Muslim intellectuals and activists speaking at a webinar on Sunday strongly condemned the Paris beheading of a school teacher, Samuel Paty, by an 18-year-old Muslim fanatic, Abdullakh Anzorov.  The webinar was organised by the Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD). Moderated by its convener, Javed Anand, all four panellists are office bearers and prominent members of IMSD.

In his introductory remarks Anand stated: “We are here to condemn in unequivocal terms, no ifs and buts, not only the man responsible for this barbaric act but all those who had any role in the instigation of the crime as also all those who seek to justify it. We are here not just to condemn the slaying of Mr Paty, but also to demand the abolishing of apostasy and banishing of blasphemy anywhere and everywhere across the world”. 

Islamic Scholar Dr Zeenat Shaukat Ali, Mumbai-based, argued that killing people for blasphemy or apostasy is not permissible in Islam. The Qur’an never mentioned such punishments. The Qur’an has stood for peace and justice in a non-violent way. It will be very fruitful if scholars and ulema scrutinised and sifted through Hadith literature which has been pending over the years. The confirmation of a Hadith has to be in consonance with the verses of the Qur’an, she said. 

“Respectfully, the Paris beheading is a wake-up call to the ulema and leaders of the Muslim world. It is time for both the clergy and the parents to instruct children that such acts of violence are not only detested and abhorred by Islam but are in total contradiction to Islam’s reverence for peace, explicit recognition of tolerance, compassion, social equality, high moral order and spiritual depth, Ali added.

Columnist, New Age Islam, Arshad Alam, Delhi-based, in his presentation contextualised the Islamist beheading of the teacher. Pointing out that it was planned and pre-meditated, he argued the prime objective of such acts of terror is to silence any critique of Islam. Alam added that Charlie Hebdo cartoons must be seen within a European tradition which has for long satirised religious traditions, particularly Christianity. Since Islam is also now a European religion, the same yardstick must be applied to this religion also. Those who want to retain blasphemy laws on the statute are basically the same forces which are opposed to the liberal secular tradition and therefore should be rightly understood as indulging in right wing politics, he said.

Alam argued that it is incumbent on Muslims to raise their voice against the laws of blasphemy and apostasy as worldwide they are the worst victims of such laws. Moreover, these laws serve to control and intimidate the minds of Muslims and till the time they are not abrogated, Muslims and others will not have the freedom to discuss, debate and critique, something which is cardinal in order to develop a free and open society.   

Advocate and mediator, A. J. Jawad, Chennai-based, spoke about the similarities between blasphemy and sedition as weapons of power and control used by theocracies and autocracies to suppress dissent and to whip up mob frenzy. He said that religion and nationalism are excuses used to charge up emotions. The anti-blasphemy laws and anti-sedition laws are used to attack detractors and dissenters by theocratic and autocratic (far right) rulers.

He pointed out how in the 11th century AD, Sunni scholars of law and theology, called the “ulema,” began working closely with political rulers to challenge what they considered to be the sacrilegious influence of Muslim philosophers on society.

The most prominent in consolidating Sunni orthodoxy, said Jawad, was the brilliant and highly regarded Islamic scholar Ghazali, who died in the year 1111. In several influential books still widely read today, Ghazali declared two long-dead leading Muslim philosophers, Farabi and Ibn Sina, apostates for their unorthodox views on God’s power and the nature of resurrection. Their followers, Ghazali wrote, could be punished with death.

Ghazali’s declaration provided justification to Muslim sultans from the 12th century onward who wished to persecute– even execute – thinkers seen as threats to conservative religious rule. The trend continues today, said Jawad.

Activist and writer Feroze Mithiborwala, Mumbai-based, said essentially the basic argument against the cartoon controversy is that they “mock” and “offend my religious sensibilities” and thus should be banned. The cartoons of Prophet Muhammad, which undoubtedly hurt the feelings of ordinary Muslims actually required a non-violent response, which would have been far more effective.

