 |
| Nope. |
Last week I wrote a piece with my thoughts about the Paris Shooting, right after it had happened. The piece was, to be fair, a very nuanced piece. I didn't jump on the "#JeSuisCharlie" bandwagon, and I'm kind of glad I didn't, because everyone else did. I totally understand why too. I even agree with them, for the most part.
The entire point behind the #JeSuisCharlie movement is not about some form of policy outcome, or some nuanced political position. Far from. The people in the streets are standing against the killing of people who just went to work that day and did their jobs. They are standing against extremists. They are standing against attacks on the freedom of speech. They are standing against divisions in society that cause violence. All of these are great things to stand against. In fact, I stand with them on each count. You cannot stand by and say it's okay for extremists to kill comic-strip artists for their work. Whether the work is decent and of good faith or not, what happened in France is beyond the pale of how we live in not just the "Western" world, but in the civilized world too. Every time you are offended, you can't react violently. You can't kill people for insulting your religion. You can't kill your wife for having an affair. You can't kill your neighbor for violating your property rights. You can't kill, period. You also can't try to silence someone else's free speech rights, even if their speech is derogatory and negative. We can't have that. So I'm with the people who marched in Paris. All three million of them, or whatever.
I'm also glad President Obama and his senior Administration officials had better things to do yesterday. I say so in part because the whole "world leaders joining the people" meme was false. Yes, it's a photo-op:
Think about some of the leaders who were in that line, particularly French President Hollande and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Does anyone in their right mind think they have the same response to this tragedy in mind that President Obama does? Is it in either of their interests to pursue the nuance of this issue? I don't mean to pick on either of them, but that they are the most simple examples of other people, there for the symbolic appeal, who will not have incentive to see this issue the same way as the President. I'm glad we have a President finally who isn't diving into bed with anyone who will take a picture with him. I'm glad we're getting some nuance here, in act if not word. I'm glad we're getting a focus on results over images. This is a much different reaction than we would have received from President Bush or Vice-President Cheney. This is a watershed moment because black and white views of the world and the press pushing for symbolic stories to cover isn't what's driving Administrative action. That's a good thing.
You see, this story really isn't so simple. The murderers in this case are as much French as they are Muslim, like most of us a product of the many influences on their lives. While these guys rant about Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, the reality is that they live in France, and when you rant about Abu Ghraib in a nation that wouldn't send troops into Iraq in the first place, I think you're either insane or confused, or in this case both. The confusion is clear in these guys, at least after listening to their interviews with French television. French race relations, French religious relations, the influence of incarceration, and internal terrorism politics all played a role in creating these monsters. Many of these conditions are either non-existent, or much different in America. I'll remind you that more Muslims in France faced retaliatory actions after this horrible attack than people were killed in the actual attack. I'll also remind you that, per capita and in intensity, we had less retaliation against American Muslims after 9/11. Some of this is simply beyond the image-based American mind's ability to put together.
The world leaders there had different reasons for going, and we should respect that as a nation. Some of them though are going to use this as an opportunity to paint a broad-brush, black-and-white image of good and bad here moving forward. We're going to hear about how "Muslims need to apologize," or "Muslims need to reign in extremists." Which Muslims, the Sunni or the Shi'ites, al-Qaeda or ISIS, the states or the religious leaders? What about the Muslims who are calling out extremists, Muslims as far apart as Hezbollah's leader and the Council on American-Islamic Relations leader? Yes, Islam has a problem with extremists, let's not try to push that out of view. Let's not pretend that's an Islamic thing alone though either, or that Islam is the same everywhere on this issue.
Even the very crazy-actors involved in this are confusing. Two of them are clearly affiliated to al-Qaeda in Yemen, while another claimed allegiance to ISIS. The fourth one, the woman that got away, went to Syria apparently. I mean, going to Syria literally means she could be a part of either side of the terroristic divide, or she could be working with the Syrian Regime. Who are these people, what was their point, who was pulling their strings, and how do we keep them from striking again. These are serious questions that need to be answered for future policy's sake, and none of that is achieved at a march.
The Charlie Hebdo shooting is simply not as simple of an incident as some want to make it seem. Sure, the actual terrorist acts are simple. Sure, the cops doing their job and killing the terrorists is simple. After that? The reasons behind the attacks, the motivations, who provided the help and how, and all kinds of other questions remain unanswered. Most of the important answers about what happened and what should be done moving forward lie in the shades of grey, not the black and white reasoning you're mostly going to hear.
0 comments:
Post a Comment