The terrorist attack Wednesday 7^th January in Paris on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that resulted in the death of 12 innocent people going about their daily life is a terrible tragedy and a horrendous start to 2015. It is a tragedy that is still playing out in Paris today.

However tragic this attack we must also learn what we can from it or we are destined for more of the same. Even in Australia there are lessons to be learned.

Firstly if you attempt to publicly humiliate and offend someone often enough and publicly enough there will eventually be a backlash. Charlie Hebdo was a satirical publication but it often seemed to set out to mock and offend Muslims. Even after being firebombed they continued to insult Muslims at their most personal level. This may have been seen as satirical to most, including myself, however it is not too hard to see how someone of Islamic faith may interpret much of it as hate-speech or at least encouraging anti-Islamic sentiment.

While the fight for free speech may be a noble one, we must realise that no speech is really free, there is always a price to be paid by someone.

Don’t misinterpret me however, I am not against free speech or taking the piss out of faiths and questioning religions, far from it, amongst my DVD collection is the classic Monty Python’s The Life Of Brian, Kevin Smith’s Dogma and Scorsese’s masterpiece The Last Temptation Of Christ. Each of these movies sparked religious protests from Christians worldwide, several of them turning violent, however none resulted in the type of terrorist act we saw in Paris on Wednesday.

So does this mean only Muslims perform terrorist acts? That appears to be the view of many, and the view put out their by the disciples of Rupert Murdoch and his ilk ?

This is a point of view that needs to change. Promoting that view only serves to further alienate young Muslims and make it easier for them to be indoctrinated by extremists.

We need to acknowledge that religious extremism is not a concept unique to Islam.

Many of you may remember the fallout in the US from the Roe vs Wade trial, it was a fallout that lasted well over a decade. Roe vs Wade concluded that there should be no legislative interference in the first trimester of pregnancy and also led to limits on what restrictions could be passed on abortions in later stages of pregnancy.

Right Wing Christians all across the US went berserk at the thought that women may actually have a right to choose. This led to protests, violence, and a disturbing list of other crimes including acts of terrorism.

On Xmas day in 1984 three clinics were bombed by religious terrorists, to give you an idea of their motivation those convicted of the bombings called the bombings

“A gift for Jesus on his birthday.”

As well as bombings there were many murders, attempted murders, vicious assaults, abductions, intimidation, stalking, break and enters, and acts of vandalism that continue through to this day.

Clearly terrorism is not just the tool of Islamic extremists.

In fact, I’d go so far to say that these people don’t realistically represent any religion other than perhaps the religion of extremism.

Another thing to note is that France is one of the very few countries that have banned the burqa.

Over here in Australia those calling for a ban on the burqa or naqib like to tell us all that banning the burqa will make life harder for terrorists and make us a safer country. Well, that didn’t seem to work out for France.

I also note that the French gunmen were wearing balaclava’s, so I guess a ban on burqa’s didn’t stop them from hiding their faces or make anyone any safer.

In fact, I would argue that someone who is going to act as a suicide bomber, or gun down as many innocent people as possible might not be overly concerned about breaking a law that says they can’t cover their face. In fact, I’d suggest most of these people would rather blend in and not draw attention to themselves. The Martin Place gunman certainly didn’t wear any kind of facial disguise.

Despite not being able to wear balaclava’s, motorcycle helmets, or scuba diving gear into a bank, they still get robbed, and most of the robbers still manage to hide their faces.

So why is it that some feel the need to attack the rights of Muslim women?

The attack in Paris may has caused an outpouring of grief from those in the press, particularly those in the satirical press and cartoonists. Perhaps it is the below cartoon from US cartoonist Signe Wilkinson that sums up the sentiment best.

Signe has a vaild point which has been made simply and extremely effectively, and I could not agree more.

There is no excuse at all for violence of any kind to defend any religion, defending a religion in this way only ends up damaging it. 

Any members of any religion that is based on peaceful principals who uses violence in that religions name is effectively spitting in the face of their deity. However while that is a simple thing for someone of sound mind to say there will always be those with a far lower capacity for rational thought who think that violence is the only solution. These are the people that extremists, both Christian and Islamic, will target for their own perverted agenda.

If there is one thing that people on all sides of this “freedom” debate, be it freedom of choice or freedom of speech, should take from this terrible tragedy it is this.

Religious intolerance is a double-edged sword that nobody wants to die by.

 

 

 

 

 

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