Blasphemy and critical evaluation of Mohammed’s character have always been forbidden, and have been a highly sensitive issue throughout the history of Islam.
Blasphemy and critical evaluation of Mohammed’s character have always been forbidden, and have been a highly sensitive issue throughout the history of Islam
It is quite appalling to see how some western media figures have responded to the Paris attacks.
Some have blamed the cartoonists for provoking Muslims and inciting religious hatred, while others like Robert Fisk have blamed historic western policies for the murders.
Fisk claimed that the disenfranchisement of youth, economic deprivation, and past atrocities experienced by Algerians led to the Paris events.
Others on the far left like the inveterate anti-American journalist Glenn Greenwald started with Soviet style whataboutism and connected the Paris events with Israel, while the annoying Assange, still languishing in the Ecuador embassy, tweeted some five-year-old Telegraph report to obfuscate the Paris shooting issue.
It’s beyond absurd to blame French occupation of Algeria for the shootings. This is the kind of apologism that facilitates radical Islam. This strategy only results in appeasement of puritanical radical Islamic ideology and only offers one solution: ‘the West is evil’.
If past grievances and atrocities are considered to be the reasons behind these attacks then by this logic all Indians living in the UK would be retaliating to avenge the suffering their ancestors faced during British Colonialism. Bangladeshis would carry out attacks against Pakistan since they once ruthlessly persecuted Bengalis, killing more than a million of them and raping 200,000 of their women.
If Fisk were right, Vietnam and Japan would not be some of the most pro-American countries in the world today.
However the most pathetic and dismal response that came from the western press was from those who castigated Charlie Hebdo and blamed the cartoonists for provoking Muslims.
If one follows this flawed narrative then all liberal Muslims struggling against radical Islam on a daily basis in their own Muslim majority countries should only have themselves to blame whenever they are brutally attacked by extremist clerics and their zealot followers.
The Saudi writer and activist Raif Badawi who is currently being publicly flogged by repressive Saudia Arabia should be denounced for criticising the rabid misogynist clerics of the Wahabbi sect. All Pakistani liberals fighting against draconian blasphemy laws should also be condemned for inciting the wrath of terrorists.
Even a cursory examination of blasphemy killings in Pakistan can tell us that the real reasons why the cartoonists were attacked were not because of Western foreign policy, the Iraq War, or colonialism, but because of an ideology that has always been fanatical and dogmatic in nature and that is responsible for the misery of thousands of people, particularly in Pakistan.
This ideology has the power of igniting vigilante justice and provoking mobs into indulging in violence and vandalism. It’s the same ideology which sent Salman Rushdie into hiding for a decade, and that burnt 37 people to death after a mob set fire to a hotel building in Turkey.
It’s the same ideology that killed prominent Pakistani politician Salman Taseer after he questioned the concept of the country’s brutal blasphemy laws.
According to this ideology, any person who doubts the origins of Islam, draws caricatures of Prophet Mohammad or satirises revered Islamic figures is liable to be punished by death. The basis for this blasphemy belief is not the Quran but the Hadith, the second main source of Islam.
Many sects within Islam have varied views in relation to the blasphemy issue but almost all sects believe in the prohibition on images of Mohammed.
Apart from images, many sects of Islam also consider even questioning or doubting the origins of Mohammed as blasphemous. British Historian Tom Holland had his academic documentary on the origins of Islam cancelled by Channel 4 after he and his family received death threats and over 1200 complaints were received by Ofcom and Channel 4.
To blame this ideology on recent western policies is nothing short of the murder of history. Blasphemy and critical evaluation of Mohammed’s character has always been forbidden and a highly sensitive issue among Muslims in the history of Islam. It is not a new issue.
In 1929, Ilm-ud-din, a Muslim living in British India, took offence at a book published about Prophet Mohammed. He killed the publisher and was sentenced to death by the Indian Penal Code.
Consequently he was considered a martyr; 200,000 people attended his funeral and he was praised by the ideological founder of Pakistan Allama Iqbal. Even today in Pakistan, Ilm-ud-din is used as an inspiration for those who would kill in the name of Islam.
As Douglas Murray said on BBC Big Questions, the attack on 7 January was an attempt to introduce blasphemy laws in Paris.
