The Future Belongs to Charlie Hebdo

“The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam,” were the words of President Barack Obama, before the United Nations. And for twelve people at the office of satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, massacred by gunmen today in Paris, there will indeed be no future.

The two gunmen reportedly forced their way into the magazine offices, yelling “allahu akbar” (God is Greater), and opened fire. There are reports coming in that the gunmen instructed survivors, “You say to the media that it was al-Qaeda in Yemen.” If this is true, it would be a realization of a threat made against the newspaper’s editor by a 2013 edition of the AQAP produced “Inspire Magazine.”

Each gunmen wore a black ski mask, and were armed with kalashnikov rifles. A video shot by a nearby bystander shows  two gunmen emerge from the building and engaged a French police officer with more gunfire. After the policeman fell, a gunmen executed him with an additional round at close range, before the two attackers fled in a stolen vehicle.

The same White House which is now condemning the attack, had previously gone out of its way to condemn the cartoons published by the magazine back in 2012:

“We are aware that a French magazine published cartoons featuring a figure resembling the prophet Muhammad, and obviously we have questions about the judgment of publishing something like this,” [Then White House Spokesman Jay] Carney told reporters during a midday press briefing at the White House. “We know these images will be deeply offensive to many and have the potential be be inflammatory,” Carney said in a prepared statement. Putting satirical cartoons on the same level as terrorist murder is exactly the problem.

Unfortunately, this is not merely a matter of spinelessness, but spinelessness as official policy.

The Obama administration has been deeply involved in pursuing an agenda, promoted by the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which equates speech which offends with direct incitement to murder. That effort, known as Resolution 16/18, after the joint U.S.-Egyptian resolution which introduced it, or the “Istanbul Process,” by the series of  high-level meetings held between the State Department and OIC members, is explicitly intended by Islamic states to prohibit what they describe as “defamation of religion” including insulting Islam’s prophet.

White House officials were already uttering the standard reassurances that despite the clear effort by the gunmen to enforce Sharia strictures on Blasphemy, this attack may not be terrorism, and of course, taking the submissive posture that Islam is an inherently and indisputably a peaceful religion (which is not the same thing as recognizing that many individual Muslims are themselves peaceful people.)

The attack on Charlie Hebdo is only one front in the war on free expression perpetuated in the name of enforcing Sharia blasphemy laws. The staff of Charlie Hebdo are martyrs to free speech, but they are not alone. Over 35 Christians in Pakistan were lynched last year over the mere rumor of possible blasphemy, including a couple which was burned alive. In 2012, a Saudi blogger tweeted a comment questioning his own commitment to belief in Mohammed’s prophethood. Death threats followed. He fled to Malaysia, but was deported under an Interpol Red notice to Saudi Arabia, where he faced execution for blasphemy (he was eventually freed after almost two years in prison.)

But it is not only in the Middle East. In The United Kingdom, an 85-year old woman was charged by police after yelling outside a Chatham-area mosque,  expressing anger regarding the brutal massacre of British Army Drummer Lee Rigby.  Here in the United States, Terry Jones (whose face adorns the Al Qaeda hit list), was directly castigated by President Obama and General David Petraeus in an attempt to prevent the Pastor from conducting a public burning of the koran in an act of protest (a perhaps distasteful but legally permissible act of free expression.) In 2012, following the attack on the Benghazi consulate where four Americans were killed, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told one victim’s father that the maker of a film mocking Mohammed would be jailed as a result. As indeed, it turned out that the man, Nakoula Bassely Nakoula, was indeed jailed. Molly Norris, a cartoonist was forced into hiding, after she  attempted to establish “Every One Draw Mohammed Day” in defense of the creators of the TV Show South Park being censored for attempting to do so. In 2010, Christians were arrested in Dearborn, Michigan for “breach of peace” during a peaceful attempt to preach to Muslims at an Arab Festival. (They were eventually released and the city apologized following a lawsuit.) And there remains, of course, the infamous, Danish Cartoons, whose authors have repeatedly and continuously faced assaults and threats ever since.

Whichever jihadist group was responsible for the attack of Charlie Hebdo bears the ultimate responsibility. But there is a culpability also for those who have hinted that violence and threats of violence will encourage us to abandon our commitment to free expression, or established a policy which says that the West is amendable to surrendering cherished freedom rather than risk “offense.” That culpability remains until political and media leaders can say unapologetically, “The Future belongs to Charlie Hebdo.”