Friday, January 09, 2015

Europe Under Seige

What we believe. [Link]
We in the West believe that blasphemy is a right and not a crime. And we in the West believe that Jews (and everyone else, for that matter) should be allowed to remain alive and have museums. (I would note, for those who believe that recent anti-Semitic attacks in Europe were caused by specific actions of the Israeli government, that a) anti-Semites cause anti-Semitism, not Israel; and, b) the Brussels attack occurred in May, well before the summer war in Gaza.)
The Charlie Hebdo massacre seems to be the most direct attack on Western ideals by jihadists yet. I’ve seen arguments advancing the idea that 9/11 represents the purest expression of Islamist rage at a specific Western idea— capitalism, in that case—but satire and the right to blaspheme are directly responsible for modernity. In the words of Simon Schama, “Irreverence is the lifeblood of freedom.”
The French president, Francois Hollande, said earlier today that, “No barbaric act will ever extinguish freedom of the press.” This statement is, as Claire Berlinski has pointed out, self-falsifying. This barbaric act, she notes, literally extinguished the press. The most recent iteration of the Islamist terror campaign in Europe has focused on Jews and cartoonists, but it will not end with Jews and cartoonists, unless it is comprehensively defeated.

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