The Decapitation of France

                                                               Image source—Careful, extremely disturbing photo at link

In the suburbs of Paris on Friday, a man shouting 'Allah Akbar!' decapitated a middle school teacher who was on his way home.

 

Why? Charlie Hebdo is why.

 

Five years ago, 12 reporters at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were massacred during their morning editorial meeting in Paris by Arab jihadis. (We wrote about it at the time: 'Is Nothing Sacred?'). 

So to understand the real meaning of what happened Friday, we must go back a bit:

 

 

I. The Caricatures

Charlie Hebdo, for those unfamiliar, is a French satiric weekly born in 1970 from the ashes of Hara Kiri, itself inspired by Mad Magazine.

It is the baby of counter-culture leftists.  Their number one targets have always been conservatives and Christians. A sampling:

When the famous 'Piss Christ' angered Catholics in Avignon, Charlie said:

All Religions in the Shitter!

In the debate over gay civil unions (known as 'Pacs'), the Catholic Church was strongly against. Charlie's reaction:

'I don't want to normalize my relationship with God...

Just say no to the Pacs!'

More recently, the gay marriage debate found strong resistance from Catholics such as Archbishop André Vingt-trois, earning him this cover:

'Monsignor Twenty-Three has Three Daddies'

The nationalist right has long been a prime target.  'Freedom of speech,' it appears, should not be extended to them:

'What to do about the National Front? Outlaw it!'

Putting its money where its mouth was, Charlie Hebdo organized a national petition calling for the NF's abolition in 1996.  The 170,000 signatures were, it seems, not enough.



Fancying themselves equal-opportunity satirists, Charlie Hebdo also goes after leftists:

'When I'm President, I'll...' 

(Hollande's campaign slogan, rejiggered after his affair with actress Julie Gayet)

As well as the third rail of satire, what no other French media will touch... Islam.  They were the only French outlet to re-print the famous Danish caricatures of Mohamed in 2006:

 The caricatures heard round the world

For those who have forgotten, those 2006 Danish caricatures led to mass protests and riots around the world, as well as the first inkling in Europe that maybe the millions of Muslims they’d been importing for fifty years weren’t exactly assimilating:

 

  Anti-Danish protests in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Morocco

Publishing them earned Charlie Hebdo a lot of Muslim ire, and eventually led to the firebombing of their offices (no injuries) in 2011, after publishing a special edition 'Sharia Hebdo':

'100 lashes if you don't die laughing!'

The worldwide furor in 2012 caused by the American film 'Innocence of Muslims' (linked to the U.S. embassy attack in Benghazi) they found especially funny:

'Are you SURE Mohammed had sex with a pig's head?' 

'Look dude, I don't have the money to hire a nine-year-old whore!' 

 

'Mohammed: A Star is Born!'

What Charlie Hebdo seems especially enamored of is genitalia and scatology:

Left to right: President Giscard d'Estaing, Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, anti-abortion rights politicians

Left to right: National Front's Marine Le Pen, George W. Bush, comedian Dieudonné

They also have a real fondness for depicting anal intercourse:

Left: 'After the Year of the Woman, 1976: The Year of the Cow';  
Center: 'The Unknown Soldier sodomized by Private Chanal' [soldier and serial killer of young men];  Right: 'The French are in for a world of hurt' (written on penis: 'Taxes')

All this to underline the fact that Charlie Hebdo is not uniquely anti-Islam, but also anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-conservative, anti-nationalist, anti-decency, and anti-good taste.


That said, however, the 2015 attempt at slaughtering the entire magazine’s staff in one fell swoop was purely the result of their mockery of Islam.

'The film that's inflaming the Muslim world [Innocence of Muslims in 2012]'  

'And my ass? You like my ass?'

 

On that fateful day in 2015 twelve journalists and cartoonists were killed, eleven injured, and France lost its innocence. It was at the time called 'France's 9/11.'

 

  Re-constitution and aftermath of magazine massacre

 

 Plaque in honor of slain satirists

II. The Fatwa

 

As the wheels of French justice turn exceedingly slowly, the trial for this 2015 massacre began just last month. To mark the moment and remember their fallen comrades, the surviving staff at Charlie Hebdo decided to re-publish the famous Danish caricatures of Mohammed:

 

 ‘All that…for that’

(September 2020 commemorative issue)

This has opened old wounds and angered French Muslims all over again. A few days after its publication, a young Pakistani who’d floated over on a dinghy to claim ‘asylum’ showed up at the Charlie offices armed with an axe and hacked two people in an attempt to avenge the scorned-again prophet (both lived, but will be disfigured for life).

 

Axe attack victims at Charlie Hebdo last month

All the chatter around the Charlie Hebdo trial and attempted re-play of the massacre has filtered down to the schools, where last week a junior high teacher named Samuel Paty gave a course on freedom of expression to his young charges.  Asking the Muslim children to leave the room, he showed some Charlie Hebdo caricatures to the remaining kids. One of his students recounts:

‘So 95% of the Muslim kids left the room, except one girl who wanted to stay. When she went home and told her parents what she’d seen in class, they kicked up a fuss on social media. Her mom and dad got on Twitter and spread the word, gave the first and last name of the teacher.

'As the days went by, he was being harassed more and more by the students, even off campus. There were a lot of death threats. Lots of people said they were going to kill him. But we didn’t believe it.’

To be clear, it is reported that the teacher showed the image below--it is considered extremely offensive by Muslims, even 'moderate' ones:

 

'A Star is born!'

