“We reject and condemn demeaning religions and their symbols, it is necessary to establish an international legislation emanating from the United Nations to further prohibit any such offense. Moreover, we reject exploiting religion to justify any odious act, military or terrorist actions. These acts only harm religions and distort their message of love, tolerance and forgiveness.

In this respect, there are numerous historical instances which may require huge volumes to fully review, such as: the Crusaders wars, the Fall of Constantinople, the Inquisition in Andalusia, the colonization of Africa and the slave trade, Colonialism in Algeria, the occupation of Egypt and Sudan, that of Libya and Ethiopia, the Thirty Year War in Europe, the extermination of the native Indians in America, the ongoing Sunni-Shiite conflict, the occupation of Palestine under the pretext of the ‘Promised Land’ as a result of the persecution of Jews mainly in the West, the Armenian genocide and the Jewish Holocaust. Examples, whereby religion was misused in order to justify assassinations, massacres, occupation and colonialism away from the concepts of love, tolerance and forgiveness are just innumerable.

I will not dwell further as this might lead us to a never-ending discussion. But I will sincerely say, away from all religious interpretations or diverse fatwas which are legion, that the terrorist attack in France comes at the most difficult time of the Islamic World’s history, when it is itself struggling with sectarian divisions and regression in intellectual reflection and judgment.

This terrorist attack in France will yield a wave of unprecedented intolerance, racial and religious discrimination within the western political right wings, which could be better described as new Fascism.

What irony! On the one hand, a unilateral interpretation of Islam under the pretext of a return to the sources finds itself on the other hand, nurturing a fascist rightist west that is fundamentally hostile to Arabs and Moslems.

What a curse! that those who accused Al Farabi, Al Maari, Ibn Rushd and Taha Hussein of impiety, and the list is long throughout the centuries, meet up with another racist western thought at the expense of dialogue of cultures and religions and that of free thinkers and partisans of the freedom of expression.

After this attack, the American writer Samuel Huntington must be rejoicing in his tomb along with Bernard Lewis who must be toasting in celebration of his Islamophobic theory. However, beyond all considerations and away from madness and intolerance, sadly injustice and oppression remain one and indivisible. If there are millions repeating today, “Je suis Charlie”, I would tell them we also are Charlie, we the occupied and homeless in Palestine, we the imprisoned and displaced in Syria, we the children of Palestine and Syria who are everyday assassinated, tortured and dying out alone in the cold.

“I will say no more”