Terrorist attack in Paris –
HORRIBLE!
The terrorist
attack in Paris at the office of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo was horrible. Ten staff members at the satirical
weekly, including four of its top cartoonists, were gunned down by masked men.
These men also killed two policemen on the street outside before driving off in
a getaway car.
The publication
would caricature Islam and so also Christianity and Judaism.
The attack on
Charlie Hebdo might give rise to a backlash against French Muslims. There is a danger of Muslim population getting alienated and
this can become a recruiting ground for their violent cause.
The incident
happened in Paris and it was brutal killings of Majority community Journalist
by Minority community Fanatics. Many
had condemned the fringe hindutva group when they took against M. F. Hussain
for drawing nude Hindu Goddess. Hussain was lucky because Hindu extremists are
mild as compared to their Islamic counterparts.
The terror attack
in Paris resulting in over a dozen precious lives should prompt the civilized
society to thnk how far freedom of expresson can be allowed specially int the
matters of religions. For the sake of a cartoon making fun of a religion at the
cost of so many lives is not the right price to pay. Freedom of expression
should certainly prohibit making fun of any religion in the way done by Charlie
Hebdo and earlier repeated by a Danish Daily. There has to be some bar on free
speech so far as matters of religion are concerned. It is no use having right
of free speech if those supposed to use that right are wiped out from the
scene; and the way, they are being killed, a day might certainly come, when
there will be no one to use that free speech right in any media around the
world. Religion is a sensitive matter for a large section of the world and
hurting their sentiments in the name of free speech is not the right thing to
do. Remember that Religions killed more people than Bombs did .
But nobody can
deny the fact that the outdated and medieval ideals of 'Martyrdom and Jihad'
have to be banished from islamic theology for the religion to move forward in
democratic and modern societies. Otherwise what happened in modern day Paris is
just a tip of the iceberg. When the terrorists carried out their dastardly deed
against the staff of Charlie Hebdo, they shouted praises to "God".
The question that concerns most rational people is this: Will "GOD"
call on any of its followers to kill and maim in "his" or
"her" name? The killing of the journalists will only threaten Media
Freedom and Freedom in general. We all must stand up to any violence -
political or religon. Without Freedom of the Media, there can be no democracy
in this world.
The shooting by
masked gunmen at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in eastern Paris on
Wednesday adds to an already tense environment, with an anti-immigrant party
dominating in France, mosque burnings in Sweden and thousands marching in
Germany decrying the “Islamisation” of the west. Any incident like the one in
Paris will only be fuel to the fire. It will be welcomed as a ‘told-you-so’
episode by radical movements saying Islam is a threat to our countries.
Muslims in general
are good neighbourly people doing their thing like anyone else, many are also
poor, under-educated or even afraid. Recruitment to organised terror groups
with a Muslim cause is relatively modern, latest being the IS. In the post 9/11
years, we have certainly seen Islamophobhia on the rise, genocide being the
unused G-word. Even so, Muslims like others in Europe have not been as much
alienated by the religion as by the economy (one recession after the other ).
None of these are opting a path of destruction. But much of today's bad actions
are perfidious by nature. Perhaps, Charlie Hebdo too.
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