Hebdo, a satirical French magazine, spotlights Michel Houellebecq, author of a new novel that imagines the Islamisation of France and then the European Union. Critics had denounced Mr Houellebecq’s book (see article), which depicts a near future in which Islamists win France’s presidency and compromise its freedoms, as Islamophobic scaremongering. Then, on the day of its publication, masked gunmen attacked Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris. They yelled “Allahu Akbar” as they murdered 12 people and wounded others, in France’s worst terrorist attack for half a century (see article). The gunmen fled; police have named two brothers as suspects. As anti-immigrant sentiment—especially the anti-Muslim kind—seeps across Europe, from street protests in Dresden (see article) to English ballot boxes, the atrocity in Paris seemed ghoulishly to realise the continent’s darkest nightmare; almost, in fact, to caricature it.
For all the grim, incessant warnings of terrorist threats, naturally the first reaction to this massacre, in France and elsewhere, was outrage. Yet the murders also demand a fuller response. The magazine was targeted because it cherished and promoted its right to offend: specifically to offend Muslims. That motive invokes two big themes. One is free speech, and whether it should have limits, self-imposed or otherwise. The answer to that is an emphatic no. The second is Muslim Europe—and whether episodes such as this are part of a civilisational struggle between Western democracies and extreme Islam, on a battlefield stretching continuously from Peshawar to Raqqa to the centre of Paris. Again, the answer is no.
Hebdo, a satirical French magazine, spotlights Michel Houellebecq, author of a new novel that imagines the Islamisation of France and then the European Union. Critics had denounced Mr Houellebecq’s book (see article), which depicts a near future in which Islamists win France’s presidency and compromise its freedoms, as Islamophobic scaremongering. Then, on the day of its publication, masked gunmen attacked Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris. They yelled “Allahu Akbar” as they murdered 12 people and wounded others, in France’s worst terrorist attack for half a century (see article). The gunmen fled; police have named two brothers as suspects. As anti-immigrant sentiment—especially the anti-Muslim kind—seeps across Europe, from street protests in Dresden (see article) to English ballot boxes, the atrocity in Paris seemed ghoulishly to realise the continent’s darkest nightmare; almost, in fact, to caricature it.For all the grim, incessant warnings of terrorist threats, naturally the first reaction to this massacre, in France and elsewhere, was outrage. Yet the murders also demand a fuller response. The magazine was targeted because it cherished and promoted its right to offend: specifically to offend Muslims. That motive invokes two big themes. One is free speech, and whether it should have limits, self-imposed or otherwise. The answer to that is an emphatic no. The second is Muslim Europe—and whether episodes such as this are part of a civilisational struggle between Western democracies and extreme Islam, on a battlefield stretching continuously from Peshawar to Raqqa to the centre of Paris. Again, the answer is no.
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