Let's vow never to give in to terrorism

As France and the rest of the world were trying to come to terms with Wednesday’s massacre at the satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo, French police on Friday found themselves in a twin standoff with terror cells.
The two brothers behind the attack at the magazine office took hostages inside a printing house northeast of Paris.
Hours later, a man suspected of killing a young policewoman in Montrouge on Thursday attacked a kosher supermarket in Paris and took five people hostage.
The horrific event in Paris last Wednesday was beyond words. Ten journalists and two police officers, one of whom was a Muslim on patrol, were gunned down by extremists who were out to teach critics of Islam a bloody lesson.
Regardless of a magazine’s editorial line, there is no justification for killing the writers and the artists. The killers called themselves Muslims but had no qualms about the fact that the vast majority of Muslims around the world did not agree with their methodology and politics or their warped version of Islam.
In the land of Voltaire, there is a famous saying: “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
A hashtag that went viral, #JeSuisAhmed, has become a way of honouring Ahmed Merabet, the 40-year-old Muslim police officer who tried to stop the two gunmen, as they were about to storm the magazine but was shot dead execution style.
“I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so,” wrote one Twitter follower under the name Dyab Abou Jahjah.
In Thailand, where the very concept of freedom of expression has often taking a beating because of interference by state officials and societal indifference, it’s not hard for people to relate to the incident.
In fact, any society that is serious about liberty must do its best to defend such a freedom no matter how rude or provocative these words may be. Bad taste does not constitute a crime.
The massacre came amid anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe. Such killings only feed into the agenda of the far-right nationalists in France and elsewhere in Europe.
It also came at a time when much of the Western world has been overwhelmed with Islamic terrorism.
Some of these acts were carried out by self-radicalised lone wolfs. Other incidents were part of the calculated acts of terrorist organisations.
Many people tend to dismiss the killers as fanatics and terrorists.
But looking at the calculated efficiency and the facts of the Paris massacre, it is not hard to see that the killers had planned well to maximise the death toll. They picked the weekly editorial meeting as the time to attack.
The best way to counter extremism, is to not let these acts get the better of us. We must hold true to our values and virtues. Straying from these principles is akin to admitting defeat.
As expected, Muslims in France and Europe are afraid of a pos-
sible backlash. But for freedom
of expression to endure, it is important that this outrage and anger does not become an excuse to condemn the Muslim community because of the actions of a handful of people.
Many Muslims also took part in showing solidarity for the Charlie Hebdo victims, while Muslim or-
ganisations in France rallied be-
hind President Franois Hollande. But bigots will be bigots, as reactions in the form of firebomb at-tacks on mosques in France have shown. Lumping Islam and Islamist terrorists together as a single adversary would not only be a huge mistake but it would also be unfair to law-abiding Muslims around the world.