Je Suis Charlie (With Caveats)

It has become the norm to express disgust at the mass murder at the Charlie Hebdo office and the Parisian Jewish supermarket by declaring yourself "Je Suis Charlie".

So, Dear Reader I am also "Je Suis Charlie".

But....

I don't agree with causing offence for no reason.

Some of the satire from Charlie Hebdo was cogent and had a moot political point. It would also be true to say a great deal of the offensive cartoonery (and not just that mocking Islam) has been devoid of any meaningful social comment.

Charlie Hebdo was not just a vehicle for political commentary. It was also a vehicle used to express contempt and derision of unfashionable groups within French society. Groups which did not fit into the pompous left wing elitist monoculture that epitomises papers like Charlie Hebdo.

So Charlie Hebdo caused offence. No doubt I may well have been one of the offended.

But as Stephen Fry once said regarding being offended:-

So Fucking What?

So Fucking What if I (or anyone else) found Charlie Hebdo offensive?

So Fucking What if the staff of Charlie Hebdo were a bunch of metropolitan elitist tossers?

People could (as was their want) ignore the scurrilous publication. Or alternatively, they could rage against it within the precepts of the law. Maybe they could cause Charlie Hebdo some offence in return.

But what is most certainly a deranged and preposterously out of proportion response is to pick up a machine gun and butcher everyone. Including the maintenance man and two policemen. Or murder people simply because they used a shop that caused "offence". An offence caused by its religious allegiance.

Of course this was not really the action of the terminally offended.

It was the action of socially alienated losers. A bunch of losers that in a different context would have been just as happy to follow the mindless brutal dictates of (say) Nazi Germany or (say) the Kymer Rouge.

Charlie Hebdo cartoons may have offended the self declared executioners. But the food store had caused no offence to anyone. Except to the Nazi-esque bigots who performed these crimes. Clearly they were offended by its "Jewishness".

How pathetic is that?

Massacring people gave these misfits a sense of power in their pointless wretched lives.

A sense of power no doubt also experienced by concentration guards as they shovelled the Xyclon B crystals into the fake shower blocks at Auchwitz. Or members of the Ku Klux Klan as they lyched some hapless negro in the 1920's.

Just as with Nazi Germany or the Southern States of America in the 1920's the murderous losers have a support base.

Tonight in Muslim countries and communities across the world there will be some people celebrating the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish supermarket.

But it would be a foolish and wholly inaccurate knee jerk reaction to tar most Muslims with the same brush as the Paris losers.

Remember the boots on the ground fighting ISIS in Syria and Northern Iraq are Kurdish boots and mostly, Kurdish boots are Sunni Muslim boots. Meanwhile Kurdistan offers a safe haven for persecuted Yahsidis and Christians.

Young Kurdish men and young Kurdish women are driving back the ISIS barbarians both militarily and morally. In doing so they are suffering heavy losses.

It would be a crying shame if these brave souls were to be unjustly labelled as fellow travelers of the Paris nutters.

It is a big mistake to label all Muslims as barbarians.

Undoubtedly some are.

But most are not.