My paper was accepted – please send me to Paris!

Taboo on Questioning: Silencing the Muslim Other

Dr. Kevin Barrett, Veterans Today Editor, Press TV commentator, author, independent scholar

The Paris shootings of January 7^th and 9^th, 2015 alarmed different groups for different reasons. The perceived violent attack on free speech by “radicalized” Muslims panicked French and Western mainstream institutions and the masses under their influence. The French and global Muslim communities were equally alarmed, not only by the apparent manifestation of the problem of “Islamic” violent obscurantism, but also by the stunning wave of Islamophobia triggered by the event, and the demand that they join Western secularists in celebrating, and identifying with, pornographic blasphemy. Additionally, the Muslim community was terrorized by the silencing of well-founded questions about the facts and meaning of the shootings.

This paper argues that the silencing of Muslims’ questions about the so-called war on terror, and the individual instances of violence that collectively constitute it, amounts to a kind of intellectual genocide. In what has become a familiar pattern, the January 2015 Paris shootings were depicted by official Western institutions as an example of Muslims’ aggression against the West. By contrast, the Muslim-majority view – that Islam has been on the defensive for centuries, never more so than now, and that iconic examples of alleged Islamic aggression have in fact been largely fabricated by Western security agencies to mobilize public opinion for a war on Islam – has been ruthlessly suppressed from official discourse.

Why was police investigator Helric Fredou ordered off the Charlie Hebdo case and then “suicided” on January 8^th?¹ Why was a fake shooting of a policeman staged as the “terrorists” were fleeing the Charlie Hebdo offices?² Were the alleged terrorists really identified only because they accidentally dropped an ID card?³ What are we to make of Netanyahu’s repeated threats during the run-up to the shootings that if France recognized or sided with Palestine it would be hit by terrorists?⁴ Were the Paris shootings part of a Gladio B false flag terror program?⁵ The Muslim majority that doubts official accounts of iconic “Islamic terror” events has been denied the right to free thought and critical inquiry, and prohibited from exercising intellectual self-defense, by the taboo on asking such questions.

Biography

Kevin Barrett, an American Muslim and PhD Islamic Studies scholar, is one of America’s best-known critics of the War on Terror. He has authored and edited several books, appeared on Fox, CNN, PBS and other broadcast outlets, and inspired feature stories in the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune, and other mainstream publications. A former teacher of Islamic Studies, Arabic, French, and Humanities at various colleges and universities, he currently works as Editor at Veterans Today, talk radio host, nonprofit organizer, and pundit at Press TV, Russia Today, al-Alam, al-Etejah and other international channels. 

1Michel Chossudovsky, “Charlie Hebdo: Mystery Surrounding Death of French Policemen.” http://www.globalresearch.ca/charlie-hebdo-mystery-surrounding-death-of-french-policeman/5424739

2Ibid.

3Kevin Barrett, “Planted ID Card Exposes Paris False Flag.” http://presstv.com/Detail/2015/01/10/392426/Planted-ID-card-exposes-Paris-false-flag

4Kevin Barrett, “Israeli Investigative Journalist: Bibi a Suspect in Charlie Hebdo Massacre.”http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/04/09/chamish-bibi/

5Wikispooks, “Operation Gladio/B.” https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Operation_Gladio/B