Some have sought to shift the blame away from the killers in Paris and onto their victims, implying that they had it coming. Jeffrey Goldberg’s piece is well worth reading on this topic. Now Rupert Murdoch, Executive Chairman of News Corp and Chairman and CEO of 21st Century Fox, has weighed in, shifting blame in a different direction.
“Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible,”
Jihadist violence impacts heavily on Muslims. In Nigeria, where 2000 have recently been massacred, Christians and Muslims are fighting Boko Haram together. And, as has been widely reported, one of the victims of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, Ahmed Merabet, was a Muslim police officer.
Of course many Muslims do work to combat extremism in different ways, and many more unequivocally condemn such acts of violence. Obviously if particular Muslim countries, groups or individuals respond equivocally, hypocritically, or worse to the recent horrific violence in Paris then they can be held to account, just like non-Muslims, but Muslims cannot be held collectively responsible for extremist criminals.