On one hand, we have a murder committed by a religious fanatic in the name of blasphemy. On the other hand, there is a secular French tradition of absolute freedom of expression, which includes the right to offend all religions, Mithiborwala added. He said it’s high time religious people realised one basic truth: every religious text and tradition is ‘offensive, blasphemous and heretical’ to the followers of other sects and religions.

The very concepts of blasphemy and heresy are essentially anti-people and anti-democratic, as their agenda is to stymie any theological and intellectual debate and discussion on the issue of religious oppression and violence, both ideological and structural. Therefore concepts such as blasphemy and heresy have no place in any conscientious civilised society and must go, Mithiborwala concluded.

A 2-minute silence was observed at the beginning of the webinar as a mark of respect for the slain teacher whom Hassen Chalghoumi, an imam who leads prayers at a mosque in a Paris suburb described as “a martyr for freedom of expression, and a wise man who has taught tolerance, civilisation and respect for others.” The imam added: “This is not Islam, sorry, it’s not religion, its Islamism, it’s the poison of Islam.” 

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Image Courtesy: BBC

French diplomats speaking off the record are feeding a stream of threats to the media, making clear that Paris will support a bloody intervention to topple President Nicolas Maduro. “Indifference would be even worse than intervention,” one diplomat said. Another told Le Monde the European powers had given Maduro an eight-day ultimatum to step down “to give Nicolas Maduro a little time to decide whether he wants to be Gorbachev or Bashar al-Assad.”

As the Trump administration threatens to blockade Venezuela and even invade the country, a threat echoed by Brazil’s far-right government, the implications of this threat are unmistakable. Either Maduro hands over Venezuela to the imperialist powers, or they may target it for a proxy war as in Syria, where hundreds of thousands died.

As they face growing repression of “yellow vest” protests, it is critical for workers in France and across Europe to oppose the imperialist threats against Venezuela.

As it faces threats of blockade, a disintegration of its currency as inflation surges, and a collapse of broad sections of the working population into poverty, Venezuela is being targeted by a relentless campaign of provocations in the European media.

Speaking to France Inter, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian stated that Maduro’s ouster and his replacement by Guaidó was necessary: “Only free elections will allow the state to have a renewed authority and democracy.” He said, “We have noted President Maduro’s refusal to hold presidential elections that would work to simplify, clarify and make more serene the situation in Venezuela, and we believe Mr Guaidó has the capacity and the legitimacy to organize such elections.”

The claim that Guaidó has the legitimacy to decide the fate of Venezuela is absurd. A 35-year-old right-wing operative who was politically unknown prior to the coup attempt, Guaidó has been backed and funded by the US NGOs and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a long-standing front for CIA interventions in Latin America and around the world.

The purpose of the coup attempt is not to restore democracy, but to plunder the country. Top Trump administration officials have not hidden the strategic aims of installing a US-backed operative as head of a state that currently has close ties, both military and economic, to Russia and China. Last month, US National Security Advisor John Bolton told Fox News: “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”

The European ruling elite is deploying its bottomless hypocrisy as it portrays its intervention to back Guaidó, following that of Trump, as a disinterested democratic act. Asked on France Inter whether his position constituted an intervention in Venezuelan politics, Le Drian shamelessly denied it, declaring it to be a “call” or a response to “a request for help.”

In the meantime, European papers are downplaying or furiously denying the obvious: that they are trampling Venezuelan sovereignty underfoot, backing a right-wing coup launched by Trump. “The capitals that are the most implicated, including Paris, appear to be acting in line with Washington,” France’s Le Monde wrote, while Spain’s El Pais proclaimed: “The announcement made by Spain and other European countries is not a break with legality, but precisely an attempt to task the interim president with restoring it…”

Both papers insisted that their policy is a better way to install Guaidó in power and tried to distance themselves from Trump, claiming that they are in fact fighting his Latin American policy by opposing calls for a US invasion of Venezuela.

