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A SPECIAL HATRED: WHY IS HATES FRANCE SO MUCH
The Age (Melbourne, Australia)
January 9, 2015 Friday
by JAMES BARRY - Dr James Barry is an Associate Research Fellow
at Deakin University's Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation,
researching the role of Islam in Iranian foreign policy.
In taking on terror groups, France has risked revenge attacks on
home soil.
France has a special relationship with terrorism. It is the only
country to draw specific, rather than general, threats from IS. It
is the only country to take on a terrorist organisation and expel
it from a country, and it is the only country to brag recently about
having none of its citizens in the hands of hostage-takers.
The United States and its allies, including Australia, have taken
a fairly laissez-faire approach towards IS, aimed at containing
rather than expelling it. Even during my visit to neighbouring Iran
in November last year, the general feeling was that the government
there did not seriously intend to eradicate IS, because it wasn't
in its interest to do so. However, France demonstrated in 2013 that
with the right coalition, a great degree of confidence and a certain
amount of belief, terrorist armies can be defeated even in remote,
hard-to-reach places.
France's engagement in its former West African colony Mali, alongside
Malian and African Union troops, engendered a tremendous amount of
hatred against it in the world of Islamist radicalism. At the time,
al-Qaeda-linked militants had hijacked a local ethnic rebellion in an
attempt to form a state in one of the more remote and poorly governed
parts of Africa. The fact that France, a former colonial ruler with a
history of brutality in the region, was invited to assist by Mali's
military dictatorship and achieved its aim quickly placed a large
dent in the morale and self-belief of those who have faith in radical
religious-nationalist ideology.
In the past year, IS has shocked the world with its speed and
brutality. A neo-colonialist army with soldiers drawn from all corners
of the globe, this previously obscure group has managed to dominate
many parts of Iraq and Syria through military success as well as by
exploiting its reputation for causing fear and sectarian division.
France refers to IS by the Arabic acronym "Da'ish", rather than
Islamic State, so as to disassociate the group from Islam. That
is something IS hates and for this reason it has declared that the
"filthy" French hold a special place among its enemies.
While some have considered the attack in Paris to be aimed at Europe,
the result of foreign fighters returning from the Middle East or of
poor integration policies, the question that remains unanswered is
why has France specifically drawn such attention from terrorists?
Anti-Muslim groups held huge rallies in Germany at the weekend but
it was France that dealt with three impromptu terrorist attacks
in December.
Even the target itself, Charlie Hebdo, which had published satirical
cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, is a specifically French target.
After all, these cartoons were published originally in Denmark in
2005, where the main reaction was protests from the Danish Muslim
population, who felt they were being unfairly treated by mainstream
Danish society. It was only a few months later, when Charlie Hebdo
published these cartoons in a special issue, that outrage boiled in
many Muslim countries.
Muslim attitudes towards blasphemy are the same as other religious
groups. Additionally, the accusation of blasphemy, particularly
insulting the prophet, has a long history of being the result of
ulterior motives. The 17th century Armenian chronicler, Arakel of
Tabriz, documented a dozen or so Christian "martyrs" in his lifetime
in the Ottoman and Iranian empires, the majority of whom were executed
when a disgruntled neighbour accused them of insulting the prophet.
Similarly, several blasphemy trials in Pakistan over the past
decade have boiled down to disputes over land between the accuser
and the accused. The fact that a French publisher is the target of
this well-organised attack and not the original Danish publisher
demonstrates that this justification is window dressing for a deeper
dispute between the French and Islamic militants.
Ultimately, we shouldn't allow ourselves to be dragged into pointless
debates about whether Islam or Western culture are responsible, since
these debates serve the interests of those who benefit from division.
