Why do terrorist attacks like Charlie Hebdo give rise to Western Exceptionalism?

The west should reflect on how its policies can be a catalyst for terrorist attacks like Charlie Hebdo.

When noncombatants are killed in drone strikes then, it is no more an accident than an inevitable consequence of war, and therefore no less intentional than the murders committed in France earlier this week

- Suhail Patel


The RTE 6-1 News had a very interesting montage to accompany their coverage of the horrific attack on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last Wednesday. After they had reported on the day's events in Paris, they went to a background piece to  contextualise the terrorist attack. This is the "latest in a series of attacks in parts of the world where people are used to feeling safe", the reporter opened with. The language used was interesting to say the least.The report then listed five separate terrorist attacks carried out by Islamic extremists in the West in the last decade and a half or so from 9/11 to last month's hostage situation in Sydney.

It would have been interesting had RTE decided to produce a similar montage on the destruction visited upon countries in the Middle East by Western countries in the last 15 years. Heck, they could have produced one from the last 5 years and it would have been just as dramatic. They could have featured the Yemeni wedding where 12 civilians were killed by a drone bombing in 2013. They could have featured the 11 children killed in a NATO air strike in Afghanistan in the same year. Or they could have mentioned this year's drone hitlist with at least 82 people killed in Yemen, 114 in Pakistan and 18 in Somalia (these are the most conservative estimates). They could have even branched out to the countless Muslims - many of them guilty of no terrorism charges whatsoever - detained, interrogated and in many cases tortured by the US and some of its allies in the last 10 years. They'd have a lot of material to work with, to say the least.

Ah, but there's a difference. The West doesn't intend to harm civilians (Even though it habitually and consistently does). The West is fighting terrorism. Their terrorism is aimed at threatening our way of life and our much vaunted institutions and social freedoms. They're driven by a mindless, autocratic idelogy while we are the benevolent and reluctant soldiers of democracy and freedom. 

What we in the West lack in the aftermath of incidents such as the Charlie Hebdo massacre is a sense of introspection. We almost instinctively revert to an attitude of moral and cultural superiority which helps us explain the roots of the terror imparted upon us by so-called radical Islamists without inspecting whether our own actions might have had a part to play in sowing the seeds of hate which fuel these attacks. Shortly after 9/11, George W. Bush, in a statement to the US Congress, claimed Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda attacked the US because  "they hate our freedom."  This laughably ignorant statement ignored the true roots of the terror attacks on 9/11 which were varied and related mainly to the inflammatory actions of the US in Islamic countries in the preceding half-century. How do we know that? "Because they fucking said it", as David Cross so succinctly pointed out.

We've got a similar situation on our hands with the Charlie Hebdo massacre. The reasons for the Kouachi brothers and Amédy Coulibaly embarking on their reign of terror are simplified to their supposed disdain for "our way of life" and "freedom of speech" and because they are grossly offended by publication of images of the prophet Mohammed. We don't pause to consider whether the West's actions in the Middle East have anything to do with it. We don't even pause to listen to what the terrorists say because if we did, we'd have a much better idea of why the Kouachi brothers did attack the offices of Charlie Hebdo and why Coulibaly did kill four hostages in the Kosher supermarket. 

In the aftermath of the killing of Lee Rigby in London in 2013, Glenn Greenwald wrote that, though "Islam plays an important role in making these individuals willing to fight and die for this perceived just cause" that "perpetrators of virtually every recent attempted and successful "terrorist" attack against the west cited as their motive the continuous violence by western states against Muslim civilians."

It was no different this time out. Amedy Coulibaly, in a video hastily recorded shortly after the Kouachi brothers had attacked the offices of Charlie Hebdo, gives the reasons for attacking "France, Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish Grocery". He argues, "for what you have done to the Caliphate, for what you have done to the Islamic State, we are attacking you. You cannot attack us and expect nothing back in return." He continued, "You kill there regularly, you use your force, you kill our soldiers. Why? Because we live by Sharia. In our state we have decided that is how we live. We will not let you do that. We will fight, if Allah wills it." 

It should come as no surprise then that when Cherif Kouachi, the elder of the two brothers, first became radicalised by the "guru figure" Farid Benyettou in 2004, America and not France was the target of his ire. This was in the aftermath of the American invasion of Iraq a year earlier and Benyettou and members of his Jihadi group were intent on fighting "holy war in Iraq". France famously declined to support the American invasion of Iraq. 10 years later, however, and France is part of the US-led coalition attacking Isis in the Middle East and still has troops in Mali fighting against the local Al Qaeda faction. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that these actions played a role in driving these three men to do with they did. 

This tragedy has initiated virtually no mainstream debate about the West's continued - and growing - presence in the Middle East. Instead, the onus has been on Muslims to take the blame for the attack. They're not integrating. Multiculturalism is a failed experiment. They're not doing enough as a community to stamp out the extremist elements. I'm not attempting to justify the attack. Nothing can justify such heinous crimes as those which were perpetrated by the Kouachi brothers and Coulibaly. I am simply arguing that we must change the dynamics of the debate if we are really serious about combating Islamic terrorism. There is no secret plan to draw Europe into a global Caliphate, as Ian O'Doherty in a moronic piece in last Saturday's Weekend Review in the Irish Indpendent seemed to imply. The good-evil narrative should not wash this time. 

Because this isn't about ethical or moral values. This is actually how we should be going about stopping terrorism. As Chomsky once said, "Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it." As long as the West continue to kill Muslims in their countries - and I think we're long past the risible notion that we're doing it in the name of "freedom" or "democracy" - extremists will want to kill Westerners in their countries.