass through what felt like a fortress of security. It's symbolic of 2015 France, and a cruel irony, that a museum, who's goal it is to publicize the Holocaust has to make sure it doesn't publicize itself. But what I remember most vividly is the comments of an old camp friend, who I stayed with and who spoke despondently about anti-Semitism and the future of Jews in France. This was in 2010. Two years later, a Muslim extremist in Toulouse killed a Rabbi and three children outside a Jewish school. And now, this.
There is a perverse obsession with Jews by Islamic fundamentalists, seen as a distinct and separate entity within the larger confines of a society; Jews are not French or Parisian, Jews are Jews, monolithic and indistinguishable. During the attack at Charlie Hebdo, 10 people were killed. 9 of them were men. According to one employee, she was spared because she was a woman. But there was one woman who was killed at Charlie Hebdo. Her name was Elsa Cayat. The difference, you ask? She was Jewish. In 2008, a handful of gunmen attacked the city of Mumbai, which bore some similarities to the attack on Paris. While the gunmen attacked targets of notoriety in the city, like a popular cafe and five-star hotels, the gunmen also staged an attack on a narrow street, in a residential area, away from the center of the city, entering a seemingly innocuous building called the Nariman House. It was a Jewish Center operated by Chabad-Lubavitch. During the siege at the Jewish Center, which killed 6 people, one of the gunmen communicated with a handler, presumably in Pakistan. The handlers cogently explain the rationale of attacking the building; "As I told you, every person you kill where you are is worth 50 of the ones killed elsewhere."
There is a rising tide of intolerance and bigotry in Europe, propagated in large part by an ever more potent political right-wing. The National Front in France will likely see big gains following the attack. Huge gains have occurred already in Greece, with the Golden Dawn party, in Ukraine, with the Svoboda party, and in Hungary, with the Jobbik party. Then there are the perpetrators of the violence, mostly recent immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East. The Kouachi brothers were of Algerian heritage, while Amedy Coulibaly had Malian heritage. Mohammad Merah, the attacker in the 2012 Toulouse attack was also of Algerian heritage. The shooting at the Jewish museum in Brussels early last year was carried out by Mehdi Nemmouche, a French national of Algerian origin.
The attack leads me, as well as European Jews, to wonder what exactly the future of Jews in Europe will look like. Aaliyah to Israel from France saw a huge increase last year from the year previous, and that number will likely go up following the attack. It is no coincidence that the four victims of the siege at the Kosher supermarket will be buried in Jerusalem. When I wrote about European anti-Semitism in 2013, I said that there is a "persistent, inchoate threat, which continuously raises fear and apprehension but will likely never reach the same level as it once did; there is no threat of another European Holocaust." That persistent, inchoate threat is likely to be the reality going forward. We'll mourn the victims at the Kosher supermarket, and we'll hear the calls to action, but our attention will turn elsewhere; in fact, it already has. The refrain will be freedom of speech, not freedom for the Jews to feel safe in their own country. Anti-Semitism will continue in France and an attack on a Jewish site will occur again. Little changed following the 2006 torture and murder of Ilan Halimi, a 23 year old French Jew, nor did it change following the murders in Toulouse in 2012. In fact, life got worse for French Jews. European anti-Semitism is cyclical. Attacks occur. Then the calls for change, for tolerance. And then the gaze turns elsewhere. Real change in France has always been, and will continue to be, ephemeral. If this is what France looks like seven decades after the Holocaust, how much do you really think France will be affected by the murder of four Jews in a supermarket?
I was not surprised when I heard the news of the attacks in Paris, nor was I surprised to hear that Charlie Hebdo had been targeted. Charlie Hebdo had been targeted in the past, firebombed in 2011 after releasing an issue that was "guest-edited" by Muhammad. The cover of the issue displayed the name of the magazine as "Charia (Sharia) Hebdo" and showed a cartoon of the prophet, with the words "100 lashes if you don't die of laughter!." In 2012, following the release of the YouTube video, "Innocence of Muslims," the magazine released more cartoon depictions of Muhammad. One of the cartoons depicts Muhammad naked, being filmed from behind while laying on a bed with the caption, "My ass? And you love it, my ass?." France shuttered its embassies, consulates, cultural centers, and schools in 20 countries as a result. Charb, the magazine's editor (who was killed in the attack), was dismissive. "A drawing has never killed anyone," he said. If only.
