AS the song goes, ‘you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows’. And in the aftermath of the brutal attack on Charlie Hebdo and the deaths of hostages taken by the killers, the wind that blows is an ill one indeed.

With that wind come the usual voices, calling for Muslims (all Muslims everywhere, all at once) to condemn the murderous actions. Of course, that condemnation comes with every such attack, along with the vigils, prayers and ‘not in our name’ pleas; pleas that are increasingly tinged with a very real fear of what inevitably follows every such outrage.

No condemnation is ever enough, nor is the fact that those very murderers have killed more Muslims than any amount of ‘infidels’, that they are the ideological brothers of those who killed our children in Peshawar, in Hazara town and in dozens of other places; those who have done so before and swear to do so again.

It is indeed no small irony that one victim of the killers was Ahmed Merabet, a French policeman who happened to be a Muslim. A masterpiece of symbolism given that, apart from the staff of Charlie Hebdo, the Western Muslim community was a clear target of these brutal murderers. It is not blasphemy they are out to ‘avenge’, it is a war they hope to ignite.

That is their long-standing agenda, one that has been clearly set out in their speeches and literature.

The killers hoped to ignite a war, and they will achieve their agenda.

 And they will likely achieve this agenda. No matter how many candles Muslims in the West light or how increasingly desperate their public protests are, the court of public perception has rendered its verdict. In this court, it is Anjem Choudhry, the radical and ridiculous hate-monger, who is the defendant. The amount of media time he gets is because he is the perfect raving strawman, the perfect ‘other’ to direct a very real rage against.

 That rage exists. How can it not when Daesh sells itself as THE Islamic State, when streams of young Muslims join its ranks, cutting off heads while speaking in British-accented English or recording hate-filled speeches in colloquial French? It doesn’t matter how many Muslims fall to their blades and bullets, what matters is that, to an increasing number of people, Daesh is Islam and its blood-curdling shouts drown out our individual voices, such as they are.

 Eager to reinforce that perception are Europe’s right-wing parties, which campaign on an anti-immigration and essentially anti-Muslim agenda. Dutch right-winger Geert Wilders said, “We have to de-Islamicise our country”. France’s far-right National Front, which made record gains in the May 2014 European parliament elections (claiming 25pc of the vote) also wasted no time, saying that its stance has been ‘ahead of its time’ and was now vindicated.

Perception rules; a Guardian poll revealed that in France, for example, people believe there are three times more Muslims than there actually are. It’s the same across the channel, where Nigel Farage, leader of the right-wing United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) used the opportunity to attack ‘multiculturalism,’ the favourite bugbear of the European right.

Interestingly, it emerges that much of the anti-immigration UKIP’s support in fact comes from areas with few immigrants. Similarly Dresden, the epicentre of Germany’s anti-Islam protests is home to few foreigners and even fewer Muslims. In short, the greater support for right wingers comes from areas where the ‘other’ really isn’t present at all. 

Regardless, calls to curb immigration and defend Europe’s cultural identity (code for halting what the right sees as an imminent takeover of Europe by Muslims), will grow more strident and more mainstream.

Who can fight against that? Certainly Angela Merkel has tried, in a hard-hitting speech aimed at the protests by Pegida, the German anti-immigration group; protests that, according to one poll, one in eight Germans are willing to join. One cannot ignore the saner voices that have held counter-protests, but one fears that such voices will be drowned out by a right-wing cacophony.

Principles aside, what politicians truly crave is power, and in the face of such public feeling centrist parties will have to up their rhetoric or see their votes stolen by the right. The liberal left will likely stick to its guns and retain core support, though it will see its strength decline in relative terms, in no small part a factor of its inability to adjust its rhetoric with the times. No amount of #JeSuisAhmed hashtags will change that, despite the small hope they symbolise.

Apart from Al Qaeda/Daesh and the European right, the other gains will be made by those who favour increased state security at the expense of individual rights. Indeed, the ‘would surveillance have prevented the attack?’ chorus is already being heard. Expect it to get much louder.

The writer is a member of staff.

Twitter: @zarrarkhuhro

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2015

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