People's Unity is Antidote to Terror

Paris witnessed the mother of rallies on Sunday when hundreds of thousands of people came out on the streets to protest against the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo office and a kosher super market that left 17 killed. It dwarfed the rallies held across France a day earlier in which about 700,000 people attended. The presence of leaders from the rest of Europe, including Turkey, Palestine and Israel lent it greater significance, for it demonstrated that the world was united against terrorism. It should be said to the credit of the French authorities that they were able to hunt down the two brothers, who by their ruthlessness, were able to put the whole nation on edge. Police searched for a woman linked to the three al-Qaeda-inspired attackers, but a Turkish official said she appeared to have already slipped into Syria.

The Danish cartoons on the Prophet that Charlie Hebdo reprinted about 10 years ago are said to have provoked the virtually unemployed brothers and their accomplice to enact the mayhem. However, that is too simplistic an explanation because they also killed innocent people like the Muslim police constable on regular patrolling duty on the street outside the magazine office and the customers at the market. In fact, the attack should be seen in the larger context of the brutal killings the warriors of the Islamic State have been resorting to in Syria and Iraq. By killing innocent school children at Peshawar, the Taliban have shown that they are no less cruel. In Nigeria, the Boko Haram group has during the last few weeks killed no less than 2,000 people.

It’s true that Islam is a religion of peace. After all, it was a Muslim who saved some people from the terrorist at the kosher market. It is also true that a section of Muslims have fallen victim to the wrong interpretations of their religion and believe that they can reserve seats for themselves in heaven by killing those whom they believe do not subscribe to their version. They pose a threat to world peace. While the world has to unite against them, the moderate sections of Muslims should also come out to denounce those who cause greater harm to their faith.