It has been reported that three gunmen opened fire inside the headquarters of the French publication Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday morning, killing ten journalists — including four founding cartoonists — and two police officers.
It is believed that the attack came as a result of a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad created by French cartoonist and editor Stéphane Charbonnier.
A satirical publication, Charlie Hebdo has a history of anti-religious rhetoric coupled with left-wing pluralism.
The weekly publication’s website was hacked and its office firebombed in 2011 after putting a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad on its front page.
Speculation of who is responsible has been inconsistent, even after the gunmen were identified. However, it would be difficult to argue that this massacre had little to do with religious symbolism.
It should be quite obvious that not all those practicing the Islamic faith want death for those who offend their religious sensitivities. However, just because they don’t want to kill anyone doesn’t mean they aren’t offended either.
The Islamic faith has a long history of abhorring idolatry, which is essentially worshiping an idol or symbol instead of the actual teachings of a prophet or savior.
This concept is very difficult for Americans to grasp, because most of us have the mindset of being able to say whatever we want, whenever we want, with impunity. In the eyes of some, America is free to be insensitive towards others.
Of course, this religious sensitivity is on a gradient, what with the most extreme reaction ending the lives of others while those shaken the least walk it off and return to their daily lives like the rest of us.
And Charlie Hebdo is not the kind of publication to shy away from depictions of anyone. In 2011, the publication ran a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad on their front page with the speech bubble reading, “100 lashes from the whip if you don’t die laughing.”
Arguments of tasteful humor aside, keep in mind; as far as these extremists are concerned, even a sketch drawing of Muhammad validates being put to death.
The three men responsible for the killings represent an angry and insecure sect deep inside the underbelly of Islamic faith — similar to the Westboro Baptist Church’s fixation with the principles of Calvinism here in America.
I make this comparison not to juxtapose the religious extremism of each sect but to emphasize how poorly ?representative these sects are of their — for lack of a better term — umbrella religions. No one group is representative of an entire religious ?following.
This extremist group is truly an outlier of the Islamic faith.
Already leaders of the Muslim world have come forward to decry the events that took place in the offices of Charlie Hebdo, such as Al-Azhar — the most prestigious Islamic school of Sunnism — and Dalil Boubakeur, the Head of the Great Mosque of Paris.
Editor-in-chief of the German satirical publication ?Titanic Tim Wolff expressed his sympathy to the staff of Charlie Hebdo, and calmly sated his philosophy on the matter in the aftermath of such a hateful crime.
“If you shoot at satirists, you only make our work more relevant.”
michoman@indiana.edu