In its editorial “Support for Guaidó,” El Pais wrote: “US President Donald Trump’s aggressive rhetoric helps no one who wants a return to democracy in Venezuela. On the contrary, it strengthens Nicolas Maduro and his followers. Not only do constant calls for a possible military intervention by Washington cause understandable international concern, but the European Union and Latin America must clearly confront them. This is a red line that should in no manner be crossed. The 20th century was the end of US interventions in Latin America.”

As for Le Monde’s editorial, “Venezuela: supporting not intervening,” it reiterated calls for a coup: “The crucial factor is that the Venezuelan army has not for now changed camp. Mr Guaidó must continue his efforts to manage to convince them.”

It pointed, however to the danger of a US conflict with Russia and China, as well as the politically explosive situation in Latin America, after the recent elections of Jair Bolsonaro’s fascistic regime in Brazil and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s populist government in Mexico. It wrote, “In this volatile situation, one thing is certain: US military intervention, which President Trump is threatening, would be a grave error.”

Such attempts to present European imperialism as pursuing a fundamentally different, more responsible and less aggressive policy than Trump are false to the core—dictated principally by the concern about opposition in the European and international working class to their policies.

Behind the scenes, powerful inter-imperialist rivalries are no doubt exploding between Washington and the EU. The scramble to divide up profits and oil from Latin America is especially bitter as Trump threatens the EU with trade war measures like tariffs on German car exports, and with Europe’s role as the top investor in Latin America in the balance. The European powers are no doubt afraid of the consequences, both economic and political, of a disastrous US occupation of Venezuela.

Presenting the European powers as opposing wars and coups is, however, a political lie. The 21st century has seen a drastic upsurge in US and European imperialist bloodshed, with wars in the Middle East, Africa and also the Western hemisphere, where US-led military interventions took place from Haiti to Colombia. However bitter their conflicts with Washington, the European powers themselves deployed troops to Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali, Syria, Libya and beyond. Their support for a coup in Venezuela only confirms that they have descended into utter lawlessness.

Originally published in WSWS.org

Courtesy: Countercurrents.org
 

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Terrorism is a threat everywhere. According to a Foreign Policy report, the worst terrorist events in 2015 occurred in Cameroon, Egypt, Iraq, Kenya, Nigeria, Syria and Yemen. 2016 has followed in step, with terrorist attacks occurring in locations as diverse as Belgium, Pakistan and Turkey.

Although most of these attacks led to injuries and fatalities, some writers have decried double standards in the media reporting and have highlighted the “seemingly differing public reaction to bombs in Belgium and attacks in Turkey”.

The nature and prominence of the way the media covers terrorist attacks is a good way to judge the public’s reaction – is the story on the front page or is it hidden away on page 13? But there are a range of other public responses – such as the solidarity rally of world leaders following the Paris attacks, flying official flags at half-mast on governmental buildings and lighting up landmark monuments in the colours of the national flag of the afflicted country.

Activity on social media, such as using Twitter hashtags and changing Facebook profile pictures to show solidarity is another potent indicator of the public’s response.

But all of the above indicators have to be approached with a degree of caution. Assessing the public response to an outrage by monitoring social media, for example, raises questions of computer accessibility. Not only that, but not everyone necessarily perceives social media as the appropriate medium for public expressions of solidarity.

The Economist found that, in the period 2000 to 2014, most of the deaths from terrorist events occurred in the Middle East and Africa – not the West. Indeed, according to Foreign Policy, in 2015, the most devastating terrorist attacks took place in Nigeria (with death tolls that ranged from 150 to 2,000) and Egypt (with a death toll of 224).

Seeking common ground

With respect to the seemingly differing Western public responses to terrorist events across the globe, several factors may play a role, including the spread and availability of journalists. Others have suggested a racist narrative. Will Gore, writing in The Independent about the attacks in Brussels in March, concluded that there is a “fundamentally racist narrative at play … we value white European lives more than those of dark-skinned people beyond Europe’s borders”.

