Those who use violence to silence those with who they disagree should never be appeased by the democratically-minded.
Those who use violence to silence those with whom they disagree should never be appeased
While undoubtedly a cliché, the saying that Islamic extremists ‘hate our freedom’ was never as silly as some people liked to pretend. Today we see why. There really are some who refuse to accept the basic premises of a liberal society and who are willing to impose their idea of virtue, however ruinously, upon the rest of us.
To blame Islam or Muslims for the murder of four of the best-known French cartoonists (along with as many as eight other innocents) would be to miss the point. Violent totalitarianism comes in many forms, and simply requires a belief, set out in Arthur Koestler’s dystopian novel Darkness at Noon, that wrong ideas are crimes committed against future generations – which must therefore be punished like other crimes.
Once you accept the idea of the perfect society almost any atrocity becomes theoretically possible in the name of the cause. But as the 20th century ought to have demonstrated, such ideas are not confined to the pious, although they may at times manifest themselves in that way.
In this respect, those who attacked the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris today, killing at least 12 people in the process, will have believed that what they were doing was good and proper. Indeed, in the perpetrators’ minds the barbaric actions were undoubtedly justified because they extinguished the perceived evil perpetrated by blasphemous French satirists. Notwithstanding pure power worship, that is how totalitarianism justifies itself.
And thus it would be a grave mistake to find a ‘root cause’ for today’s attacks in supposedly ‘offensive’ cartoons. Once you start down that road there really is no telling where you could end up. Indeed, if the problem is ‘provocative’ cartoons then it is also the existence of women and the LGBT community – because the killers probably don’t like those things either.
How do you compromise with that?
French President Francois Hollande put it best earlier today when he described France as “a country of liberty”, adding that “because of that we receive threats”. Quite. Or to put it another way, outpourings of totalitarian brutality are one of the prices we must occasionally pay for a free and open society.
We would all prefer the quiet life; no one wants to believe that they have in some way fuelled the actions of the fanatics. But be very uncomfortable with the notion, which we will no doubt hear in the coming days, that the carnage in Paris was in some sense ‘provoked’ by those who draw cartoons for a living. Satire uses mockery as a tool; but those it ‘provokes’ have willfully chosen their response: it is they who have reacted violently and it is with them – and only with them – that responsibility lies.
Remove the right to ridicule and satirise authority – religious authority in this instance – and everything else is detail, including the right of ordinary Muslims to satirise and ridicule their own despotic rulers. Those who use violence to silence those with whom they disagree should never be appeased by the democratically-minded. There are no excuses; today’s tragedy was cold-blooded murder, pure and simple.
James Bloodworth is the editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
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48 Responses to “Charlie Hebdo: No excuses – just murder”
Alex McLeish
Coming soon to a street near you, courtesy of the traitor left who flooded Europe with these subhumans.
The liberal left have been shouting down any criticism of Islam and Muslims for decades. We saw that well enough with the antics of the Labour council in the Rotherham abuse scandal. Always ready to use your magic ‘racist’ word to shout down and silence anyone who disagrees with your policy of mass immigration and ‘cultural enrichment’. It doesn’t work anymore though, and it’s about time that you multiculturalist pc leftists realised that Muslims aren’t a protected species.
Front National, Pegida, UKIP, PVV… – these are Europe’s last hopes to clear up the mess the extreme left have made. For the sake of native Europeans everywhere I hope they go from victory to victory.
Matthew Blott
Mehdi Hasan is coming out with his usual bollocks – not proper Muslims (fornicators and alcohol consumers) and they were inspired by Iraq atrocities. I stick up for him a lot on Harry’s Place and I find it bloody trying.
ForeignRedTory
‘But be very uncomfortable with the notion, which we will no doubt hear
in the coming days, that the carnage in Paris was in some sense
‘provoked’ by those who draw cartoons for a living.’
It is not enough to be merely uncomfortable with such notions, rather, we should be highly resolved that whoever has the temerity to suggest such notions shall henceforth be our sworn enemy.
Rabah Jtl
What are you talking about?
Glenys Conroy
ED MILIBAND condemns the French tragedy of the slain cartoonists. But it has nothing to do with freedom of speech.
We have to learn what we can safely say about the Prophet Mohammed to all Moslems. Never joke. Cartoons are meant to insult. Defending the name of their Prophet has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Insults are not included in that freedom of speech. If you insult the prophet Mohammed to any Moslem they are likely to become dangerous towards you.
If HM The Queen was to tell them that Christians know that Mohammed, undoubtedly holy because his fervent worship of God, was arrogant and wrong to disbelieve that Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he is leading all who cannot believe that God has a Son and are therefore too low to be Christians, then there would be an uprising because you cannot convert all Moslems. Any person becomes a Christian alone, one man or woman at a time, by religious revelation in his or her life, and it is a lone, personal journey and a rise in faith.
And so what we have to say to Moslems is that we can analyse their prophet, Mohammed, and that when God told him he would be the leading one in the faith of Islam or he could choose to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Mohammed said to God “Why should it be that man (Christ)?” when it could be Mohammed and his family, the prophet to whom Moslems would now turn. And that was arrogance to the extreme; but Mohammed simply could not believe in Jesus as God.
Because Mohammed was only a man,- and a very minor prophet in Heaven, where he is still too arrogant to say he will give all his heart and mind to Jesus Christ and give up his own rival beliefs entirely,- Mohammed leads all the ones who will not say that Jesus Christ, and not Mohammed, is the Truth, the Way and the Life. Even though Mohammed the prophet has now been told from God’s own mouth that Jesus is his son. A Moslem is arrogant because Mohammed was arrogant and he is only trying to be like a man; no doubt holy Mohammed was a good man to be a prophet. And when they don’t have one who died like Jesus did on the Cross to take our sins upon Himself, it looks as though Mohammed was only a success.
What we should be telling all so-called religions, including Judaism, which is the old way, is that those are not religions other than Christianity; they are only wrong beliefs. There is only one true faith and that is Christianity, one religion and there are no others. This is not religious prejudice; it is the one Truth. And we know they can’t all be right. So simply only one can be, Christianity. It is higher to believe in Jesus Christ Our Lord as God. Why can’t God have a son? To believe in a good God is only half the battle; and Moslem people haven’t advanced sociologically or psychologically, or culturally etc., and are more primitive people. But only 0.1% of them are dangerous terrorists, and Christianity is not without its criminals.
The Islamic religion is eroding our Christian way of life, and whilst they think we are less good than they are they will continue to over-dominate women, have Halal meat and Sharia laws. Christians will continue to evangelise to bring into the one true faith which Christianity is the one who can be salvaged for a higher Heaven with a love of Christ Jesus Our Lord. Moslems can otherwise continue to fall further behind Christians whilst we save a Christian Britain. Moslems must remain a minority wrong belief which cannot challenge Christianity. For the sake of our country.
Our country is now in the hands of many strange people each with an enemy agenda to erode a Christian society, and attack our people on the basis of those strange, pagan beliefs. We have to take our Christian population and complaints much more seriously and listen to them on the grounds of Christianity about how they are being abused by people of other wrong beliefs in jobs empowered but inadequate and capable of ruining their lives for them. Save Britain now for Christianity. Or else there will always be Moslems bombers if they think that makes them all look strong.