In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo Massacre, Duncan Harley shares his thoughts.
It rained in Paris last week. The average temperature was around 7°C with occasional sunshine.
The RER, Batobus and the Paris Metro ran much as usual. Tourists came and tourists went. The city went to work, and at the end of the day the citizens went home to eat, greet and prepare for work the next day.
Then of course the offices of Charlie Hebdo were assaulted, overnight the profession of satirist became dangerous and the citizens of Paris became frontline troops in a war involving terror.
There are those in the Muslim world who maintain that the attacks in France are a justified response to an assault on Islam. Fortunately those folk are in an extreme minority. Most condemn the assault on liberty.
The Paris murders are just that. Murders carried out by a bunch of criminally obsessive killers intent on self-imposed martyrdom.
In the long game they may have hoped to achieve something beyond notoriety, but in the short game all they have done is made a complete fool of Islam.
Unlike Christianity, Islam has no idols to view. The Prophet cannot be seen even in death. In a way of course, that makes complete sense given the sometimes awful images of a blond Christian Christ on the cross and a Caucasian Jesus in pristine cream robes fishing on the Lake of Galilee.
As for the virgin birth, well that is also a joke. Mary might well have been innocent of having sexual relations with God but, in the big scheme of things, someone impregnated her and anyone who says otherwise, to my mind, is simply a dreamer.
We in the West can write about the above without fear of assassination. At least we think we can.
So what happened in Paris?
The French have always taken care to exploit the folk in their colonies. Algeria features high on the list: used as cannon fodder in the 1939–1945 war, France’s colonial troops were used and abused by the colonial powers. The survivors were then deprived of military pension rights in the wake of Algerian independence. Many blame this old colonial attitude for the outrages of this week.
Moslems in France are second-class citizens. Underdogs deprived of respect, they feel marginalized and forgotten. In reality the French, in common with the citizens of many European countries, disrespect Jews, Eastern Europeans and on occasion even the English.
What happened in Paris is three-fold.
- Firstly, some disenfranchised dreamers looked inward and imagined that mass murder was a way forward.
- Some satirists died.
- A million folk met at the Place de la République.
No matter what your beliefs, the killing of the messenger is a poor political idea. If this is the true face of Islam, then God help us all. If this is an isolated incident borne of hate, then we must address the issues. Otherwise, we should respect our neighbours’ needs and beliefs.
The murder of the journalists and cartoonists from Charlie Hebdo has unleashed a black dog throughout Europe.
Let’s hope that the mongrel can be contained.
© Duncan Harley – All rights reserved.
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This sparked me to do some googling on Islam. I couldnt understand why these people had to be killed in Paris last week, I had to find reasoning.
Its not just an isolated incident tho` iis it? Remember the people in Pakistan who where all killed at school, bombing, burning and shooting unarmed children, teachers, victims, the stuff happening in north africa with again similar sights – and these acts against fellow Muslim`s. 2 North Africans thinking it would be a good idea to run over a man in combat trousers and then chop off his head in front of a crowd? Also I hear ISIS are throwing Gay men off cliffs
I need to bring up some ugly heads, nobody will like, but her goes.
It seems there is a cultural tendancy within Islam for a man to marry his brothers daughter. I wont use the laymans term, but supposedly after 5 mins googling this accounts for just under 50% of the Muslim community in the UK. Also Muslims account for 3% of births in the UK, but account for 30% of all birth defects.
Now, if this is true. If you can imagine somewhere like North africa where almost all are Muslim and there is as much as 80% of marriages as described above and there is no NHS to care from them?
If this is true, somebody is giving them guns? 🙁
I think maybe the likes of George bush and Tony Blair havent done anything to help, But I think Muslim culture is the problem here. I dont see it as a race issue or a religious issue, but a cultural one. The religion is somewhat invalidated by the culture. (NLP?)
And dont get me started on FGM, but thats not just Islam, but again, still a cultural issue I cannot accept.
I would dearly love peoples thoughts good or bad. I dont see myself as a racist. I remember skinheads from the 70`s beating up Black ppl on the streets and demanding they go home from whence they came. for me this is a racist
But these days it seems the Police are scared to protect children in Parts of north England incase they are accused of being one.
We rightly welcome allcomers to our country, but some of them are just downright ugly.
It also annoys me that everytime these bad people strike, our goverments capitalise on the situation and bring in more laws to infringe on our privacy
The Shoe bomber was treated for a mental illness, is this a clue?
Hope nobody offended. I might be wrong. I hope i am