Muslims are victims, not perpetrators - Paris atrocities

Friday night’s atrocities in Paris were not just an attack on the French capital but an assault on all our freedoms and on humanity itself.

The attacks will undoubtedly lead to increased security measures not just in France but in the rest of the EU, Ireland included. It would be foolish to imagine that we might be somehow immune from such attacks.

But while we mourn in solidarity with the people of France and grieve for the victims, it is important not to let fear, anger, or revenge guide our collective response.

Neither should we indulge in knee-jerk Islamophobia because that is what Islamic State (IS) terrorists want in order to justify further attacks. It should be noted that every country and every culture — Western, Arab, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim — is being targeted by those who are determined to attack anyone and any society that does not succumb to their murderous ideology.

IS and other Islamic terror groups are just as prepared to murder fellow Muslims as members of other religions. The day before the Paris bombings, two IS suicide bombers killed at least 43 people and wounded more than 230 in attacks on a Shia Muslim community in Beirut. Less than a month ago, IS murdered 128 people in Turkey and injured 500 more at a rally for a pro-Kurdish political party.

In fact, the vast majority of the victims of Islamic terrorism are themselves Muslim, and live in Muslim-majority countries. A 2012 US National Counterterrorism Center report found that between 82% and 97% of the victims of religiously motivated terrorist attacks over the previous five years were Muslims.

It would be absurd to blame the world’s 1.6bn Muslims for the activities of some but it is important to place it where it truly lies — not with the victims but with the perpetrators — and not to indulge in a knee-jerk response of a different kind.

The reaction of some Irish politicians beggars belief. While Parisians were still dying in agony and terror, Wexford TD Mick Wallace exhibited both ignorance and arrogance when he tweeted: “So terrible for the victims, but when is France going to stop its role in the militarisation of the planet?

Similarly, Anti Austerity Alliance TD Paul Murphy, speaking on RTÉ’s Saturday with Claire Byrne, blamed the rise of Isis on Western imperialism.

Such comments are not only wrong but idiotic.

Both those Dáil deputies could take a lesson from Muslim leaders here who roundly condemned the Paris attacks.

Trinity College’s Dr Ali Selim, one of the most senior Muslim clerics in Ireland, declared: “I definitely condemn what happened and classify it as an atrocity that cannot be justified under any circumstances.”

He was speaking on behalf of the Irish Council of Imams.

Shaykh Dr Umar Al-Qadri, chairman of the Irish Muslim Peace and Reconciliation Centre, was even more forceful: “Islamic State do not represent any religion, they are simply criminals and terrorists. We must unite and combine our efforts against terrorism to eliminate it.”