George Friedman
Wednesday's deadly attack against a French
satirical publication has the potential to upset relations between European
states and their Muslim citizenries. The strategic intent behind such attacks
is precisely to sow this kind of crisis, as well as to influence French policy
and recruit more jihadists. Even though Islamist extremism is, at its core, an
intra-Muslim conflict, such incidents will draw in non-Muslims, exacerbating
matters.
Three suspected Islamist militants attacked the
Paris office of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo with high-powered
assault rifles, killing 12 people. Among the dead are the editor and cartoonist
Stephane Charbonnier, who was on a hit list appearing in al Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula's Inspire magazine for "insulting the Prophet
Mohammed." Eyewitness said they heard the attackers shouting, "We
have avenged the Prophet Mohammed," and chanting, "God is Great"
in Arabic. This is the third such attack in a Western country in less than
three months. The Paris incident involves perpetrators who displayed
sophisticated small arms and small unit training.
Whether or not these attacks are the handiwork
of self-motivated grassroots jihadists and cells or of individuals tied to
international jihadist entities, such incidents aggravate tense relations
between the Western and Muslim worlds. This is all the more significant in
Europe, where states are experiencing the rise of right-wing nationalism and
Muslim communities have long experienced disaffection. The jihadist objective
is to get the states to crack down harder on Muslim communities in order to further
their narrative that the West is waging war on Islam and Muslims.
While Western states go to great lengths to
demonstrate that no such clash of civilizations is occurring, right-wing forces
engage in rhetoric that reinforces these fears among many common Muslims across
the world. More important, there is a longstanding conflict of values —
particularly freedom of expression, which is cherished in the West but seen by
many Muslims as a license for sacrilege. Though the vast majority of Muslims
will not engage in violence in response to speech deemed as blasphemous, there
are many who will. In Pakistan, the blasphemy law has been a subject of huge
controversy. Many Pakistani citizens have been murdered by their fellow
countrymen for speech or behavior deemed objectionable. At the root of this
problem is the extreme discomfort many Muslims have with free expression,
although this attitude is not universal. The person of the Prophet Mohammed is
all the more sensitive because the traditional view is that he cannot be
depicted pictorially, let alone in a satirical manner.
Ultimately, this is an intra-Muslim struggle
for power and control wrapped in a debate over what it means to be a Muslim in
today's world and what the boundaries of justifiable action are. Defining those
factors is one tool that can be used to gain power; attacks against the West
and its interests, meant to force Westerners to pull out of Muslim lands or to
attack Muslims and enforce the jihadist narrative, are another. This issue
undermines efforts by moderate and progressive Muslims to advance the notion of
freedoms based on an Islamic ethos.
The ongoing intra-Muslim debate gives
extremists ample ideological and, by extension, geopolitical space to exploit.
The jihadist enterprise deliberately targets non-Muslims, in particular the
West, in part as a means to gain ground within the Muslim milieu. This strategy
also sucks the Western world into what is essentially a Muslim civil war in
order to tackle the security threats posed by Islamist militant actors.
In this way, the internal debate within the
Muslim world does not lead to the defeat of the extremists or the easing of
relations between Muslims and the West. But that is exactly where the jihadists
are vulnerable, and where the real battle to defeat jihadism needs to be
fought. As long as the ideology survives, it will produce new fighters.
George Friedman, Stratfor, Jan. 8, 2015
"Paris
Attack Underscores a Deeper Malaise is republished with permission of
Stratfor."
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