This sort of violence as well as threatened violence is not new and did not start with Charlie Hebdo. In 1989, Salman Rushdie was forced to go into hiding after a fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran called for his death following the release of his book, The Satanic Verses. A Japanese translator was killed in 1991, while Italian and Norwegian publishers would both survive assassination attempts. In 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was murdered on a busy street in Amsterdam following the release of his, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali's movie, “Submission,” which was harshly critical of the treatment of women in Islamic society. Danish cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, and Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks, have both been threatened, and attacked, after drawing cartoons depicting Muhammad. In 2010, Molly Norris, a cartoonist from Seattle, helped to create "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day!" before distancing herself from the project. No matter. Radical Yemeni cleric, Anwar Al-Awlaki, placed her on an execution list, forcing her into hiding. She remains in hiding today.
There are a few important points to make generally about Charlie Hebdo. Before the attack, most people had never even heard of Charlie Hebdo. Its circulation was just 60,000. That's less than Atlanta Magazine (which you've probably never heard of). This was a magazine that had struggled to fund itself. Its rival, Le Canard Enchaine, has a circulation over 10 times as large. Outside of France, and especially here in the United States, you'd be unlikely to find very many loyal Charlie Hebdo readers, if any at all. This was a magazine that you had to look for in order to find. And yet, the feeling you would get from reading the reaction to the shooting was that it was far bigger and more prominent, and that Islam was its main target. If there ever was a "focus" of the magazine, it was most certainly was not Islam, but rather the far-right and the National Front party in particular. The magazine has been publishing since 1970, and including its hiatus in the 1980s, as a weekly magazine, it has published somewhere around 1,800 issues. How many issues have caused controversy as a result of their depictions of Islam or of the prophet Muhammad? Maybe a half-dozen? How could this satirical magazine possibly target Muslims when it supposedly targeted Muslims on just 1/3 of 1% of all their issues? As Charb said in 2012, "We do provocation; its been 20 years since we've been doing provocation, and it's being noticed only when we talked about Islam or this part of Islam which raises problems and which is a minority?"
There is no other religious group that reacts to slights, both perceived and genuine, in the same way that Islamic fundamentalists do. Lewd and offensive depictions of Jesus or Moses do not cause a firestorm of controversy, and while outwardly anti-Semitic cartoons may cause an uproar, I'm unaware of any recent violence that has occurred as a result of the publishing of such cartoons. The reasoning underlying the anger of these attackers, and the reason that depicting Muhammad is forbidden in large parts of Islam is because of concern that such images could promote idolatry. As Reza Aslan explained, depictions of Muhammad is not something that is explicitly forbidden in the Koran but rather it is a prohibition that has developed over time, a "cultural taboo that arose organically." And thus, at least according to Aslan, there is nothing foundational within Islam regarding Muhammad depictions. In fact, as Aslan explains, these "cultural taboos" are somewhat particular within Sunni Islam, and are due in part to the proliferation of the idea from places like Saudi Arabia.
So the desire to obsess over the content misses the underlying issue. These attackers and those who supported them weren't particularly concerned with the content. Those analyzing and debating the content of the cartoons are the same people who condemned the attack. While the attackers were probably angered by the cartoon's content, their basic grievance was depictions of Muhammad, in a general sense. That's why in 2010 South Park had to shutter an episode depicting Muhammad in a bear costume. Or why the Metropolitan Museum of Art temporarily pulled images of Muhammad from an Islamic art collection. Or why the Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris was forced to go into hiding for drawings of Muhammad that were never actually published. It doesn't matter if the depictions are racist or if they are harmless; from the point of view of the attackers, the depictions are blasphemy in and of themselves.
And this point was on display after Charlie Hebdo published its first cover following the attack. The cartoon portrays Muhammad holding a "Je Suis Charlie" sign, with a tear streaming down his left cheek. The picture is seemingly harmless, even touching, but no matter; protests broke out all over the world. A French cultural center was defaced in Gaza, while protesters burned the French flag on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Similar protests took place in Iran and Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands turned out for a protest in Chechnya. During protests in Niger 45 churches were burned and 10 were killed.
When Charlie Hebdo reprinted the controversial Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad in 2006, the move was vociferously opposed both by French politicians and by the White House. Then-President Jacques Chirac said, "anything that can hurt the convictions of someone else, in particular religious convictions, should be avoided." In 2012, after the magazine printed cartoons in conjunction with the "Innocence of Muslims" video, there was another condemnation. Then-Press Secretary Jay Carney said that the administration defended the right of the magazine to publish the cartoons, but also stated that, "we just question the judgment behind the decision to publish it. And I think that that's our view about the video that was produced in this country and has caused so much offense in the Muslim world."