An angry father brought his local imam to the school to complain. Whilst waiting, they filmed a video in which the father calls the teacher a ‘thug’ and demands that he be fired. The imam says:

‘These [freedom of expression] classes have been going on for five or six years, with Muslim kids aged 12 or 13 being shocked and humiliated in front of their classmates. … We demand this thug be fired. … If we accept this, the same thing might happen to us as happened in Srebrenica [Bosnian city where 8000 Muslims were massacred].’

Caricatures mean massacre?

This inflammatory video was shown at the local mosque and on social media, which started an angry buzz among France’s six million Muslims. A young Chechen living in the town of Evreux saw it, got in his car, drove an hour and a half to the junior high, asked the kids who Mr. Paty was, followed him home, and cut his head off.

 

Abdoullakh Abouyezidvitch, the killer, is an 18-year-old whose Chechen family were granted refugee status in 2006. His family had gone ‘asylum-shopping’ after an initial refusal from Poland. France originally turned down their request, but with the help of an NGO they were able to appeal the decision, a separate human rights court forcing the government's hand.

Here is a leaked copy of the judge's decision granting Abouyezidvitch's family asylum, including the fact that his family participted in anti-government guerrilla warfare and feared reprisals:

As this same journalist points out, this attack is truly a first in French history, and a chilling one at that: Regular, 'moderate' Muslims managed to gin up a gruesome terroristic murder using social media buzz alone.

 

One of the other teachers at Mr. Paty’s school has more or less claimed that the cabal was in fact launched by his own Muslim colleagues:

 

 

III. The Reaction

 

As with every terrorist attack in France, though the press avoids mentioning it at all costs, there is general celebration among younger Muslims:

 

 

The youngsters in his school had a variety of opinions:

One student said that Mr. Paty ‘had a reputation as a racist.’ Another girl tells us ‘it’s an offense against Mohammed,’ adding, ‘dying for a caricature, that’s crazy.’ A male classmate says, ‘He insulted our prophet, we talked about it in the schoolyard.’

Teachers are confessing that the next generation is lost to the Republic:  

'After Charlie Hebdo re-published the Mohammed caricatures last month, I showed my junior high class a photo of Pakistanis burning the French flag, to show them what intolerance can lead to. I was hoping to make them think, but most of the kids stood up and cheered.'

'When you tell your teachers union that your classes are in a near-riot, from the insults against France to the homophobic comments, and all they say to you is 'Well you shouldn't have offended their belief system,' what do you want us to do? We're not all heros. We just give up.'

Another teacher from immigrant-heavy Seine Saint-Denis:

'I don’t even talk about the Quran anymore with my junior high kids. They tell me I'm wrong, that the Quran overrides any law code or scientific text. And since I’m blonde and female, they've let me know that I'm sort of a devil figure.'

French society’s reaction to the beheading, as to all Muslim terrorist attacks in the last ten years, has followed the same playbook.

 

From the Bataclan nightclub massacre that killed 130 Parisians, to the Bastille Day vehicle attack at the Nice seaside which mowed down 86, the reactions are as always:

 

Paris nightclub massacre in 2015, Nice vehicle massacre in 2016

-Placing candles and flowers on the ground

-Waving signs stating ‘I am Charlie’

-Politicians promising a serious crack-down, for real this time

-Muslims complaining about… Islamophobia

 

The ritual recommences

Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

Some are growing weary of it though. One of the rare leftists in France to denounce creeping Islamic influence, disgusted journalist Céline Pena stated:

 

'I won't be going to the 'anti-hate' gathering today.

The organisers are mostly Islamo-leftists, those who claim there's a 'war against Muslims' while watching the bodies pile up which have been killed by Islamists.

I won't march next to those who have defended veiling women. I won't march next to the teachers' unions, the people whose cowardice has led to this very situation, who are perfectly happy to see Islamism creep into their schools.

I don't give a damn that government ministers have to give up their Sunday to go to a march. ... I'm sick to death of the hypocricy and the "yes, but...", notably these Muslim students who find the punishment [of decapitation] only a little bit too strong. Isn't that proof that our humanist education has failed, and that [Islamist] conditioning has succeeded?'

Homage to Samuel Paty this afternoon, Place de la République, Paris

Every new terrorist attack leads to cries of ‘Plus jamais ça!’ (‘Never again!’)

But the simple fact of ethno-mathematics means that things are changing irrevocably in this country which already has the largest Muslim population in Europe.

Image source

It is estimated that one out of every five births today in France is Muslim. Inevitably, as this population begins to take political power, such terrorist acts won't be needed any longer--since the all-Muslim school boards will forbid any material offensive to Islam.

There is little mystery here; French Muslims openly declare it to pollsters. Guillaume Durocher:

66% of Muslims believe it is right to prosecute Charlie Hebdo for publishing such cartoons, as against only 21% for the general population.

18% of Muslims – about 2 million people – “do not condemn” or “are indifferent to” the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks. The figure rises to 26% for young Muslims (aged 15-24). Interestingly, the proportion of Muslims aged 15-17 refusing to condemn the attacks rose from 1% in 2016 to 22% in 2020. This makes for a very large pool of terrorist sympathizers and potential Islamic terrorists.

Finally, 40% of Muslims in France “put their religious convictions ahead of the [French] Republic’s values.”

The figure rises to 74% for Muslims under 25.

Will this time be any different? Or has France indeed entered its Islamist death spiral?

Watch this space.

Previously:

Is Nothing Sacred?

Why We Culturally Profile