MIGHT THE PARIS MASSACRE HAVE BEEN A NEW SEPT. 11?
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Jan 15 2015
ORHAN MÄ°ROÄ~^LU
January 15, 2015, Thursday
I am not of the opinion that it was. The 9/11 attack on the Twin
Towers caught the entire world — most notably the US — by surprise.
The levels of international awareness, solidarity and cooperation that
we have now when it comes to violence and terrorism did not exist at
that time, and the public was not prepared to share the pain caused
by this attack the way it is now.
The “Be Alert” campaign that rose out of the ashes of the Sept. 11
attacks was rooted in all the reflexive responses to this event;
extreme security precautions and strategies suddenly became
indispensable.
But that is no longer the world we inhabit. There is a different world
on hand now, one which reserves the right to question, to examine the
political and social dimensions of such events; one which is aware
of the strength of mass solidarity.
All of this is one reason the marches against the Patriotic Europeans
against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA) we see happening are
so hope-inspiring.
There is little doubt that the stances embraced by both German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande in
the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack will go down in history.
And in the same way, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s attendance,
along with other world leaders, at a Paris march against global
terrorism is no doubt an important and laudable message to all of
Europe, including, of course, the many Muslims living there.
Sept. 11 flung open the doors to a world that was closed off onto
itself, a world that suddenly began distancing itself from democratic
values, a world where Islam became synonymous with violence.
But the attack that unfolded in Paris showed us that there are other
ways to fight terrorism and violence. And even now, Europe is shaking
with the combined force of all these displays of solidarity.
Governments’ desires to increase levels of dialogue and cooperation
between each other appears to be on the rise.
What really emerged from the Paris massacre is the understanding
that there is no real difference between the goals of those who
foist racist and Islamophobic slogans onto the world around them,
hoping to turn Europe and the globe into a sort of living hell,
and those who actually carried out the attack on Charlie Hebdo.
When one observes the debates unfolding in the more Islamist circles,
one sees that there exists a prevailing idea that the Paris massacre
was a sort of uprising against Orientalism and Western colonialism.
But this idea serve only to lend some sort of legitimacy to jihadi
violence and terrorism in these circles, and do nothing to help the
struggle against racism or Islamophobia. Demands can, of course,
be made of Western states that they face up to their pasts; people
can also demand that they apologize for policies implemented in
cases such as Algeria, Vietnam and Palestine. But, at the same time,
assertions that these past memories are nourishing jihadi violence
and terrorism are simply misleading.
After all, when one looks at the history of the Kurds and the Armenians
in the past century, one sees that no one hurt these groups as much
as Europe did. Because of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Treaty
of Lausanne, the land that once belonged to Kurds was splintered
into countless pieces. As for the Armenians of Anatolia, they were
first provoked, and later, as a country as large as Germany stroked
the backs of the members of the Committee of Union and Progress, the
Armenians were pushed into the forced relocations of 1915. Despite
this, though, there is no evidence of any Kurdish or Armenian terrorist
groups with Western Europe in their sights. The proper response to
deadly memories is certainly not violence and massacre.
In the end, of course, Muslims living in Europe are not defined by
the Kouachi brothers. Similarly, depicting Islam as being synonymous
with these brothers is a racist and Islamophobic stance. It is a
stance which, when it spreads, plays a key role in jihadi terrorism
and violence.
No, when it comes to Charlie Hebdo, people need to try and not model
the stances taken by some liberal and leftist intellectuals in Turkey,
who make out the Kurdish armed struggle to be somehow sacred, and
who see this struggle as an “historical answer to history,” and who,
quite unfortunately, hope this struggle continues — despite the
peace process under way in Turkey.
From: Baghdasarian