Warped view of Paris killers makes targets of us all

It is dangerous to see the attacks in Paris as a reaction to "provocation", writes Faisal Al Yafai.

One of the casualties of the terror attacks in Paris last week is transported by ambulance. Photo: Thibault Camus / AP

Enough time has passed since the massacre at the offices of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo for a calmer reflection on the attack.
In the immediate aftermath of last week's attacks, there was an understandable tendency to view the issue in black and white terms: religious respect versus freedom of speech, a community of faith versus a country of secularism.
Too many threw around words like "civilisation", seeking, in a complicated time, a simple rallying cry. Many others, shamefully, took the chance to use the bodies of the journalists for their own personal agendas.
Few took a nuanced view of both the historical moment and the political context, as the author Teju Cole, writing in The New Yorker, did: "The West is a variegated space, in which both freedom of thought and tightly regulated speech exist, and in which disavowals of deadly violence happen at the same time as clandestine torture."
Others - such as Tony Karon in these pages yesterday or the journalist Glenn Greenwald - have explained the context of power in which these cartoons are placed. That they come at a time of wars by western countries in the Muslim world and at a time when Muslims in western countries are both monitored and incarcerated for things they write online.
The particular case of Charlie Hebdo is, then, at best, an imperfect symbol for the sanctity of press freedom. Their cartoons were crude, puerile and, worst of all, not particularly satirical. A fair reading of the magazine would have noted the worst, most offensive stereotypes were reserved for Muslims, which, in the context of the marginalisation and surveillance of French Muslims is indistinguishable from bullying in the service of the state. Europe has a history of first turning the pen on minorities before also turning the gun.
But you don't have to condone the cartoons to condemn the killings. Free speech, as Voltaire never wrote, means defending even distasteful speech.
Moreover, those who argue that Charlie Hebdo "provoked" the attack have not understood the nature of extremist violence. For those who carried out the massacre, the list of those they target might begin with the religious provocateurs - but the list is long and most of us are on it.
To imagine that without religious provocation such extremists would have found no justification for murder is to misunderstand the mindset of takfiri violence. There is always a justification, always a targeted group, always an us and them.
Takfiris arrogate to themselves the right to declare who is and who is not a Muslim, excommunicating not merely individuals but whole sects in some cases, and then visiting violence upon those groups.
Muslims worldwide are the primary targets of takfiri violence: on the same day as the attack in Paris, a suicide bomber killed 30 people in Yemen. The same day, Boko Haram massacred more than 2,000 men, women and children in a village in the Muslim north-east of Nigeria.
The best example of takfiri violence is ISIL. The group not only attacks non-Muslims and minority Muslim sects - it even attacks its own supporters when they seek to leave. The circle of the faithful is drawn so tightly for takfiris that most Muslims - and most of the world - are on the outside.
That isn't a mainstream Islamic view. Mainstream Sunni Muslim scholars frown upon declarations of excommunication. Historically, Muslim opinion has been to include various heterodox sects within the broad tent of Islam, as long as the basics of the faith are maintained. From the political perspective of the various caliphates, that was the only way to maintain governance over vast areas of the world.
That is why it is dangerous to see the attacks in Paris as a reaction to a "provocation". It implies that, if that provocation went away, there would no longer be takfiri violence.
But the warped mindset that led two men with Kalashnikovs to walk into an editorial meeting last week does not only see provocation in images of the Muslim Prophet. They see the same provocation in open societies, in uncovered flesh, in singing and dancing. And they react to such provocation the same way.
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On Twitter: @FaisalAlYafai