Margaret Randall

Periodically one nation or group attacks another. The assault can be shocking. The corporate press, eager to sell news, keeps the headlines going as long as possible. Governments and pundits who have the power to use what’s happened in support of their interests, extrapolate from the particular to the general. They spew accusations that instill fear of everyone who shares a racial or cultural identity with the perpetrators. Before we know it the situation escalates, and we may have another Inquisition, Middle Passage, invasion of First Nations, Holocaust, Patriot Act, or rash of police murders of unarmed youth on our hands…

On Wednesday, January 7, 2015 three armed men burst into the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical paper that has published a number of extreme caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in recent years, some of them frankly pornographic. The men were Muslim fundamentalist extremists, out for revenge. They opened fire on an editorial meeting, killing the editor and several cartoonists. Before the horrific incident was over, 12 people were dead.

In the finely honed spirit of French satire, Charlie Hebdo has been poking what some would term religious fundamentalism’s defensive self-image since 2006…