But another factor is the common cultural and historical heritage of the West which may appear heightened in times of adversity. As an article in The Atlantic suggested: “Americans are much more likely to have been to Paris than to Beirut – or to Cairo, or to Nairobi, or to any number of cities that have experienced bloody attacks. If they haven’t travelled to the French capital themselves, they’ve likely seen a hundred movies and TV shows that take place there, and can reel off the names of landmarks. Paris in particular is a symbol of a sort of high culture.” For Americans, read most audiences in the West.

For a few days the whole world was Paris. EPA/Various photographers

By contrast, writing in the aftermath of the Ankara terrorist attacks, Turkey-based journalist Liz Cookman notes that the country “continues to teeter on the line between East and West, making it hard to understand – a Muslim country with increasingly conservative values that also has its sights set on the EU”.

‘Otherness’

This lack of understanding of non-Western countries may in part, as Cookman suggests, be down to ignorance. But it may also be related to what Edward Said refers to as “Otherness”. Said argues that Westerners imagine the Orient as an exotic and strange place and describe it in stereotypical and mythical ways which serve to accentuate and reinforce the Orient’s difference from the West.

The Economist found that, in the period 2000 to 2014, most of the deaths from terrorist events occurred in the Middle East and Africa – not the West. Indeed, according to Foreign Policy, in 2015, the most devastating terrorist attacks took place in Nigeria (with death tolls that ranged from 150 to 2,000) and Egypt (with a death toll of 224).

However, Western public responses to such events may appear more muted, perhaps because of an emphasis on the Otherness of non-Western countries, which enables Westerners to more readily accept a lower standard of protection in those countries. While in the West, terrorist attacks such as the ones we witnessed in Paris and Brussels are shocking and unthinkable, in “other” parts of the world – from a Western point of view – they are, sadly, a fact of life.

This notion of the “Other” may, to some extent, also emerge in Middle Eastern reporting of terrorist attacks. According to a review of the Middle East press on the Paris attacks, “within the overall rejection [of the terrorists' violence] that dominated the papers' front pages, a small number of papers raised questions about Western governments' policies in the world”. These papers saw a Western role in “feeding terrorism” and that such attacks took place after “a wave of Islamophobia has emerged in France’s neighbour, Germany”.

But most of the coverage of the Paris attacks in the Middle East was filled with sympathy and concern. Al-Arabiya English, based in Dubai, carried a comprehensive roll-call of Middle East and Gulf leaders condemning the attacks and offering condolences and support. Meanwhile, Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News offered strong analysis and opinion in the days following the atrocity, taking the line that: “This is no longer a fight within the boundaries of the Middle East and Mesopotamia” and calling for a concerted strategy to fight IS.

So for the Middle East press, the West can be the “Other” – and, perhaps, not without justification. But what is also clear is that, perhaps because of their tragic familiarity with terrorism, people in the Middle East and Africa are more generous with their responses to terrorism in the West.

(The writer is senior lecturer in International Law, Anglia Ruskin University).

This article was first published on The Conversation.

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This article was first published on www.opendemocracy.net

A man reads the latest edition of French weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo with the title “One year on, the assassin still on the run” in a cafe in Nice, France, on Jan. 6. Photo by Eric Gaillard/Reuters

The Charlie Hebdo attack one year ago was part of a long tradition of fundamentalist assaults on artists.  Understanding this tragic event is critical to defeating Islamist terror today.

Two French Islamist gunmen of Algerian descent entered a newspaper office in Paris a year ago today and gunned down a generation of Europe’s greatest political cartoonists- – many from an anarchist, anti-racist tradition – along with their co-workers and those protecting them, who also included people of Algerian descent.  In case anyone is confused about the politics of this – it was a far right attack on the left. 

At first the world reacted with justified horror and a solidarity which is not always forthcoming for the frequently anonymous victims of Islamist slaughter, and which was not often experienced by the Charlie Hebdo staff in previous years when they endured threats and firebombs. However, the backlash began quickly.  The truth about Charlie was that many were shockingly equivocal in their reaction to these events. 