In the aftermath of this attack, the western media has two options. The first is to reprint these cartoons and continue the unflinching quest of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, as a way of paying tribute to their legacy. The second option is to take a step back and not criticise Islam or Mohammed, to accord Islam different treatment to other religions.
If the media follows the latter option, it will be a victory for the attackers and their ideology of blasphemy, and will set a dangerous precedent. I hope that the steps we take and our future course of action will not defer to this ideology. But as the responses so far have shown, not everyone is ready to stand up to it.
Anas Abbas is an accountant and investigative Counter Terrorism analyst. Follow him on Twitter or read his blog
145 Responses to “Why it’s wrong to blame western policies for the Paris attacks”
Todd Fewer
how about taking a lesson from the good olr US and their civil war….the majority realized that the IDEOLOGY of slavery and the brutality of the south was wrong and they at great cost stood up and removed that ugly IDEOLOGY and did not coware in their homes and hide they stood up and fought for freedom for all! Im a Canadian by the way and have my ideological differences with some of the US and its policies but at least they stand for something …they are on the right side.
Just Visiting
no, you just used an invalid form of discussion cheating known as a ‘straw man’: you suggest that the other person said something they didn’t, and then dispute around that.
No one said that Islam ‘sanctions killing in all circumstances’.
But you have 3 or 4 times now made no attempt to show evidence against Anas statement that:
> there is basis for killing in hadith
Conclusion: you agree with Anas on that.
Just Visiting
> So those who go on about the fact that Charlie Hebdo also publishes cartoons of the Pope and Jesus miss the point.
What point are they missing?
It is understood that free speech my offend (hurt the feelings of) some hearers: but does not harm the hearers physically or in any other way.
We all own our own feelings, and have the right to be offended, as we have the right to say things that may offend others, but we do not have the right to say ‘you may not say things which offend me’
Everywhere round the world Muslims teach that Jesus is not the son of God. That is offensive to Christians. Christians have the right to feel offended. But no right to ask those Muslims to stop saying that.
> French newspapers weren’t allowed to show Kate Middleton topless,
You really should read up on things before comments that are so easily knocked down: it only undermines your own credibility to your readers.
There are laws concerning the privacy of the individual: those are the laws in that case.
> Jeremy Clarkson can’t use the ‘N’ word, Russell Brand sacked over dodgy jokes
These cases have nothing to do with the law. Neither person was ever arrested, or put before the law. What they said had broken no law
There were employment issues: the contract they had with their employers may have clauses about their behaviour as many employment contracts do.
> And you cannot deny the holocaust etc etc
That is true in a few specific countries.
It is a very specific case: in the aftermath of the killing of millions of people: to stamp out the remains of the very unpleasant, racial hatred that was behind those killings: those countries feel it right to have these laws.
The law does not prevent free speech, except as far as 1 specific event in history: the truth of which is entirely supported by evidence, and is accepted by 99.9% of historians who follow an evidence based approach.
> There is no freedom of speech any more.
Now you are making exagerated claims. You’re of course wrong.
Give us a list of say 3 occassions where you think the free speech of Muslims in France has been prevented?
> You can’t say you hate Muslims but ‘Je suis Charlie’ means just that!! Am I right?
No you are wrong. It does not mean that.
But more serious than words, are violent actions.
What do you think the actions of the Chalie Hebdo murderers tells us about their:
* attitude to free speech
* hatred of Muslims
Just Visiting
> 2 BILLION Muslims consider Muhammad … an
individual highly revered and respected … You may
carry on and insult him….range of responses …to the outright
berserk.
Ok, what about the many billion of Christians round the world who revere and respect Jesus: Muslims round the world do insult him (saying he is not the Son of God).
That offends th Christians.
But I don’t see any violent responses by Christians against Muslims on that theme?
So why do you think its OK for Muslims to give offence on one hand, and on the other respond with violence when offended?
Just Visiting
Politician, like the rest of us, are allowed to change their mind.
There are many eg cases of people convicted when younger of violence, now in political office: eg Martin McGuiness.
Joshka Fischer in Germany: wiki quotes a source that:
> Photos (of) March 1973, which were later to haunt Fischer, show him clubbing policeman Rainer Marx, to whom he later publicly apologized.