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The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, had a weekly circulation of 60,000. After the attack, which left 17 people dead in addition to the three Islamist killers, circulation reached 7 million, mostly in France and neighboring Belgium with 700,000 going overseas. Since the attack, Al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch has claimed responsibility for the attack. The attack was, according to one top commander in Al-Qaeda, was in direct retaliation for insulting the prophet Mohammed.
Charlie Hebdo, which last month did not have enough money to pay staff wages, could raise as much as 10 million euros (over $12 million in US dollars) in sales and donations since the attack. While most of the free world was incensed by the attack, the Muslim world continues to protest claiming that Islam, their religion, is a peaceful one. Most likely, the majority of those people are peaceful.
In Senegal, 1500 people including their Premier and cabinet members marched holding signs “I’m not Charlie — I am a Muslim,” and “Freedom of expression is not the freedom to insult.”
Oh, really? Freedom of expression is not the freedom to insult? Do Muslims have a play book that lists out what freedom of expression means?
Thousands of Palestinians protested chanting, “France is the mother of terrorism. America is the mother of terrorism.” They ought to look in their own backyard for the mother of terrorism, commonly called Hamas, as Palestinian political violence has targeted Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Egyptians, Americans and citizens of other countries. The attacks have taken place within and outside Israel and have been directed at both military and civilian targets.
With the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp, approaching on January 27th, the people of the world might think twice about all the death and destruction due to religious rights and freedom of expression. Historically, people don’t think twice and history continues to repeat itself.
If Nazi Germany had been victorious during World War II, how many Muslims or Arabs would now be alive? They have neither blonde hair nor blue eyes. They hardly fit the mold of the perfect Aryan race. Most likely millions would have been exterminated or enslaved as an inferior race. Next, extrapolating the extinction of those with dark skin, dark hair and eyes, Asians would have faced extinction or enslavement and so on and so forth.
Extremism. It doesn’t take many to turn the world topsy-turvy. You don’t have to agree with cartoonists taking extremists to task. You don’t have to like it or look at it. But once you censor it, it’s just one more toe-hold for extremists.
What happens if a fitness guru type gains such widespread popularity, they now want to eliminate or enslave all obese people? What if you happen to be left handed in a predominantly right handed world? Do you deserve to be killed or enslaved? What about if Victorian values ruled the world? Would all those thinking and acting like a Huge Hefner of Playboy fame be imprisoned, enslaved or exterminated for, let’s say, wife swapping?
Certainly these examples are extremism to the ridiculous. Only because in America, we still have an enormous amount of freedoms under the law.
