I really appreciate the weight you have given to the attacks on Charlie Hebdo. The contradictions that extremists hope to exacerbate should be clear to all the commentators on the "left." It should be clear that Islamic fundamentalsts hope that Islamophobia will spread; the French government reacted as it should have, by declaring its support for the Islamic community. Even though words are cheap and much much more must be done to reach out to the poor suburbs, this was in contrast with our attitude toward Muslims and Arabs after 9/11. Many on the "left" are making short thrift of an unprecedented popular and republican demonstration that the people themselves had started with nightly gatherings and vigils, despite warnings about security. Europe has reacted much more deeply to the attacks on a particularly irreverent part of the French press, followed by the horrible attacks on a young police-woman and on the people in a Jewish super market, than to other terrorist attacks, in Madrid and London. Of course, we should be horrified at everything that is done in our name (most recently, the bombings of civilians in the current campaigns against IS) and horrified at the terror suffered by Nigerian and Pakistani civilians. Terror is terror. But this was not the reason for the unspeakably stupid blunder of the Obama administration, in not sending any high level representative to Paris. Perhaps the US "left" can be satisfied that we do not protest against ANY of these outrages. A sense of fake fairness [why should we show outrage about the attacks in Paris when we don't on Al-Bab in Syria or Baga in Nigeria] seems to me just a sanctimonious way of not joining with masses of people on the pretext that "the left" knows better . YOU help us know better and know more and I thank you for that and also for showing outrage.
I really appreciate the weight you have given to the attacks on Charlie Hebdo. The contradictions that extremists hope to exacerbate should be clear to all the commentators on the "left." It should be clear that Islamic fundamentalsts hope that Islamophobia will spread; the French government reacted as it should have, by declaring its support for the Islamic community. Even though words are cheap and much much more must be done to reach out to the poor suburbs, this was in contrast with our attitude toward Muslims and Arabs after 9/11. Many on the "left" are making short thrift of an unprecedented popular and republican demonstration that the people themselves had started with nightly gatherings and vigils, despite warnings about security. Europe has reacted much more deeply to the attacks on a particularly irreverent part of the French press, followed by the horrible attacks on a young police-woman and on the people in a Jewish super market, than to other terrorist attacks, in Madrid and London. Of course, we should be horrified at everything that is done in our name (most recently, the bombings of civilians in the current campaigns against IS) and horrified at the terror suffered by Nigerian and Pakistani civilians. Terror is terror. But this was not the reason for the unspeakably stupid blunder of the Obama administration, in not sending any high level representative to Paris. Perhaps the US "left" can be satisfied that we do not protest against ANY of these outrages. A sense of fake fairness [why should we show outrage about the attacks in Paris when we don't on Al-Bab in Syria or Baga in Nigeria] seems to me just a sanctimonious way of not joining with masses of people on the pretext that "the left" knows better . YOU help us know better and know more and I thank you for that and also for showing outrage.