02) WE ARE NOT CHARLIE HEBDO

 

People's Voice Editorial

 

            Sometimes people should just stay off a dangerous bandwagon. After the murders of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, many politicians and media outlets are whipping up racism and hatred of Muslims. We have no sympathy for the despicable Paris killers. Nobody has the right to execute journalists for the supposed "crime" of mocking religion, let alone slaughter people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. But nor should elected leaders scapegoat entire religions for political advantage.

 

            Unfortunately, the current tendency is to fan outrage over certain deaths, while ignoring others. Dozens of journalists are killed every year, often while exposing right-wing death squads and corrupt officials in countries such as Colombia, or reporting on armed conflicts, including 153 to date in Syria. Such deaths rarely hit the news in Canada. After all, the killings in Syria are mostly carried out by our brave allies, the armed gangs fighting the Assad government. (These brutal thugs are also our mortal enemies, but pay no attention to these sordid details.) Nor has Stephen Harper accused Colombia's fascist killers of "declaring war against civilization," since Canadian corporations have sizable investments in that country.

 

            The truth is that dead journalists are sometimes quite useful as a pretext to scrap civil liberties and democratic rights, and boost spending on the military and police. That is the tragic fate of the Paris cartoonists. So excuse us for not joining the clamor to "defend western values." No, we are not Charlie Hebdo. But we will continue to demand: end NATO's wars, stop Israel's occupation of Palestine, reverse austerity policies and environmental destruction, and establish an independent Canadian foreign policy of peace and disarmament. Not least, we will keep resisting the Harper regime's strategy to suppress dissent through mass surveillance and the politics of fear.

 

(The above article is from the January 1-31, 2015 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)