{"id":1213,"date":"2015-01-08T16:01:33","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T21:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1213"},"modified":"2015-01-08T16:01:33","modified_gmt":"2015-01-08T21:01:33","slug":"a-challenge-to-the-partisan-consensus-charlie-hebdo-attack-not-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2015\/01\/a-challenge-to-the-partisan-consensus-charlie-hebdo-attack-not-terrorism.html","title":{"rendered":"A Challenge to the Partisan Consensus: Charlie Hebdo Attack NOT Terrorism"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest event in France has elicited an array of responses from politicians and commentators here in America.\u00a0 For now, I\u2019d like to focus on the single judgment that everyone from across the political spectrum seems to share:<\/p>\n

Whether \u201cconservatives\u201d or \u201cliberals,\u201d Republicans or Democrats, \u201crightists\u201d or \u201cleftists,\u201d etc. all seem to agree that the murderous attack by three Muslims against the staff of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo<\/em>\u2014as well as two police officers\u2014was \u00a0a terrorist <\/em>attack.<\/p>\n

Yet it\u2019s not so clear that this is the appropriate adjective to apply in this context.\u00a0 And if we are going to come to terms with the Islamic threat, we had better be accurate in our use of terms.<\/p>\n

The vermin responsible in this case were most definitely Islamic, and they were most definitely driven to massacre by religious conviction (Those, like Howard Dean and Fox News\u2019 Shepard Smith, who insist otherwise are either dishonest or ignorant.\u00a0 But whether their vice is intellectual or moral, it is scandalous).<\/p>\n

However, just because Muslims murder in the name of Islam does not mean that they are terrorists.\u00a0 Nor do the facts that their murderous activities are aimed against innocent civilians and induce a sense of \u201cterror\u201d within the targeted community (and beyond) mean that they are \u201cterrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n

For decades, both governments and civilians have recognized that between terrorists and ordinary criminals there are significant differences.\u00a0 A terrorist, it has traditionally been thought, is someone who uses deadly violence for political <\/em>purposes. More specifically, the terrorist employs (seemingly) random, (usually) indiscriminate violence for the sake of forcing a government<\/em> to change its policies.<\/p>\n

The latest attack in France was not aimed at a government.\u00a0 It was a response to a specific action\u2014the publication of cartoons and comments mocking Muhammad\u2014taken not just by a private<\/em> organization, but by specific cartoonists<\/em>, those cartoonists who the killers called out by name<\/em>. \u00a0It also bears noting that at least one of the killers had a criminal record.<\/p>\n

He was a petty street thug.<\/p>\n

If the Muslims who stormed Charlie Hebdo<\/em> are terrorists, then even more so are the legions of black criminals who, since the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases, have been wreaking \u201cterror\u201d on the streets of American cities.\u00a0 Those who our brave souls in the media routinely describe as \u201cprotestors\u201d and \u201cdemonstrators\u201d have targeted innocents by way of firebombing their businesses and assaulting them. \u00a0Police officers, too, have been the subject of sometimes murderous <\/em>attacks.\u00a0 These<\/em> acts of violence against civilians<\/em> are at least designed to alter government policy (law enforcement).\u00a0 As such, even if we shouldn\u2019t refer to them as acts of \u201cterrorism,\u201d the fact remains that they are much more deserving of the \u201cterrorist\u201d label than are the shootings carried out in France this week.<\/p>\n

Two notes on which to close:<\/p>\n

First, there is no doubt that, ultimately, the logic of Islam accounts for violence of the sort on display in France\u2014and all over the world.\u00a0 But not all instances of Islamic bloodshed <\/em>are instances of Islamic terrorism.\u00a0 <\/em>To use the \u201cterrorism\u201d label indiscriminately certainly serves the ideological interests of those invested in powering a foreign policy centering in a \u201cWar on Terror.\u201d\u00a0 But otherwise, it blinds us to just those real-world distinctions that we need in order to see our way through this \u201cclash of civilizations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second, those who spare no occasion to unequivocally decry outbursts of Islamic violence abroad\u2014men like Peter King, Congressman from New York, who alluded to the Charlie Hebdo<\/em> murders as proof that we need closer scrutiny of Muslim communities in America<\/em>\u2014reserve not a fraction of this same outrage for the wanton violence of black violence here at home.<\/p>\n

Ideology and hypocrisy promise to handicap, even exacerbate, efforts to combat most problems, but all the more so a problem as serious as that of Islamic violence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest event in France has elicited an array of responses from politicians and commentators here in America.\u00a0 For now, I\u2019d like to focus on the single judgment that everyone from across the political spectrum seems to share: Whether \u201cconservatives\u201d or \u201cliberals,\u201d Republicans or Democrats, \u201crightists\u201d or \u201cleftists,\u201d etc. all seem to agree that the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA Challenge to the Partisan Consensus: Charlie Hebdo Attack NOT Terrorism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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