I find these sort of statements troubling, just as I find it troubling that certain news outlets refused to publish the newest cover, like the The New York Times which refused to publish Charlie Hebdo's most recent cover. And much of this discussion centers around this issue of offensiveness, which is, of course, as subjective a topic as one could imagine. However, it is important, if not essential to our democracy, to ensure that religious groups do not get to define what is or is not offensive. And this is not specific to Islam; Christian and Jewish groups find certain things offensive too, but simply because those groups find something to be offensive, does not mean that civil society must adhere to such limitations. And that's what is important to keep in mind. Prohibitions on depictions of Muhammad are based on religious interpretations, and thus should not be treated any differently than any other religious view.
Charb, who was killed Wednesday, said in 2012, after the magazine's offices had been fire-bombed, that "Muhammad isn't sacred to me...I don't blame Muslims for not laughing at our drawings. I live under French law. I don't live under Koranic law." It would be a useful exercise to remember that.
So the desire to obsess over the content misses the underlying issue. These attackers and those who supported them weren't particularly concerned with the content. Those analyzing and debating the content of the cartoons are the same people who condemned the attack. While the attackers were probably angered by the cartoon's content, their basic grievance was depictions of Muhammad, in a general sense. That's why in 2010 South Park had to shutter an episode depicting Muhammad in a bear costume. Or why the Metropolitan Museum of Art temporarily pulled images of Muhammad from an Islamic art collection. Or why the Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris was forced to go into hiding for drawings of Muhammad that were never actually published. It doesn't matter if the depictions are racist or if they are harmless; from the point of view of the attackers, the depictions are blasphemy in and of themselves.
And this point was on display after Charlie Hebdo published its first cover following the attack. The cartoon portrays Muhammad holding a "Je Suis Charlie" sign, with a tear streaming down his left cheek. The picture is seemingly harmless, even touching, but no matter; protests broke out all over the world. A French cultural center was defaced in Gaza, while protesters burned the French flag on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Similar protests took place in Iran and Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands turned out for a protest in Chechnya. During protests in Niger 45 churches were burned and 10 were killed.
When Charlie Hebdo reprinted the controversial Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad in 2006, the move was vociferously opposed both by French politicians and by the White House. Then-President Jacques Chirac said, "anything that can hurt the convictions of someone else, in particular religious convictions, should be avoided." In 2012, after the magazine printed cartoons in conjunction with the "Innocence of Muslims" video, there was another condemnation. Then-Press Secretary Jay Carney said that the administration defended the right of the magazine to publish the cartoons, but also stated that, "we just question the judgment behind the decision to publish it. And I think that that's our view about the video that was produced in this country and has caused so much offense in the Muslim world."
I find these sort of statements troubling, just as I find it troubling that certain news outlets refused to publish the newest cover, like the The New York Times which refused to publish Charlie Hebdo's most recent cover. And much of this discussion centers around this issue of offensiveness, which is, of course, as subjective a topic as one could imagine. However, it is important, if not essential to our democracy, to ensure that religious groups do not get to define what is or is not offensive. And this is not specific to Islam; Christian and Jewish groups find certain things offensive too, but simply because those groups find something to be offensive, does not mean that civil society must adhere to such limitations. And that's what is important to keep in mind. Prohibitions on depictions of Muhammad are based on religious interpretations, and thus should not be treated any differently than any other religious view.
Charb, who was killed Wednesday, said in 2012, after the magazine's offices had been fire-bombed, that "Muhammad isn't sacred to me...I don't blame Muslims for not laughing at our drawings. I live under French law. I don't live under Koranic law." It would be a useful exercise to remember that.
------------------------=------------------------=-----------------=----------------------=---------------
The attacks are shocking and the outrage has been widespread. Condemnations have come from every corner of the Earth. A huge march occurred in Paris, and thousands of others have marched in solidarity across Europe. But the marches have focused, in large part, on the heinous killings at the offices of Charlie Hebdo. The slaughter at the Kosher supermarket, however, seems to have been overlooked. As Philip Gourevitch wrote for the New Yorker,"The attack on the press shocked the conscience of France and of the world. The attack on the Jews, not so much."
