Bloodshed, terror and reaction in Paris
- By Heiko Khoo
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E-mail China.org.cn, January 10, 2015
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French special intervention police conduct a house-to-house search in Longpont, northeast of Paris, January 8, 2015.[Photo/Agencies via China Daily] |
The killings in Paris of staff at the satirical magazine Charlie Hedbo sparked an outpouring of justified outrage and despair in France and the Western world. Demonstrations in defence of free expression and against the terrorist objective of spreading fear have captured a popular mood of disgust, anger and indignation. However, the events come at a very delicate time, as anti-Islamic sentiment is already the main target of right-wing propaganda in Europe. Islamic State supporters and Europe's right-wing political movements are feeding off of each other.
The decentralized structure of the Islamic State terrorists and their capacity to win recruits from among believers in Western Europe make preventing these acts of terror ever more difficult. Two types of reactionary forces are bolstered by these attacks: Europe's extreme right is making headway by blaming socio-economic and cultural crises and clashes on Islam, multiculturalism and immigration; and new Islamic terrorist cells are springing up amongst alienated and angry Muslim youth. France's secular policies like the public ban on the full-face veils sometimes worn by Muslim women have, at times, appeared to specifically target Muslims. When combined with widespread suburban poverty and alienation amongst Muslim youth, this creates a breeding ground for dramatic and violent explosions of discontent that sometimes find expression in riots and civil unrest and at other times take the form of terrorism.
Of course, magazine editors know that goading conservative Islam through cartoon representations of the prophet Muhammad in the name of satire will provoke protests, death threats and terrorist acts. But this is not simply an irreconcilable battle between freedom-loving cartoonists who are desperate to make hilarious satire and insult-sensitive religious fanatics who are eager to find a target to kill. Colonial history and its connections and continuity with the present - in wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Iraq for example - are primary factors shaping the formation of consciousness for many Muslims living in the West, but this sometimes finds expression in religious form.
The primary benefactor of the attacks in Paris will be France's right-wing leader of the Front National, Marine Le Pen. In the immediate aftermath of these events, she called for the reintroduction of the death penalty, thereby proposing a medieval Christian "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" philosophy to counter Islamic terrorism. She is ahead in the polls for the election of the next president of France. Britain's right-wing leader Nigel Farage simply blames excessive multiculturalism for the Paris attacks.
It is as if the far right in Europe and the Islamic fundamentalists are in a symbiotic relationship, each feeding off of and reinforcing each other. The more extreme fascist right in Europe uses the anti-Islamic movement, like that in Germany, as a cover to carry out violent attacks on immigrants, Muslims, and activists associated with political parties on the left. Indeed, it should be remembered that the worst terrorist attack in Europe in recent years was carried out in 2011, when right-wing fanatic Anders Behring Breivik massacred 77 people in Norway. He claimed he was fighting against Islam and "cultural Marxism."
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