As I may have mentioned before the recent attack on Charlie Hebdo is laying bare all sorts of double standards, not to mention the odd weasel word or two. The latest to cross my path was an article published by vice – titled “Internet Commenters: This Is Why I and Other Muslims Won’t Apologise for the Charlie Hebdo Attacks”. My friends have for some reason shared it as being an excellent article, with the (usually sound, though in this case I’d suggest reading the comments it’s informative) advice not to read the comments. Which has rather forced me to conclude either we are reading different articles or inhabit different realities.
The author quite rightly objects to being asked to apologise for something they didn’t do. However they are setting up the most flimsy of straw men. The quotes they use all ask why aren’t Muslims condemning the attacks, not apologising for them but condemning them. Now I realise that educational standards have fallen and both “apologise” and “condemn” are quite long words but really they are quite different. However having confused these two radically different concepts they go on to demonstrate exactly why people are asking where are the peaceful Muslim voices condemning the Charlie Hedbo attacks.
