Double standards in the Western world

Everyone, except for a few fanatics, has condemned the terrorist attack in France. They have cried out loudly that they stand alongside people’s right to live, freedom of thought, and freedom of speech.

Calls have been made to the entire Islamic world, advising it distance itself from the jihadist violence. We have questioned the atmosphere of violence dominating the Islamic world and said it would be the Muslims themselves who solve it.

A large proportion of commentators have stayed away from possible justifications for terror by saying “but,” and also condemned those who have done so.

My views are the same. I have been saying this before the last terrorist attack and also now.

However, the “but” still stands right at the center. With your permission, I want to use the right to use it.

This “but” is not one that would find excuses or load a meaning onto the acts of terrorists. Simply, we have a right to voice a “but” concerning the double standards dominating the Western world.

As in anywhere else in the world, there are also racists in the democratic West, and the people to whom they can expose their hate the most today are Muslims.

Actually, racists hate black people and Jews just as much as they hate Muslims, but it is not possible for them to reveal this hatred in public.

For example, racists in the U.S. cannot make half of the jokes they make about Muslims about people of African origin. If they did, they would be humiliated and excluded from society.

Of course, freedom of thought and freedom of expression are valid for everybody, but there are generally accepted boundaries now for them and nobody says these boundaries damage freedom of thought.

The boundaries are known: Do not be racist and do not glorify violence or encourage it. Let me add another: The words you would not say for blacks or Jews, the caricatures you would not draw for them, do not use them for Muslims either.

Which one of the Prophet Muhammad’s caricatures drawn to humiliate Muslims is a “sophisticated product of humor?”

If you are subject to violence because you have done so, of course we will be against those who inflicted that violence. But do not let this fool you to think we accept that you are right.

Is it a religion of peace?

Some people interrupted those who were marching in Istanbul to protest the Paris massacre. Two people who were detained said, “The blood of Muslims is being shed and you are still shouting here.”

A similar incident also occurred at the protest in front of the French Consulate in Istanbul. A person was detained by police after shouting: “Are you doing this just because 12 people died in France?”

These look as if they are individual incidents, but there is no doubt that in the Islamic world there is a huge mass of people who find the jihadist terror in Paris legitimate.

Because they interpret Islam as such, they think such acts of terror are in compliance with religion. They think it is the consequence of a “war.”

One Islamic scholar recently argued that Islam is not really a religion of peace, as we all say. Daily Yeni Akit columnist Faruk Köse, in short, said that war, retaliation, jihad and derivatives of these words were referred to in the Quran many times more than the word “peace,” which was only cited six times.

He is trying to say that the Quran depicts a warring Muslim character, and that trying to impose “peace” on Muslims while Muslim blood is being shed all around the world is a “perception operation” to "domesticate" Muslims.