Muslims Reject Separation of Church and State

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright January 14, 2015
All Rights Reserved.
                                    

            Selling more that 3 million copies of Charlie Hebdo’s new cover featuring a tearful Mohammad, the French publication signaled that freedom of speech won over terrorism.  When al-Qaeda’s Yemen-based cell gave the orders to attack French satiric magazine Charlie Hebdo Jan. 7, its 40-something leader Ansr al-Ansi praised the operation as avenging the Prophet Mohammad from Western blasphemy.  While no reliable intelligence service can verify al-Ansi’s claim of responsibility for Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula [AQAP], he insisted that Yemen’s late al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki planned the operation.  When the dust settles after Jan. 7 attack that killed 12 cartoonists—17 died, including the terrorists, in the operation, including four in a Kosher market in Paris’s Le Marais district—a traditionally Jewish business area in the 3rd and 4th arrondissements.

             Al-Ansi, speaking for AQAP, insisted the operation avenged the honor of the Prophet.  “We did it with the command of Allah and supporting his messenger,” justifying a mayhem in the name of Islam.  Radical clerics like al-Ansi and his predecessor Anwar al-Awlaki, are clever propagandists, brainwashing disenfranchised youth into suicide and violence.  Unlike other terror operations, the Paris cell provided all the modern terrorist amenities, including bullet-proof vests, hoping, unlike prior suicide operations, the terrorists that included the 30-somethings Said and Cherif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly, tried to make out alive before going down in a hail of gunfire.  Attacking a newspaper was long overdue for al-Qaida who threatened Denmark’s Jyllands-Postem cartoonists for publishing satiric images Sept. 30, 2005 of Mohammed, driving artists incognito.

             Europe’s Islamic community needs guidance from the Brussels-based European Union who’s not publicly announced its unequivocal policy on separation of church and state.  Like the United States, the EU places its highest value on freedom of the press, regardless of death threats by offended parties.  Clerics commenting on the Charlie Hebdo massacre publicly deplore violence but insist publishing blasphemous images incite violence.  These same clerics desperately need EU guidance on freedom of speech.  EU and U.S. investigators haven’t determined whether or not the claims by al-Ansi’s AQAP claims hold up, especially the one about the deceased al-Awlaki planning the Paris operation.  Publishing the so-called “survivors edition” picturing a tearful Prophet with a sign “Tout Est Pardonne,” or “all is forgiven” prompted new waves of Muslim condemnation and violence.

             Turkey’s 60-year-old President Racip Tayyip Erdogan ordered Turkey’s Internet services to block the Charlie Hebdo’s Website for more blasphemy against Islam.  Brussels head of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker needs to note Erdogan’s contempt for freedom of speech and religion.  With Turkey still unwilling to acknowledge, let alone admit, the 1915 genocide of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks, Erdogan lacks the moral authority to lecture others about human rights.  “We condemn provocations, attacks and defamation against Muslims and Islamic symbols the same way we denounced the Paris attacks,” said Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan, demonstrating precisely why today’s Turkey is not fit to join the EU.  Erdogan’s Turkey violates the secular principles of Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, Turkey’s first modern president.

             Whatever investigators find about who’s behind the Paris massacre, there’s enough unrest, discontent and violence in French suburbs, where North African and Middle Easter French-speaking immigrants often live in undesirable conditions with a bleak future.  Periodic violence hits the suburbs, laced with graffiti and wayward youth having no way to protest intolerable living conditions except by rioting.  How those conditions in France and other EU countries contribute to Jan. 7 Paris massacre is anyone’s guess.  Publishing its “survivor edition,” Charlie Hebdo showed its kindred spirit to American freedom of speech.  Foreigners immigrating to secular societies from Muslim theocracies don’t understand that reverence to religious symbols takes a back seat to freedom of speech and expression.  Government officials must make that message to immigrants clear.

             Taking responsibility for the Paris massacre, al-Ansi invites the same fate as his mentor Anwar al-Awalki, the American-born al-Qaeda radical killed by a U.S. predator drone Sept. 30, 2011.  “As far as the blessed battled of Paris, we, the Organization of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, claim responsibility for this operation as vengeance for the Messenger of God,” said al-Ansi.  Since al-Awlaki influenced former Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan to massacre 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas deployment center Nov. 5, 2009, al-Qaeda prefers smaller-scale, homegrown terrorist operations over more complex ones like Sept. 11.  Whatever the problems with Muslim assimilation from North Africa and Mideast in the EU, Brussels must make clear that all immigrants are welcomed into a secular society, where freedom of speech and expression reign supreme over organized religion.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.


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