There was the “I am not Charlie” campaign, promoted by Tariq Ramadan, grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.  The meaning of that was clear enough.  Those whose ideology helped pave the way for such killings were publicly admitting their lack of solidarity with the victims. There were outright vilification campaigns suggesting that the cartoonists (or perhaps French people generally) were racists, “Islamophobic” or otherwise had it coming.  In California – which by year’s end became the site of another Islamist bloodbath – a number of people expressed such views to me, thinking that because I have a Muslim name I would agree.  Not long after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, I spoke at a U.S. university event on freedom of expression along with a self-appointed young American spokesperson for “the Muslim community” from the Council on American Islamic Relations – whom I must say I never elected to speak for me.  She reviled the January 7 victims to the point where I felt compelled to ask if she understood that they were actually dead.  She did not know as I did that just before their murders, the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were in a heated discussion about terrible socio-economic conditions in the Paris suburbs where much of the Muslim population lives – an injustice which mattered a great deal to them.

Another response was the more sophisticated “I am Ahmed” campaign named for the stalwart French policeman Ahmed Merabet also of Algerian descent who was killed by the Kouachi brothers as they fled the newspaper’s offices. Sadly, this was sometimes meant as a rebuttal rather than an amplification of “Je suis Charlie,” when in fact people like the murderous Kouachis have been killing Ahmeds around the world for years.  Very few have been paying attention to that body count.  When they depicted their version of the Prophet Mohamed crying over terrorism, the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists had the courage to take on those carrying out that slaughter while others looked away or were silent. 

That is committed anti-racism and solidarity, even if it comes in the shape of a merciless, sometimes disturbing French satirical tradition not always well understood elsewhere – like Mad Magazine with politics.

On this anniversary, we must remember that those who killed Charlie also killed Ahmed and that saying “I am Charlie” is also a way of saying “I am Ahmed,” and vice versa. Indeed, opposing the Kouachis of the world is essential to saving those countless people of Muslim heritage and their fellow citizens in the Global South who have been dying in the tens of thousands at the hands of Muslim fundamentalist killers in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Iraq, Nigeria, Libya and beyond. Ahmed is a synonym for Charlie, not an antonym. That was why so many people of North African descent stood with the January 7 victims.

" The idiots killed me", cartoon by Dilem. Credit: @DilemAli.

For example, Ali Dilem, one of Algeria’s best political cartoonists joined the Charlie Hebdo team in February out of solidarity.  His bold cartoons have lampooned political figures and fundamentalist terrorists for years, earning him jail sentences and countless fatwas. On January 7, 2015, Dilem’s cartoon bore the heading: “God is Humour” (in French: “Dieu est humour,”a play on words derived from “Dieu est amour” – “God is Love”).  Another of Dilem’s cartoons after the January 7 attacks shows a dying figure writing in his own blood on a wall: “the idiots killed me”

l trying to escape the “Islamic State” offensive, and in front of the small club where 89 mainly young people lost their lives at the hands of another group of young Islamist assassins of North African descent.  I found my visit doubly poignant because I went with Samia Benkherroubi a former Algerian TV presenter whose own producer, the legendary Aziz Smati, had been shot in 1994 by the Armed Islamic Group, the forerunners of “Islamic State,” and is today a paraplegic, but continues his work from his wheelchair. Smati’s crime, like Charlie’s, was creativity.  He produced Algeria’s groundbreaking youth music TV show, Bled Music, showing the first Rai music videos on TV, which were also controversial at the time. 

Outside the bullet-riddled Bataclan, Samia and I laid flowers and mourned together, lamenting that the fundamentalists we have been battling for years are still so much stronger than their civil society opponents.  She had written to me after the November 13 attacks to say how deeply saddened she was to see the fundamentalist violence she fled in 1990s Algeria reproducing itself elsewhere.  What was especially mystifying to her, was the way in which some on the left tried to use the history of French colonialism as the excuse (or so-called “explanation”) for these attacks. The same thing happened after January 7. Samia wrote that “looking for explanations in colonial history is an injury to all victims of blind terrorism.” It also entirely overlooks that Algeria itself lost as many as 200,000 – including many veterans of the liberation struggle – to extremist terrorism in the 1990s, a fact often conveniently forgotten.

