Charlie Hebdo jihad attack: Free speech is a microcosm of a much larger issue
by Christine Williams
Free speech is but a fragment of the issue stemming from the jihad massacre in France, albeit an important one. Although offensive cartoons were said to have provoked these fanatics, there are countless other slaughters happening globally at the hands of jihadists that are unrelated to free speech. The issue is Islamic jihad terror, and free speech when directed at Muhammad is just one of the Western rights that inflames jihadists. Charlie Hebdo was equally offensive to other faiths, including Christianity, making vulgar mockeries of Jesus, Mary, and the Trinity, without bloodshed by any Christians.
Islamic jihad terror is what every freedom-loving and Western nation needs to stand together to fight. Following the 14-minute trailer for “Innocence of Muslims” two years ago that mocked the Prophet Muhammad, violent riots erupted across the Muslim world, leaving widespread carnage. Rather than condemn the eruption, Turkey’s then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan encouraged it by stating that “Turkey recognizes anti-semitism as a crime, while not a single Western country recognizes Islamophobia as such.” Meanwhile, Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, a Washington-based writer, former Imam and former member of the International Institute for Islamic Thought—who was there when the word “Islamophobia” was created–wrote:
“This loathsome term [Islamophobia] is nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics.”
Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly delivered an important commentary following the Charlie Hebdo killings, addressing the larger issue. He stated:
“No question another terror attack by Muslim fanatics while waging war against nearly everybody. Every country on earth is being impacted by the jihad. Yet we will not admit the truth about this ongoing war.”
O’Reilly criticized President Obama’s statement: “One thing I am very confident about is the values that we share with the French people: a Universal belief in the freedom of expression is something that can’t be silenced because of the senseless violence of a few.”
O’Reilly accurately pointed out that it isn’t “just the few,” but that the “jihadists have a stronghold in at least a dozen countries” and “have killed thousands of American military people and tens of thousands of civilians.”
In addition, jihadists also routinely slaughter Christians and other innocents, and destroy churches and other places of worship. In Saudi Arabia, churches are not even allowed to exist, because according to Bandar al-Aiban, the director of the Saudi National Human Rights commission, “the entire country is a ‘sacred mosque’ for Islam’s holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina.”
About 100,000 Christians are killed every year around the world because of their faith, according to top Vatican official Monsignor Silvano Maria Tomasi, a Catholic archbishop, who cited the Middle East, Africa and Asia as the worst places for the persecution.
Persecution watchdog Open Doors’ annual World Watch List found that North Korea was the only exception in the top ten list of offenders: nine out of the ten countries ranked the most oppressive for Christians to live in were Muslim. Following North Korea are Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, the Maldives, Pakistan, Iran, and Yemen. Other religious minorities suffer the same way, and Muslim-on-Muslim killing is staggering: some ten million Muslims have been murdered by other Muslims of opposing sects since the founding of Israel in 1948.
On Western soil, our leaders and citizens are increasingly becoming subjugated psychologically through jihadist intimidation, intensified by the reality of the murders at Charlie Hebdo. Furthermore, although it has been reported that “only” some ten percent of the global Muslim population is violent, that number is highly significant when considering that a very small minority of Germans were Nazis, but the world witnessed the atrocities of that minority; and an additional problem emerges where a significant number of Muslim adherents cheer on and embolden violent jihadists.
Entertainer Bill Maher passionately addressed this point when he blasted Muslims who support the massacre in France. On ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, Maher said:
“I know most Muslim people would not have carried out an attack like this….But here’s the important point: Hundreds of millions of them support an attack like this. They applaud an attack like this. What they say is, ‘We don’t approve of violence, but you know what? When you make fun of the Prophet, all bets are off.”
The Islamic State (ISIS) is another force that has served to embolden Muslim anti-Western sentiments and jihadists. The Islamic State has called for its members to kill civilians and soldiers in Western countries. In addition, the foreign fighters of ISIS are now a grave Western threat through ISIS’s aggressive social media campaign for new recruits, promises of paradise and monetary gifts.
Due to the ongoing policy laxity of fearful and vote-soliciting Western leaders, jihadists are growing in strength and numbers, and because of politicians’ failure to deal with this problem, now violence is being met with further violence in France: mosques were fired upon with blank grenades and bullets following the Charlie Hebdo massacre. While the West continues to be politically correct as to not be deemed Islamophobic, dhimmitude is leading to unrest. There is no possible way to appease jihadists, as their goal is conquest by whatever means necessary. This includes both stealth and violent jihadists, as they work together toward the same goal. Our stand in support with the Charlie Hebdo publication should not be only for free speech, but a declaration that free people everywhere are going to stand up and resist bowing down to and being subjugated by jihadists.
Christine Williams is Public Affairs and Media Consultant for the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem Canada; a nine-time award-winning TV Host and Producer; and a Director on the Canadian Race Relations Foundation.