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Al-Qaeda in France, BNI, Charlie Hebdo, Civilisation, Controversy, Counter-Jihad, Dead cartoonists, Defend the modern world, France, Freedom of speech, Holidays, ISIS, ISIS France, Islamic state killing, Jyllands, Massacre, Posten, South of France
“France today is like the fucking Weimar republic.”
So wrote a user of the internet message-board 4chan last month. The thread concerned the rise of anti-immigrant rhetoric across Europe as a whole, and the sentiment quoted met with broad agreement.
The comparison used is certainly an apt one. Modern France, just like Germany in the 1920s, buckles under the weight of a failing economy. Unemployment (though slowly improving) remains a complication to the lives of young people in cities and towns alike. And extremism, on both the left and right, rises rapidly at the expense of a tired-out centre-ground.
One can hope, as one should, that the solution chosen for this malaise won’t resemble the thugs of the NSDAP, but that is far from decided. Marine Le Pen (a very suspicious character indeed) and her party appear likely to reap the political benefit from it. As to whether Le Pen’s newly professed moderation has any link with reality can and will only be revealed by time.
This radicalisation of French politics was thus already underway when an innocent seeming Wednesday became a bloodstain on the national calendar.
In Paris, two Islamist gunmen stormed the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and murdered 12 people, many of them noted cartoonists (pictured below). The magazine had been a target for many years, owing to its repeated lampooning of the Islamic prophet and its occupational solidarity with the Danish magazine Jylland Posten.
The aftermath to the massacre proved almost as bloody as the crime itself. Prior to their deaths, the two fugitive gunmen (both Algerian) held up a convenience store and petrol station. After this, they hijacked a car and engaged in a Hollywood-like moving gun-battle with Parisian police. Elsewhere in the city, A third Islamist, connected to the original attackers, took hostages in a Kosher deli. Four innocent French Jews would perish there before the captor could be disposed of.
Although both incidents are equally cruel and equally senseless, the Charlie Hebdo massacre has hit the global imagination hardest. An attack on Jews by Muslims is lamentably predictable and as such breaks no new ground. However, there is something fresh and pathetic about attacking people for drawing pictures. Even the Christians of the dark ages never stooped so low. It goes to show how girlish the Islamic constitution has become that it can now be bruised by the point of a crayon.
The reaction to the attacks internationally has been at once heartening and heart-sinking. While most Brits and Americans have offered their warmest condolences to the French people, others have (disgracefully) opted to bring up myths about Gallic passivity and cowardice. Let’s be quite clear about this: If anyone should ever doubt the patriotism or fighting abilities of the French, let him say so after reading a biography of Napoleon.
Much has been made of the fact that a French Muslim was a victim of this wave of violence. The police officer shot in cold blood outside the Hebdo offices was called Ahmed (thus allowing for the damage-limitation hashtag JeSuisAhmed on twitter). There is no solid proof Ahmed was a devout believer, but even if he was, what can this teach us other than senseless violence produces senseless results?
Though we may never know for sure one way or the other, I strongly suspect ISIS had a hand in this atrocity. The mysterious tweets sent from the (potentially hacked) Charlie Hebdo twitter account reference Caliph Baghdadi, and the professionalism of the massacre itself would suggest training from a quasi-military force.
Whether that is the case or not, there is certainly a bigger picture here. Just as those charity adverts urge of humanitarians, Islamists act locally but think globally. This nasty little attack – though it was aimed at closing a specific vendetta – was really meant for all of us. The Muslims have made a giant sign for the whole of Europe to see, its huge words scrawled in innocent blood: “Be careful what you say. Be careful what you do. We know you where you live.”
And though Le Pen – with all her vague promises to go easy on the Jews and gays – is really not the answer we are looking for, an answer must still be provided. We cannot seriously be expected to lie back and see our hard-won freedoms smashed into fragments.
D, LDN.
Defend the Modern World 
There is something so utterly disgusting about your comment, (quote below) that I want to vomit. How absolutely British of you!
“Elsewhere in the city, A third Islamist, connected to the original attackers, took hostages in a Kosher deli. Four innocent French Jews would perish there before the captor could be disposed of.:
“Although both incidents are equally cruel and equally senseless, the Charlie Hebdo massacre has hit the global imagination hardest. An attack on Jews by Muslims is lamentably predictable and as such breaks no new ground. However, there is something fresh and pathetic about attacking people for drawing pictures.”
Four innocent people slaughtered for doing nothing more than shopping in a Jewish store and all you can say is it is “lamentably predictable”? Screw you! They didn’t draw mocking cartoons or purposely provoke and offend — they just breathed in a country and continent which people like yourself seem to feel is provocation enough. I usually find your comments interesting and sometimes even spot on. This time you make me sick. By the way, these attacks weren’t “nasty” as you call them. Nasty is when you make snide remark about someone. If you can’t figure out that this was sheer savagery, then I advise you to get yourself to a psychotherapist as soon as possible. You are definitely lacking a heart and soul.