The same night that Samia and I paid our respects at the Bataclan, we visited the plaque by the Seine to the victims of the massacre of October 17, 1961 when several hundred Algerian nationalists were slain and thrown into the river by police during a peaceful protest.

We vowed by that memorial not to let their brave memory be misused to justify fundamentalist atrocities, even while keeping their memory alive like those of other victims.  For me, this is very personal. My Algerian grandfather Lakhdar Bennoune died defeating French colonialism.  His death is part of an historic injustice which still demands real accounting – but is no justification whatsoever for the lamentable Kouachis who would have said he was not a true martyr because he died fighting for a republic rather than an “Islamic State”.

All of this complexity seems to have been lost on the authors and signatories of the petition against the granting of the PEN Freedom of Expression Courage award to the Charlie Hebdo staff signed by a group of mainly Western intellectuals in the name of anti-racism.  They wanted to make clear that they were not Charlie.  They claimed solidarity with Ahmed.  They presumed to know what the Ahmeds of the world think (and that they think alike) while overlooking the contemporary politics of the Muslim majority regions of the world.  They regretted the killing, but clearly didn’t understand it. 

The petition’s authors presumed a) that French Muslims were mostly devout, and b) that this meant they could not stomach satirical drawings – two huge and highly inaccurate presumptions. This was a recurring theme after January 7 – that all Muslims and all people of Muslim heritage were offended by the publication of cartoons (whether they liked the cartoons or not). It is not at all clear how assuming that 1.5 billion people have no sense of humor (and no politics) is anything other than patronizing.

Meanwhile, the campaign to support the presentation of the PEN award to Charlie Hebdo was led by Salman Rushdie, who is of Muslim heritage, and whose name is derived from a great 12th century Andalusian Muslim philosopher  Ibn Rushd who likely would not have been terribly troubled by provocative cartoons, and whose own books on philosophy and theology were burned by Muslim fundamentalists while his Christian followers were slain by the Inquisition. 

There was the “I am not Charlie” campaign, promoted by Tariq Ramadan, grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.  The meaning of that was clear enough.  Those whose ideology helped pave the way for such killings were publicly admitting their lack of solidarity with the victims.

So, we must remember that January 7, 2015 was one in a long line of far right attacks on creativity, and part of a history of fundamentalist assaults against artists and intellectuals who have defied them.  And, sadly, it was only one of the first armed Islamist salvos of 2015 which will be remembered as the year of endless, expanding jihad. Charlies and Ahmeds, Ceciles and Samiras died in many regions of the world at the hands of those seeking a free ticket to paradise.

In 2015, Muslim fundamentalists would go on to target Pakistani arts promoters, Iraqi women lawyers and teachers and most of the country’s minorities, Syrian archaeologists, a Kosher grocery store in France, an event about freedom of expression in Denmark, Afghan airports, Tunisia’s national museum, countless Shiite mosques everywhere, minarets, a Beirut shopping district, a Sousse beach, Nigerian markets, a Kenyan University, and a Russian airplane carrying families home from vacation.  Grave crimes, crimes against humanity, war crimes, even genocide, in some cases.  Afterwards we were all assaulted verbally both by some on the left who tried to excuse the perpetrators or minimize their crimes in defiance of the facts, and some on the right who sought to lump all Muslims in with those perpetrators notwithstanding how many Muslims have died at their hands and how many have opposed them.

With all of this bloodletting and intolerance, why is it important to remember the Charlie Hebdo attack and its victims?  Algerians I have interviewed about the country’s “dark decade” of 1990s fundamentalist violence have often told me about the debates regarding the motives behind fundamentalist killings. In the beginning, people tried to explain away the targeting – “oh, he was a policeman, he we was an atheist, she was a communist,” until the terrorists began killing Every(wo)man and it seemed inexplicable.  Grassroots solidarity with less popular or controversial victims was crucial but sometimes harder to come by, something which their assassins knew only too well.  A muted response to what happened to the cops and the communists only emboldened the so-called Warriors of God to attack others. 

