On the Paris Attacks: Hoping for the triumph of - Liberté, égalité, fraternité - No More Violence

I am horrified by the Paris attacks, I find all killing in general such a primitive reaction. However, the reactions on social and traditional media compelled me to write. What is France going to do? What are we going to do?

If as Le Monde puts it, this is France’s 9-11, will die-hards within France now start hashing plans a la Bush-Wolfowitz-Rumsfeld-Cheney to invade Yemen?

That strategy has not seemed to work for the US in Afghanistan or Iraq. I was also reminded of a similar French episode when I watched for a second time “The Battle of Algiers” by Gillo Pontecorvo. The film is a docu-drama on the period pre-Algerian independence between 1954-1957. In the film, there are “terrorists” whom after 130 yrs of French colonization blow-up cafes, stores and even a night club frequented by women, men and children with bombs planted by young women. When one of the leaders of the “terrorists”, Larbi Ben M’hidi, is taken prisoner by the French paratroopers and asked during a press conference: “Isn’t it cowardly to use your women’s baskets to carry bombs which have taken so many innocent lives?” He replies: “And you, isn’t even more cowardly for you to attack defenseless villages with napalm bombs that kill many thousands of times more? Obviously, planes would make things easier for us. Give us your bombers sir, and you can have our baskets.”

I remember 9-11 and the reaction of a nation to the event. Army enrollment went up and there was a patriotic enthusiasm to “go fight” the war. The terrorist act in the Twin Towers mobilized and “patriotized” individuals. Do we not think then that every time the West utilizes a drone and kills people out in some Muslim country we are creating many other soldiers to go fight in the name of Islam for the Caliph? Why would these people’s reaction be any different? If we think it is different, then we should watch the August Vice News video on ISIS and the indoctrination of the young children and begin thinking otherwise.

I saw the video of Amedi Coulibaly this Sunday on YouTube at the same time I followed the procession in Paris on-line. Once again, what this guy and the Kouachi brothers did has no forgiveness, yet one must watch the video. I saw certain media outlets summarize it as Coulibaly “ranting against the West”. It could well be, but if we reduce it to so, then we must describe what comes out of many Fox news journalists daily as “ranting against everyone” – and we don’t.

Back to the video. What interested me is that it brings about many of the same complaints /rationale as say the young Tsarnaev now on trial for the Boston bombing. In the case of Tsarnaev the words were: “Government is killing our innocent civilians but most of you already know that… I can’t stand to see such evil go unpunished, we Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all…. Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop.” Yet we can ignore him and say he is "ranting" since he is “demented” – a radical. Yet it is such a similar attitude of a certain President: “Let me be clear. Our first line of defense is a simple message: Every group or nation must know, if they sponsor such attacks, our response will be devastating… In the defense of our nation, a president must be a clear-eyed realist. There are limits to the smiles and scowls of diplomacy. Armies and missiles are not stopped by stiff notes of condemnation. They are held in check by strength and purpose and the promise of swift punishment”. We should listen to him because he is sane, he is not "ranting". Right.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” said Einstein and I don’t see why it should not apply here. Whatever the French response should be, I hope it is not more war and violence. German journalist, Jurgen Todenhofer in his 25/12 interview for Al-Jazeera seems to agree.

Our current policies are helping (I am not saying they are the single cause) entrench a group of people’s ideology into something more radical. I do not believe the Muslim majority wants this radicalism amongst their midst, it is up to them however to figure it out.

I don’t have an answer I confess. However I am praying this is not France’s 9-11. I hope that “Liberté, égalité, fraternité“ triumphs this one time and France shows the rest of the world what it is to be the mature country that allowed Charlie’s Hebdo to express itself and gives us all a different solution.