It reminds me of an article I read once about how British police in British mandated Palestine inspected the scene of a massacre of Jews by Arabs. The scene was horrific – bloodied Jewish corpses and blood and entrails from the victims all over the room. After several minutes of observing the carnage, one of the British police officers remarked, “Shall we go for lunch?”
If you ever want to know why Britain is in the state it is in, simply reread you post. It is indicative of an outlook and culture that is empty of humanity. No wonder Muslim gangs were able to get away with raping and torturing so many young British Christian girls while British police did everything they could to allow it to continue instead of stopping it. And no wonder that when Lee Rigby was brutally murdered in the middle of the street, in the middle of the day, only one person stopped to pay attention to his suffering.
Thank God I’m not British. What a waste of a country.
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Elena,
I was in no way trying to shrug off the death of Jews in this tragedy. My point was that Muslims are known to despise Jews (as an article of faith) and so their behaviour in this event is no surprise. The majority of the world reaction has focused on the Charlie Hebdo attacks (Je Suis Charlie etc…) and not the anti-Jewish murders. I was simply recognising this emphasis. I made sure to note that both attacks were equally cruel and senseless.
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If anything was “lamentably predictable”, it was the massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo. They knew their cartoons would offend — that has always been their agenda and a major part of their purpose in publishing these cartoons — to make a statement which they KNEW would provoke not just the general public but an unstable, violent, irrational group of people who adamantly reject the idea of freedom of speech or a free press. That was NOT the agenda of the Jews in that market. The Jewish community in France has already accommodated itself in numerous ways to living with this wild and violent segment of the population as well as an apathetic government. French Jews do everything but go into physical hiding: they wear no identifying garments or jewelry, they do not congregate in public as Jews, they avoid places where Muslims are predominant or even just frequent, they have guards monitoring synagogues and they keep as low a profile as possible. And yet even with all this, when they are slaughtered, it registers little among the general population. If it were not for the Charlie Hebdo attack, I suppose the outrageously cruel attack at the kosher market would barely have made the front pages of European newspapers. After all, the intelligentsia of Europe have much more important things to write about — you know, things which might affect THEM.
But don’t worry, you won’t miss out on the lessons to be learned here. I hear a popular imam in Britain has, in response to this savagery, declared the UK an official enemy of Muslims, and has advocated revenge for the “crimes” committed by the British people against Islam — after all the ways the British government and British intellectuals have accommodated them. Nations which ignore the threat when it “just affects the Jews” soon find themselves as the targets. France thought if it accommodated the Palestinians by recognizing Palestine as a state, it could insulate itself from Muslim rage. I guess they were wrong.
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Anti-Semitic murder is a detestable crime. The UK is (or should be) a solid ally of Israel and world Jewry. It’s true that we face the same enemies and, if we fail to resist them, will suffer the same fate.
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How would the Evo Psychs explain it all… our present condition?
I take it as given that the modern human is one skinless raw nerve. And one predisposed to show and tell – the candleight vigil, the million man (and woman – lest I hit someone else’s exposed nerves) march, the expressions of empathic support, and on, and on, and… Immediately after 9/11 everyone was an American. After 7/7 everyone was a Brit. After the Paris attack, we are Charlie. Fitting that Weimar should be mentioned, for if we are anything in the West, we are all Weimar. Long ago, I’d read Otto Freidrich’s BEFORE THE DELUGE about Weimar Berlin. Everything in it, several magnitudes greater, and writ as epic, would fully describe the present goings on.
Which brings me to Le Pen. When it comes to it, when the usual suspects, the political parties and the visible spectrum of ideologies, not only fail in staying the demolition, but exacerbate it, people will turn to anyone promising the status quo ante and a restoration of order. If they find it only on the fringe, they will make their way to the fringe.
It is my contention that Nietzsche had it just right:
I call an animal, a species, an individual, corrupt, when it loses its instincts, when it prefers what is injurious to it. (The Antichrist).
Considering the extent of corruption in the West I find it difficult to believe this will end with a restoration or reformation – not until after the deluge.
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That’s an excellent quote from my favourite philosopher.
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He was far ahead of his era.
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Slight (but meaningful) detail here: The four jewish victims were not taken hostages, they were immediately executed as the jihadist entered the store. The people he actually took hostage were not (physically) hurt during the incident.
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OK. Thank you for the correction. I went by the early reports. The story is developing all the time.
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Science is observation & reason & not politically correct.
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Science is Haram.
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An excellent article. Islam is undoubtedly incompatible with European civilisation. Personally I don’t accept the distinction between moderate Islam and radical islam. Rather it is more accurate to speak of PATIENT Islam and IMPATIENT Islam. The patient majority are biding their time and waiting for their day. The impatient ones tend to ‘let the cat out of the bag’ as it were. In a sense we should all be grateful to the likes of Anjem Choudhury for warning us in advance of what is ultimately intended.
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Thank you.
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Your dichotomy is very accurate by the way. There are only active or latent Muslims. I don’t consider moderate Muslims as Muslims at all.
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Reblogged this on ElderofZyklon's Blog!.
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