So, a year later, remembering the Charlie Hebdo attack, and paying tribute to its victims, are critical aspects of the ongoing struggle against Muslim fundamentalist terrorism.  Likewise, remembering that many Muslims and people of Muslim heritage have spoken up in defence of Charlie Hebdo and against fundamentalist violence (and have died in that violence) is a key way of fighting the racism and discrimination against Muslims which also burgeoned in 2015.  The truth about Charlie is that in the year since the attacks we have often forgotten all of these things.

So today, in memory of Charb, Cabu, Wolinksi, Tignous, Bernard Maris, Honoré, Elsa Cayat, Mustapha Ourad, Frédéric Boisseau, Michel Renaud, and the police officers Franck Brinsolaro and Ahmed Merabet who were killed exactly a year ago, and all those who died at the hands of Islamist terrorists in 2015, I say simply, “I am still Charlie.”  It is a battle cry in the ongoing campaign against fundamentalist violence and the ideas that motivate it, which is one of the defining human rights struggles of 2016.  That is perhaps the most important truth about Charlie.

(The writer, an academic of repute also won the 2014 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for her book, Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism)
 

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Seven years earlier I had escaped from the Leopold Café in the middle of a shootout. I had crawled out onto the sidewalk, crouched by my wounded friend, seen a boy with an AK47 looking at the road, heard more gunshots and had run away with her bleeding at my side. Some navy boys got us to a local doctor who took care of us that night. Two days later we were put on a plane to France, we made the headlines as the wounded French girls who had seen horror up close.

But now my native city has witnessed the same horrors. A friend of mine at the Petit Cambodge also managed to survive the shootout with broken glass in the leg. I’m not scared, after surviving one attack, I know deep down we are never safe and we must have the courage to live. My victory is living the life I want, in Mumbai, despite the terrorists who wanted me dead. I wish Paris would do the same, mourn in peace and recover.

I’m devastated by what happened, killing people is unforgiveable, but revenge brings no justice. I’m very wary of the war rhetoric that has taken over the media.  The word is permeating every article I read on the attacks : “terrorism of war”, “it’s an act of war”, and efficientdoctors who rallied together and efficiently saved lives were practising “war medicine.”

A close friend wrote ‘There were shootings in Paris tonight, hope you don’t freak out when you read the news tomorrow and everybody you know is all right. I am safe in my flat.'

I don’t want this war against an enemy that feeds on violence. Why stoop down to that level? Extreme ideologues of all faiths the world over despise secular and diverse societies; better not rise to the bait. Take the debate on less bloody ground. Live on despite being attacked, let the violence end with you. After 26/11 the Indian government at the time had the courage to not go to war.

The more I read about Paris the more I’m impressed by the quick reaction of the firemen, ambulances and police forces that appeared within minutes on location to get the wounded out and free the hostages. To remain organised in front of such a crisis and manage so quickly so many wounded that needs to be acknowledged.Mumbai on 26/11 was not as ready, ambulances never showed up at the Leopold; only the army appeared a long half hour later with a truck to pick up survivors and the wounded. The police across the way never showed its face.  The quick reaction in Paris of police and doctors alike ensured that the death count did not rise. I also appreciate the decision to keep the France/Germany match going, if people had been outside the stadium, the dead may have been in the thousands.

Terrorism can happen anywhere anytime, there is little you can do against someone who thinks death is a way of life; but if you survive, you can spite their death wish by living, and deal with the chaos when it strikes.

When I saw the video of the French parliament singing the national anthem after President Hollande’s belligerent speech it sent shivers down my spine, reinforcing the war message with the bloody lyrics of the ‘Allonsenfants de la patrie’. I felt excluded, I felt like yelling : not in my name.

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