Six months ago rioters trapped and threatened hundreds of Jews in a two Paris synagogues. At the time I wrote “the rioters in France today and their supporters threaten not only Jews. They threaten anyone who cares about tolerance, decency and democracy.”
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Yesterday that prediction proved true. A group of fanatical Muslim gunmen murdered 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper.
Aside from wringing our heads in wonder and disgust, how should we understand such acts? What causes them? Can anything stop them?
Here’s what we need to remember:
1. Islam never went through modernity: In the eighteenth and nineteenth century,Europe faced intellectual challenges of science, the political challenge of the democracy, and psychological challenges of Freud.
These challenges made Judaism and Christianity wrestle with our dark angels. We gave birth to the era of religious tolerance and the principled separation of church and state.
Most Muslim populations never underwent this process. Certain pockets in the United States and Turkey did, but the vast majority did not. The rise of ISIS and ongoing tension in Syria continue to prove it.
In 1989 political scientist Samuel Huntington predicted the “The Clash of Civilizations” between the West and Islam. The growth of modern and moderate Islam—one that wrestles with its darker angels—is the only way to end it.
2. Fear begets fear: Many political pundits are suggesting the greatest beneficiary of this tragedy will be the conservative National Front political party in France.
Its founder was viciously anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic throughout his political career. Its current leadership wants France to turn away from the European Union, slow immigration and stop getting involved in international affairs.
History suggests such a development would be disastrous. When the United States and Britain turned inward after the first World War, Nazi Germany filled the power vacuum.
Yet, the fear in France is real. Echoes of the past were heard in the words of a Parisian woman quoted in yesterday’s New York Times.
“When journalists are killed for expressing their views, it is one step away from burning books. It’s like Kristallnacht. There’s no respect for human life.”
3. Hopes seems elusive: In an op-ed piece reflecting on the massacre, columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote that the Paris murders “weren’t even the most lethal terror attack on Wednesday: A car bomb outside a police college in Yemen, possibly planted by Al Qaeda, killed at least 37 people.”
The way to find hope now is by remembering our common humanity. After 9/11 people around the world said we are all Americans now. Yesterday people around the world held signs saying “We Are All Charlie Now.”
Even when it seems elusive, hope is never lost.