This is a topic I'm familiar with. I've written about it previously and have followed the subject for a few years. When I spent the summer of 2013 in Italy, I made an effort to look at Jewish life in Europe, now seven decades after World War 2. In Italy, there are only remnants of the Jewish community; maybe thirty thousand Jews in the country, half of whom are in Rome. In Torino, where I lived, there are around 1,000 Jews in a city with a population of around one million. Yet, even with its small and barely visible Jewish community, the precautions taken to protect Jewish institutions is staggering. The synagogue in Torino sits in a plaza protected by metal safety bollards, encircled by a fence with pointed tips, and watched over by armed soldiers, who sit in an army-camouflaged vehicle. When I went there for services on a Saturday morning, I had to go through a security check similar to that of an airport. Now think about the fact that there are about 10 times as many Jews in Paris than in all of Italy.
I visited Paris in the Spring of 2010. I visited the major Jewish sites, including the famous Rue Des Rosiers, and the magnificent Grand Synagogue. The shops on Rue Des Rosiers would be closed due to the attacks, while the Grand Synagogue was reportedly shuttered for Shabbat services for the first time since World War 2. I remember going to the Holocaust Memorial in Paris, tucked neatly in a residential area, and having to pass through what felt like a fortress of security. It's symbolic of 2015 France, and a cruel irony, that a museum, who's goal it is to publicize the Holocaust has to make sure it doesn't publicize itself. But what I remember most vividly is the comments of an old camp friend, who I stayed with and who spoke despondently about anti-Semitism and the future of Jews in France. This was in 2010. Two years later, a Muslim extremist in Toulouse killed a Rabbi and three children outside a Jewish school. And now, this.
There is a perverse obsession with Jews by Islamic fundamentalists, seen as a distinct and separate entity within the larger confines of a society; Jews are not French or Parisian, Jews are Jews, monolithic and indistinguishable. During the attack at Charlie Hebdo, 10 people were killed. 9 of them were men. According to one employee, she was spared because she was a woman. But there was one woman who was killed at Charlie Hebdo. Her name was Elsa Cayat. The difference, you ask? She was Jewish. In 2008, a handful of gunmen attacked the city of Mumbai, which bore some similarities to the attack on Paris. While the gunmen attacked targets of notoriety in the city, like a popular cafe and five-star hotels, the gunmen also staged an attack on a narrow street, in a residential area, away from the center of the city, entering a seemingly innocuous building called the Nariman House. It was a Jewish Center operated by Chabad-Lubavitch. During the siege at the Jewish Center, which killed 6 people, one of the gunmen communicated with a handler, presumably in Pakistan. The handlers cogently explain the rationale of attacking the building; "As I told you, every person you kill where you are is worth 50 of the ones killed elsewhere."
There is a rising tide of intolerance and bigotry in Europe, propagated in large part by an ever more potent political right-wing. The National Front in France will likely see big gains following the attack. Huge gains have occurred already in Greece, with the Golden Dawn party, in Ukraine, with the Svoboda party, and in Hungary, with the Jobbik party. Then there are the perpetrators of the violence, mostly recent immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East. The Kouachi brothers were of Algerian heritage, while Amedy Coulibaly had Malian heritage. Mohammad Merah, the attacker in the 2012 Toulouse attack was also of Algerian heritage. The shooting at the Jewish museum in Brussels early last year was carried out by Mehdi Nemmouche, a French national of Algerian origin.
The attack leads me, as well as European Jews, to wonder what exactly the future of Jews in Europe will look like. Aaliyah to Israel from France saw a huge increase last year from the year previous, and that number will likely go up following the attack. It is no coincidence that the four victims of the siege at the Kosher supermarket will be buried in Jerusalem. When I wrote about European anti-Semitism in 2013, I said that there is a "persistent, inchoate threat, which continuously raises fear and apprehension but will likely never reach the same level as it once did; there is no threat of another European Holocaust." That persistent, inchoate threat is likely to be the reality going forward. We'll mourn the victims at the Kosher supermarket, and we'll hear the calls to action, but our attention will turn elsewhere; in fact, it already has. The refrain will be freedom of speech, not freedom for the Jews to feel safe in their own country. Anti-Semitism will continue in France and an attack on a Jewish site will occur again. Little changed following the 2006 torture and murder of Ilan Halimi, a 23 year old French Jew, nor did it change following the murders in Toulouse in 2012. In fact, life got worse for French Jews. European anti-Semitism is cyclical. Attacks occur. Then the calls for change, for tolerance. And then the gaze turns elsewhere. Real change in France has always been, and will continue to be, ephemeral. If this is what France looks like seven decades after the Holocaust, how much do you really think France will be affected by the murder of four Jews in a supermarket?
=-----------------------------------=-------------------------------------=--------------------------------
