Yahrzeit

We’re a year on from the barbaric terror attack on Charlie Hebdo, and it doesn’t look to me like we’ve progressed in any respect during that time.

On 7 January 2015, masked gunmen (why the hell are they always masked, if they think they’re doing holy work?) broke into the offices of the Paris-based satirical weekly magazine. Shouting “Allahu Akbar!” they methodically went through the building, killing 11 and wounding another 11. On their way out, they murdered a policeman (a Muslim, as it happens)—a crime captured on video.

Later on, their comrades attacked a kosher grocery store, killing four more people. Eventually the two alleged perps, French-born brothers of Algerian parents, were hunted down and died in a gunfight with massive numbers of police.

There was a global response of revulsion and outcry against the attacks, but not much else, really. Not that I can see.

Except, of course, the scaled-up killing spree of November across Paris, using both bombs and automatic assault rifles to murder 130 people who were watching a football match, having a drink or a meal, listening to a rock concert, or just walking down the streets (And plenty of other attacks in various places.)

In the wake of those events, most of the civilized world backed off of end-of-year holiday celebrations and laid on heavy paramilitary actions because they were so unprepared for something on the scale of Paris. We’re talking the kinds of armed troops patrolling Paris and Brussels that you used to see in Ulster or Beirut.

There was a lot of high-level blah-blah in January and February of last year about doing something, but clearly those who push jihad didn’t get copied on the memo. Yeah, I get it—Overtaken By Events; the West is preoccupied by the whole ISIL thing, and the masses alternatively referred to as migrants, refugees and I don’t know what-all. And those are not trivial issues.

But I’m deeply disappointed that in the 21^st Century, with all our investment in intelligence technology and military systems, we still seem to lack the cojones to deal with this brand of thuggery that wants to drag us all back to the 7^th Century. And I’m disgusted that we’re marking the Charlie Hebdo anniversary with nothing perceptible to show for the 365 days that have passed.

  

Apparently nous ne sommes pas Charlie.