The Hebdo attack is a great tragedy and the violence and terror they unleash are intolerable but I think it is important that we avoid the immediate slide into the rhetoric of clash of the civilizations and Islam vs. the West, to consider the position of ethnic minorities and Muslims in France and other European countries ie. generations of exclusion and racialization. US religious scholar Hussein does a nice job of analyzing recent events in light of Islamophobia in Europe. While freedom of speech is essential...its important to think about what is being said about Muslim communities in political discourses in Europe (and in the US) that wouldnt be tolerated if we substituted Muslim with Jewish or Black. There are questions of freedom of speech and there are also questions of basic human respect and dignity.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 18:13:13 +0000