As the response to the Martin Place attack last month demonstrated,
people are drawn together by their common humanity. Attacks like these
are not aimed only at the West, but at anyone who doesn't accept the
ideology of the attackers, whether Muslim or not. Let us not forget
that IS' primary aim is to first "purify" Muslims.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
The Age (Melbourne, Australia)
January 9, 2015 Friday
by JAMES BARRY - Dr James Barry is an Associate Research Fellow
at Deakin University's Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation,
researching the role of Islam in Iranian foreign policy.
In taking on terror groups, France has risked revenge attacks on
home soil.
France has a special relationship with terrorism. It is the only
country to draw specific, rather than general, threats from IS. It
is the only country to take on a terrorist organisation and expel
it from a country, and it is the only country to brag recently about
having none of its citizens in the hands of hostage-takers.
The United States and its allies, including Australia, have taken
a fairly laissez-faire approach towards IS, aimed at containing
rather than expelling it. Even during my visit to neighbouring Iran
in November last year, the general feeling was that the government
there did not seriously intend to eradicate IS, because it wasn't
in its interest to do so. However, France demonstrated in 2013 that
with the right coalition, a great degree of confidence and a certain
amount of belief, terrorist armies can be defeated even in remote,
hard-to-reach places.
France's engagement in its former West African colony Mali, alongside
Malian and African Union troops, engendered a tremendous amount of
hatred against it in the world of Islamist radicalism. At the time,
al-Qaeda-linked militants had hijacked a local ethnic rebellion in an
attempt to form a state in one of the more remote and poorly governed
parts of Africa. The fact that France, a former colonial ruler with a
history of brutality in the region, was invited to assist by Mali's
military dictatorship and achieved its aim quickly placed a large
dent in the morale and self-belief of those who have faith in radical
religious-nationalist ideology.
In the past year, IS has shocked the world with its speed and
brutality. A neo-colonialist army with soldiers drawn from all corners
of the globe, this previously obscure group has managed to dominate
many parts of Iraq and Syria through military success as well as by
exploiting its reputation for causing fear and sectarian division.
France refers to IS by the Arabic acronym "Da'ish", rather than
Islamic State, so as to disassociate the group from Islam. That
is something IS hates and for this reason it has declared that the
"filthy" French hold a special place among its enemies.
While some have considered the attack in Paris to be aimed at Europe,
the result of foreign fighters returning from the Middle East or of
poor integration policies, the question that remains unanswered is
why has France specifically drawn such attention from terrorists?
Anti-Muslim groups held huge rallies in Germany at the weekend but
it was France that dealt with three impromptu terrorist attacks
in December.
Even the target itself, Charlie Hebdo, which had published satirical
cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, is a specifically French target.
After all, these cartoons were published originally in Denmark in
2005, where the main reaction was protests from the Danish Muslim
population, who felt they were being unfairly treated by mainstream
Danish society. It was only a few months later, when Charlie Hebdo
published these cartoons in a special issue, that outrage boiled in
many Muslim countries.
Muslim attitudes towards blasphemy are the same as other religious
groups. Additionally, the accusation of blasphemy, particularly
insulting the prophet, has a long history of being the result of
ulterior motives. The 17th century Armenian chronicler, Arakel of
Tabriz, documented a dozen or so Christian "martyrs" in his lifetime
in the Ottoman and Iranian empires, the majority of whom were executed
when a disgruntled neighbour accused them of insulting the prophet.
Similarly, several blasphemy trials in Pakistan over the past
decade have boiled down to disputes over land between the accuser
and the accused. The fact that a French publisher is the target of
this well-organised attack and not the original Danish publisher
demonstrates that this justification is window dressing for a deeper
dispute between the French and Islamic militants.
Ultimately, we shouldn't allow ourselves to be dragged into pointless
debates about whether Islam or Western culture are responsible, since
these debates serve the interests of those who benefit from division.
As the response to the Martin Place attack last month demonstrated,
people are drawn together by their common humanity. Attacks like these
are not aimed only at the West, but at anyone who doesn't accept the
ideology of the attackers, whether Muslim or not. Let us not forget
that IS' primary aim is to first "purify" Muslims.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress