Of all the reactions to the terrorist attacks in France, the words of Malek Merabet stand out. He is the brother of Ahmed, the policeman who was murdered by the heavily armed Koachi brothers after the carnage they perpetrated in Charlie Hebdo’s offices. Mr Merabet stressed that his dead brother, a Muslim, and the killers did not share a common faith. “You mustn’t mix up extremism with Muslims,” he said. “The mad men have no colour nor religion. Islam is a religion of peace, of love. My brother was a Muslim and he was killed by two terrorists, by false Muslims.”
This is absolutely correct. In the past week, Islam, Islamism and Islamist have been variously cited to explain the murder of cartoonists at a satirical magazine; the subsequent attack on shoppers and staff at a kosher market in Paris; the slaughter of an estimated 2,000 Nigerians by Boko Haram militants in the town of Baga and the deaths of another 19 people in another nearby Nigerian town. In that last attack, Boko Haram reportedly used a gruesome and utterly depraved tactic – it turned a 10-year-old girl into a human bomb that was detonated from afar. How much more inhuman can any group of human beings be?
Let us make our point clearly: they are not true Muslims. Their actions are a travesty of the faith they claim to follow and are a betrayal of the basic principles of the religion. For this reason, The National will not refer to these people as Islamists. Instead, we will call them what they are: terrorists, extremists, murderers.
The heartening thing is that one does not have to look too far and too long to find real Muslims in almost every tragedy perpetrated by these murderers. There is Ahmed Merabet of course, who lost his life trying to protect the staff of a magazine that mocked his religion. There is Lassana Bathily, an employee of the Paris kosher market that was attacked by gunman Amedy Coulibaly. Mr Bathily saved many customers and members of staff by bravely and calmly shepherding them to safety inside a walk-in freezer.
On these pages, we have long condemned those who use Islam to justify violence. Now, we are resolved to go further. Malek Merabet is right. These people don’t represent Islam. They are not true Muslims. They should not be referred to as such.
