“So, as was completely predictable, the reaction to these shootings in Paris (which I clearly condemned) has been to re-print the said offensive cartoons over and over and over again. Thousands of newspapers, both in print and online, have shown those offensive cartoons to millions of people (whereas before, hardly a few thousand would have seen them). Additionally, some cartoonists have now said that they would draw more and more offensive images as a result of this incident, in the name of ‘protecting free speech’ (one even claimed she would dedicate a cartoon a day for the next year to lampoon Islam and its prophet). The newspaper in question, Charlie Hebdo, which had a circulation of around fifty thousand, will reprint its next edition, full of offensive images, in over a million copies, and it is pretty obvious that they will sell out. (And as for the repercussions around the globe towards and against Muslims…that is a whole different topic). Firstly, to the sympathizers of this attack: do you see what has come out of this violence? What good has it done anyone? What do you want to do next…continue killing people, and more people, so that they continue to get angrier and angrier at us?! Secondly, to the rest of us: Can you imagine if a racist cartoon, or an anti-Semitic cartoon, caused some physical attack, that news agencies around the globe would reprint those cartoons?! Somehow, when it comes to offensive images against Muslims, it becomes necessary to display those images continuously in order to make a point: “You had better allow us to say and do whatever we will, without the least care and concern of decency and morals!” Again, this is NOT to justify these brutal attacks, but it is to point out the double standards that do seem to exist when it comes to mocking Islam. It will come as absolutely no surprise to us to find out that a satirist in the EXACT SAME newspaper was fired, and then put on trial, for an anti-Semitic article that he had written (See: French cartoonist Sine on trial on charges of anti-Semitism over Sarkozy jibe). And previously, I had quoted a story of a similar nature regarding the Danish cartoon controversy: the same newspaper had refused to print cartoons mocking the Holocaust. There is no doubt that killing these cartoonists is not allowed (firstly, the entire issue of blasphemy laws and its application in the modern world of nation-states is being discussed by leading scholars, and there are multiple views on this; secondly, all those who quote incidents from the Seerah: I reiterate, it is impermissible for a person to take the ‘law’ into his own hands and be judge, jury and executioner even in an Islamic land - how much more so when Muslim minorities are living in a land that is not ruled by their laws). At the same time, it is also idiotic to continue provoking a group of people who have a long list of their own internal and external political and social grievances that stretch back for many decades (here I mean the N. African Muslim population of France), and then expect that nothing will happen. As usual, we are stuck between a rock and a hard stone. On the one hand, we have the excesses of our own internal angry followers, who always justify every violence because of what ‘they’ have done, and on the other hand we have the arrogance, intransigence and hypocrisy of segments of the Western world, who cannot see that they as well have a huge part to play in the rising tide of anger and violence.