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But no country faces a greater terrorist threat than France, with support for ISIS running deep among disenfranchised immigrant communities in the rundown, crime-ridden banlieues that surround many French cities....
In the years after 9/11, France was held up as a model by many for its "assimilationist" agenda and its zero tolerance of extremist radical preachers. Britain, by contrast, was criticized for a "multicultural" approach that for too long offered political refuge to extremists from around the world.
But by the late 2000s, Islamist extremism had also become a significant problem in France. Although French leaders paid lip service to assimilation, the concept was only theoretical for young unemployed Muslims living in impoverished banlieues whose socioeconomic grievances were more acute than their counterparts in the United Kingdom.
If we really think about it, there were two Reigns of Terror; in one people were murdered in hot and passionate violence; in the other they died because people were heartless and did not care. One Reign of Terror lasted a few months; the other had lasted for a thousand years; one killed a thousand people, the other killed a hundred million people. However, we only feel horror at the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. But how bad is a quick execution, if you compare it to the slow misery of living and dying with hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? A city cemetery is big enough to contain all the bodies from that short Reign of Terror, but the whole country of France isn't big enough to hold the bodies from the other terror. We are taught to think of that short Terror as a truly dreadful thing that should never have happened: but none of us are taught to recognise the other terror as the real terror and to feel pity for those people.
In the US, Secretary of State, John Kerry, said "directly to the people of Paris and of all of France," that "each and every American stands with you today, not just in horror or in anger or in outrage for this vicious act of violence, though we stand with you in solidarity and in commitment both to the cause of confronting extremism and in the cause which the extremists fear so much and which has always united our two countries: freedom."
Secretary Kerry was at a press conference with Polish Foreign Minister, Schetyna. He said the murders of the people in France was not a clash of civilizations, but a clash "between civilization itself and those who are opposed to a civilized world." "No country knows better than France that freedom has a price, because France gave birth to democracy itself. France sparked so many revolutions of the human spirit, borne of freedom and of free expression, and that is what the extremists fear the most. They may wield weapons, but we in France and in the United States share a commitment to those who wield something that is far more powerful - not just a pen, but a pen that represents an instrument of freedom, not fear. Free expression and a free press are core values, they are universal values; principles that can be attacked but never eradicated, because brave and decent people around the world will never give in to the intimidation and the terror that those seeking to destroy those values employ."
A masked gunman outside the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris.
The offices of Charlie Hebdo had been attacked and firebombed previously, in the past few years. The black masked killers proclaimed that "Charlie Hebdo is dead," but they are wrong. Charlie Hebdo is very much alive, and spontaneous protests are taking place all over France, supporting their freedom of speech.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, condemned the attack, saying the Iranian people and their resistance stand with the French people and the bereaved families of the victims. She said the "attack on citizens and the innocent, especially reporters, upon whatever pretext or reason is a terroristic crime in blatant contradiction to the teachings of Islam that is far from these kinds of atrocities." "We condemn this horrific attack on a media outlet and its staff—the worst such attack globally in the past five years—as a direct threat to the right of freedom of expression in France, and to us all. Silencing the messenger is the worst form of censorship, made even more abhorrent by violence." - Karin Karlekar, director of the Freedom of the Press project at Freedom House. President Hollande declared a day of mourning, and called for a minute of silence at noon. Secretary Kerry said the freedom of expression represented by Charlie Hebdo is not able to be killed by this kind of act of terror. It will serve to strengthen the commitment to freedom of the civilized world.
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The speech was Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's boldest effort yet to position himself as a modernizer of Islam. His professed goal is to purge the religion of extremist ideas of intolerance and violence that fuel groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State - and that appear to have motivated Wednesday's attack in Paris on a French satirical newspaper that killed 12 people. But those looking for the "Muslim Martin Luther" bringing a radical Reformation of Islam may be overreaching - and making a false comparison to begin with. El-Sissi is clearly seeking to impose change through the state, using government religious institutions like the 1,000-year-old al-Azhar, one of the most eminent centers of Sunni Muslim thought and teaching. Al-Azhar's vision for change, however, is piecemeal, and conservative, focusing on messaging and outreach but wary of addressing deeper and more controversial issues.
