Terrorism in the name of religion is at war with us. It is at war against reason. It wants to intimidate us back into the dark age of unreason and blind obeisance to religious authority; such authority as perceived legitimate by the terrorists. It uses an illegitimate and self induced sense of offendedness as an excuse for its attacks.
Theocratic fascists, the terrorists usually follow a literal interpretation or a distorted view of the scriptures not shared by their peace loving coreligionists. Nevertheless all the theocratic terrorists do claim to follow their respective religions. From the Toronto18 to the 2014 shooting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada has witnessed its own share of attacks in which at least a version of Islam appears to have played a role. The Air India terrorists accused were all Sikhs. The one accused who was convicted of manufacturing the bombs used to destroy Flight 182 is from all appearances a practising Sikh. The terrorists of 9/11 in New York, 26/11 in Mumbai, 7/7in London, Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish supermarket in Paris all followed a form of Islam. Mahatma Gandhi's killer Nathu Ram Godse and the suspects in the bombing of India/Pakistan Friendship ( Samjhauta) Express claimed to follow a form of Hinduism. Those that have targeted prochoice and antiabortion doctors and activists have been known to be right wing Christians.
Some have argued poverty, mental health or alienation from their surroundings play a part in the radicalisation of terrorists. In other words if everyone was rich and integrated in society we might have beeen spared the terrorism we now face. If I remember correctly the 9/11terrorists were mostly rich Saudis. The 7/11Mumbai attackers were educated and Pakistan trained. I know for a fact the Air India terrorists were not penniless. The one who issued the fatwa against Salman Rushdie was not some poor soul from the streets of Paris but the all powerful Ayatollah of Iran.
It is not their socio economic condition but their sense of being offended at some or the other perceived insult to their religion that seems to motivate these faith professing terrorists. They are easily offended. Some of them are anti-Semitic. Most do not like our view of history, our interpretation of events or what we write. They dislike our satire, despise our intellectual irreverence or our plainspoken disagreement with their desire to mould our world in their own medieval image.
These terrorists have apologists in the most unlikely places. One such is Tariq Ramadan. He is a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at the University of Oxford. He feels compelled to condemn the butchery at Charlie Hebdo but complains "we are reacting emotionally because 12 people were killed in Paris, but there are hundreds being killed day in, and day out in Syria and Iraq, and still we send more bombs." Last I read ISIS was butchering Shias, Kurds, Christians and any Sunis that stood in its way to establishing an Islamo-fascist state. The West and some Middle Eastern powers came together to stem the ISIS advance and butchery. That is what the bombs were for. Canada has sent its own men and women into harm's way to destroy ISIS. Ramadan poses moral equivalency where none exists between the despicable deed of Kouachi brothers and the attempt to degrade and destroy ISIS. I always knew Tariq Ramadan was an apologist for theocratic fascism. He remains true to his Islamic Brotherhood pedigree.
The easily offended need to be challenged by all other religionists on their easy proclivity for such offendedness. The 'offendedness' becomes an excuse for the violence of the 'offended' upon those the terrorists despise for their audacity to differ. Salman Rushdie says "respect for religion" has become a code for "fear of religion". The terrorist are merchants of that fear. With such fear they hope to make us dumb witnesses to their march backwards to medieval darkness.
Some of these terrorists and their sympathisers try to use the cover of multiculturalism to silence their critics. But multiculturalism can't be a substitute for shared values of freedom and democracy in our society. There can be no real democracy without freedom of expression. Freedom to satirise, write, speak and draw is fundamental to our way of life. No religion must be allowed to arrogate to itself the power and licence to kill or censor expression it may dislike. For those that want to kill satirists of free satire, satire that we have come to expect and accept, we must stand firm and continue to satirise them into the dustbin of history.
The theocratic terrorists must remember that tolerating a certain degree of offendedness is a price we all have to pay for our freedoms. All change is accompanied by a certain degree of offendedness. In their own time and in their own ways Christ, Muhammad, Gandhi and Martin Luther King offended the establishment and the status quo. It has always been so and it will always be thus.
That the barrels of the terrorists' guns will silence people is a pipedream. Theocratic totalitarianism won't long escape the inevitable fate of Hitler's fascism. In the end free expression of the pen, pencil and the human heart will silence the guns. Peace shall reign! Freedom shall endure!! Je suis libre!!!
