Why we must not generalise in the wake of these attacks.

In the wake of the unmitigated violence unleashed upon the French cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo, I find myself having to switch off the BBC’s rolling news channel. These cartoonists, yes, cartoonists, are the most recent victims in a war that isn’t fought by soldiers nor governments. No, this threat is an entirely different form of monster. This war is fought with no tact, instead with gruesome acts of villainy that shake the western world to its core and create responses from western governments that no sane person can justify.
It seems as if these Islamist extremists aim to turn the entirety of the western world against Islam, creating a situation that will encourage more moderate Muslims to turn to extremism to combat the prejudice they will undoubtedly experience.

The scary thing is, it’s working. As a native British citizen, it sickens me to see others who would consider themselves native joining forces with terror organisations, the most prolific figure of them all is the so called ‘Jihadi John’, glorified by the media and turned into a symbol for the extremists. I often wonder how someone who has grown up in a country that values freedom and equality can join a group like ISIS that openly adopts slavery and sees themselves as the sole inheritors of the Earth. It sickens me to know that somebody who was been through the British education system and utilised all the benefits of our country can behead multiple journalists on film, demanding that the UK and America fund their simply nasty belief system. But he is only one person, and these others who follow these extremists ideals are individuals, they do not represent the religion as a whole.

What we have to avoid in these trying times is generalisation. What I have seen of the recent attacks in Australia and France is a solidarity of their people to avoid racial and religious discrimination in the wake of these attacks. To me, that speaks louder than any of these terrorist actions could.
A man who can callously shoot another who is lying on the ground with his hand up in surrender is not representative of the religion he follows. People can be too keen to vilify Islam as a violent religion in response to this, but there are over a billion Muslims in this world and not any one of them represents the entirety of their faith.

In the meantime, my thoughts go out to the families of those killed. I hope they find some peace and consolidation in all the people who share their pain and anger.