Al-Azhar officials tout a YouTube channel just launched to reach out to the young, mimicking radicals' successful social media outreach to disenfranchised youth. They proudly point out that clerics in the videos wear suits, not al-Azhar's traditional robes and turbans, to be more accessible. Young people "have a negative image toward this garb," said Mohie Eddin Affifi, an al-Azhar official. "As soon as they see it they don't listen." In a more ambitious effort, religious school textbooks are under review. Affifi said texts outlining rules for slavery, for instance, have been removed. It's a problem across the Muslim world: State religious institutions are burdened by stagnation and heavy control by authorities. For decades, al-Azhar has lost credibility in the eyes of many Muslim youth who see it as mouthpiece of the state rather than an honest interpreter of religion. More appealing to some young men and women searching for identity in a rapidly changing world are calls for a return to the roots of the faith, including from the extremists of al-Qaida and the Islamic State.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, second right, the Grand Sheik of Al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb, right, Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb, center, and others praying on the first day of Eid al-Aha, or Feast of Sacrifice, in Cairo, Egypt. El-Sissi opened 2015 with a dramatic call for a “revolution” in Islam. His professed goal is to purge the religion of extremist ideas of intolerance and violence that fuel groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State - and lie behind Tuesday’s attack in Paris on a French satirical newspaper that killed 12 people.
In his Jan. 1 speech at al-Azhar addressing Muslim clerics - held to mark the Prophet Muhammad's birthday - el-Sissi called on them to promote a reading of Islamic texts in a "truly enlightened" manner to reconsider concepts "that have been made sacred over hundreds of years." By such thinking, the Islamic world is "making enemies of the whole world. So 1.6 billion people (in the Muslim world) will kill the entire world of 7 billion? That's impossible ... We need a religious revolution." Radicals - and el-Sissi's Islamist political opponents who have wide religious followings - angrily denounced el-Sissi, saying he was trying to corrupt the religion. Even secularists, who would normally promote a more modern interpretation of Islam, frowned at el-Sissi's statist approach to such a complicated issue. "A state-approved revolution," questioned Amina Khairi, a columnist in the generally pro-state newspaper al-Watan. And even state religious officials pushed back against the use of the word "revolution" or the idea of dramatic change.
Affifi, from al-Azhar, told the AP that el-Sissi didn't mean changing texts -- something even el-Sissi quickly made clear in his speech. "What the president meant is that we need a contemporary reading for religious texts to deal with our contemporary reality," said Affifi, who is secretary general of the Islamic Research Center. The center is an Al-Azhar body responsible for studying Islamic issues and for providing preachers to explain religious affairs to the police, military, schools, government and private companies. It is also responsible for censorship. He said al-Azhar has already been working for months on such a campaign, following calls for modernizing the faith that el-Sissi has been making since his May presidential election campaign. Committees have been examining textbooks used in the large network of grade schools and universities that al-Azhar runs across Egypt to remove things that have "no place in modern life." Texts on slavery and on refusing to greet Christians and Jews, for example, have been removed.
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The situation in France brings to mind observations made by
Mark Twain, writing about the French Revolution in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court:
If we really think about it, there were two Reigns of Terror; in one people were murdered in hot and passionate violence; in the other they died because people were heartless and did not care. One Reign of Terror lasted a few months; the other had lasted for a thousand years; one killed a thousand people, the other killed a hundred million people. However, we only feel horror at the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. But how bad is a quick execution, if you compare it to the slow misery of living and dying with hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? .
Ha Ha! I also remember those ads in magazines. I' m afflicted with psoriasis, which fortunately in my case is well controlled with medications. But for many others struggling with the symptoms of this disease with no cure, their experiences CAN be quite depressing for them, and also for others who might take the trouble to read about their struggle.The situation in France brings to mind observations made by
Mark Twain, writing about the French Revolution in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court:
If we really think about it, there were two Reigns of Terror; in one people were murdered in hot and passionate violence; in the other they died because people were heartless and did not care. One Reign of Terror lasted a few months; the other had lasted for a thousand years; one killed a thousand people, the other killed a hundred million people. However, we only feel horror at the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. But how bad is a quick execution, if you compare it to the slow misery of living and dying with hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? .
Insult and heartbreak? Did he have psoriasis?
