The press have been reporting that the attack by Muslim extremists on the office of the magazine Charlie Hebdo was motivated by the so-called “blasphemous” cartoons published in that magazine. Even though this was the ostensible excuse for the attack, the real reason lies much deeper.
An article in The Nation discussed and analyzed the real motivation for the attack.
France has a large Muslim population, but they are assimilated into secular French society to a very large extent. Middle Eastern radicals have had a very hard time recruiting them. But the Islamic extremists see an opportunity to expand their recruitment efforts, if only those French Muslims can be marginalized and radicalized.
Al Qaeda wants to mentally colonize French Muslims, but faces a wall of disinterest. But if it can get non-Muslim French to be beastly to ethnic Muslims on the grounds that they are Muslims, it can start creating a common political identity around grievance against discrimination.
What better way than by causing a right-wing backlash against a Muslim attack on a French institution? The resulting discriminatory behavior by right-wing and racist French citizens will drive these peaceful Muslims into the waiting arms of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist groups that will offer help and training for these newly oppressed citizens.
This horrific murder was not a pious protest against the defamation of a religious icon. It was an attempt to provoke European society into pogroms against French Muslims, at which point Al Qaeda recruitment would suddenly exhibit some successes.
Sadly, this strategy works. Radical Muslims have been very successful in the Middle East at using violence and terrorist tactics to turn Shiite and Sunni sects against each other. By exploiting religious disagreements and then offering an effective alternative to living in terror and oppression, the Islamic radicals have expanded their membership effectively, even though the radicals themselves are the very source of the unrest.
Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, then led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, deployed this sort of polarization strategy successfully in Iraq, constantly attacking Shiites and their holy symbols, and provoking the ethnic cleansing of a million Sunnis from Baghdad. . . And in the end, the brutal and genocidal strategy worked, such that Daesh [ISIS] was able to encompass all of Sunni Arab Iraq, which had suffered so many Shiite reprisals that they sought the umbrella of the very group that had deliberately and systematically provoked the Shiites.
With a big assist, of course, from the fanatics, racists, and fundamentalists who will use any excuse to turn public opinion against a small minority who look and act different from them.
Fortunately, there is hope that some sanity will prevail.