We’re dealing with grand-scale terrorism now: towers downed, kidnapping, rape, murder en masse. Perhaps it was one poke at the hornet’s nest too many. On Charlie Hebdo ’s Twitter account, the last tweet mocked Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the brutal, brutish self-declared Islamic State. That is a lesson Europeans are learning, but too slowly. Biard think Islamist rage would be content forever with merely beating up Jews, burning synagogues and marching through the streets screaming “To the gas, Jews”? Whatever starts with anti-Semitism moves on to bigger fish. The utopian vision of Islamists does not tolerate mockery. Stalin purged writers who showed the slightest disrespect. All totalitarian systems loathe mockery and punish those who ridicule their sacred monsters. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Charlie Hebdo ’s editor-in-chief Gerard Biard told F rance Inter : “I don’t understand how people can attack a newspaper with heavy weapons. But an attack of this magnitude has staggered the imagination even of those accustomed to threats and hatred directed at iconoclasts. One of the few publications with the courage to publish the infamous Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed, which sparked threats of violence in 2005, it is hardly surprising that it should find itself in the crosshairs of Islamists. Ĭharlie Hebdo is a satiric magazine known for its bravado on touchy subjects, especially Islam, which it has frequently – and scathingly – satirized.
We stand with the French people in the fight against terror and defending the freedom of the press.” Fine words, small comfort. President Obama condemned the attack in “the strongest possible terms.” Britain’s David Cameron said: “the murders are sickening. Article content All totalitarian systems loathe mockery and punish those who ridicule their sacred monsters.įoreign governments expressed their horror at the attack and their solidarity with France.