The Cult of Putin

I never intended this blog to be a political blog, but I feel like I don’t have much of a choice but to get political.  Politics are a natural part of human life, and their nature in guiding the forceful actions of governments require that they be addressed from time to time.  If there was ever a time for an exception to aversion around politics, it has come.  We’ve seen the Cult of Trump and the Cult of QAnon poison American politics, but it started much longer ago with the Cult of Putin.  In fact, I’ve come to believe strongly that the Cult of Trump and the Cult of QAnon owe their existence to the Cult of Putin.

What do I mean by that?  For the last 20 years, I’ve been watching a lot of grown American men obnoxiously admiring Putin.  Unfortunately, not just men.  A decade ago, Putin invaded Georgia and murdered countless Georgians on a set of pretexts that spookily mirror the pretexts he used to justify the invasion of Ukraine. And I personally witnessed privileged Americans respond with memes of Putin riding dinosaurs and wrestling bears.

Memes aren’t the worst that can happen, but they do reflect where people are in their thinking.  And in any case, it hasn’t been only in memes, which are just the tip of the iceberg, but in actual conversations from people who have real opinions of Putin as hero, including many who really should know better.  It’s undeniable when you’ve seen and heard it with your own ears for two decades.  They have admired him for his toxic masculinity.  They have admired him for being a bully.  They have thought his seizures of power were brave.

When I was younger and would read about how a significant number of Americans admired Hitler and admired Stalin prior to World War II, even celebrities, politicians, and industrialists, I would wonder how in the world that was possible!  Couldn’t they see who these people were?  For a good many of these people, the answer is that they weren't really looking at who these people were.  They were looking at the dire situation of post-World War I Germany, or they were looking at the heroic efforts of Russians and other Soviet Union provinces in fighting back against an invading Germany.  So there was some misdirection, just as there is now.  We tend to get a bottlenecked view in times of crisis. Edward G. Robinson comes to mind — he was a fierce supporter of Stalin during the efforts of the Soviets to repel invasion of Germany in World War II, and later was upset to find he had overlooked a world leader who was arguably worse than Hitler and an empire that also had its sights on domination, both of its own part of the world and the rest of the world eventually.  Not only did he realize he had overlooked these things in his efforts to support them against Nazis, but he had realized that he had been used by them in ways he had never imagined.

However, I remain unconvinced that the vast majority of the people who idolized these dictators had failed to recognize evil because of crisis, but instead openly embraced pompous figures out of their own sense of privilege.  At one time I would have given more charity to this, because I assumed they didn’t see who these dictators masquerading as leaders were.  I assumed that they had simply misjudged their character.  But now that I’ve experienced this in my own time, I can firmly say that yes — they could see who these people were.  That was, in fact, why they admired them.  They saw them for who they were, and they liked it — they shared a sense of megalomania and enjoyed living vicariously in the shirt pockets of dictators.  And they would have continued in this indefinitely.  They only broke from this cycle when they had to bear some of the consequences themselves, particularly the public shame of their support.  Then they cried foul and recognized the monster.  That's the nature of privilege.

A great many of these delusional people who admired Putin are vocal Trump supporters and QAnon cultists.  I don't say that to stir the pot.  I don't say it to insult anyone reading this.  I say it with quite a bit of sadness, frankly.  It should surprise no one at this point why Putin wanted Trump to win so badly that he orchestrated interference in our elections.  Like Hitler, and like Lenin and Stalin, Putin clearly has ambitions of establishing an empire.  But countries that he sees as naturally under subservience to Russia are out of his grasp because of their membership in NATO.  Trump had promised to remove the United States from NATO membership, which would have been the defacto end of NATO.  That would have opened the door for Putin to march on Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Estonia. Now that Trump lost his re-election bid, and NATO is here to stay for the time being, Putin now just has to gamble.  Nations that want to join NATO, like Georgia in the last decade, and Ukraine in the present, have to be seized on before they can seal the deal. 

Putin, like Hitler, wants his little wars of conquest with zero Western resistance.  And again, like Hitler, he doesn't want a large war beyond that.  If this ends in World War III, I'm sure that is a situation in which he'd prefer not to be.  Yet, his goals are not really negotiable given his almost religious devotion to the concept of a new Russian Empire.  This has to be the case at this point, otherwise, given the response of the Western world, there would be a moment of clarity on his part, and that moment of clarity just isn't there.

This follows Hitler's own patterns so well.  Hitler, for his part, could not believe that countries like England and France were going to see their promises of defending their allies through.  He had fully expected them to stay out of it, or even give him the green light, as they had with his conquest of Czechoslovakia.  He attributed the sudden renewed Western vigor of resistance to "warmongers" like Winston Churchill.  But while it was not in his plan nor was it ever a desire of his to fight a World War, his goals were uncompromising.  Hitler was willing to gamble with stakes as high as World War.  I think Putin was and is willing to gamble World War, just as Hitler was.

So Putin's absence of an epiphany is at least understood by his desire for a Russian Empire.  But for many of Putin's supporters and apologists in America and Europe, speaking as they are from a bubble of privilege and an atmosphere of only knowing peace at home, there is not yet a massive moment of clarity.  I say this knowing that a few have experienced it, and for many more there will be such a realization, just as there was for those folks in the past when they finally saw what a threat Hitler and Stalin were as they arrived at their own intellectual or even literal doorsteps.  But the reality is that a lot of these people won’t have that epiphany, even in this worst case scenario.

That's the danger of cultic thinking, of joining a cult around a personality.  Those of us who know YHWH should know how to avoid joining a cult of personality, and should keep our prayers ascending for the violated people of Ukraine, who are now pitted in a life or death struggle to avoid being forced to join the Cult of Putin.  Likewise, we should be praying for Russians and subjects of governments run by Putin's puppets.  They need freedom from this Cult.  They don't have the privilege of rescinding their membership.

Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) and Politics


In regard to U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order to move the Embassy to Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) and recognizing the city as the capital of Yisrael, I don't have a lot to say.  I think it's mostly hubris for various reasons.  Yerushalayim has been the operating capital of the modern State of Israel for many decades now, and it has done that without recognition from any Government, including its long-term ally, the United States.  But this isn't the only reason this move doesn't excite me, or even fire my engines.  I'll try to explain why.

Yerushalayim is the City of the Great King, the City of Elohim, and the City of His People, Yisrael.  It is that, even when Elohim allows others to occupy it or take it or even to erect their idols upon it.  I have faith enough to know that, not merely believe it.  And that is why...
  1. I don't need the current world to recognize it.  Elohim recognizes it.  He will one day loudly yell it's truth to the world, with a voice so powerful that the soundwaves will be visible. And that is enough for me.
  2. I don't need to politically rally for this either.  We are told that HaMashiach will one day rally for it and fight for it and he will win it for his people in the name of Elohim, and that is enough for me.
  3. I don't need even the most powerful county of this age to place their embassy upon it.  This age will come to an end, and Elohim will place HIS Embassy upon it.  The embassies from the sinful counties of this age will not be welcome in His Qodesh City.  And that is more than enough for me.
  4. I don't need a revolutionary or an army to reclaim the Temple Mount for me.  It won't be me or any political figure who reclaims Mount Moriyah for the third Heykal (Temple).  Unless Elohim builds that Beit Mikdash ("Holy House"), it will be built in vain.  If we build it, it won't be for His purposes, it will be a political machination of this present evil age.  We must trust that He will grab that place again for Himself, remove any abominations on it, and He will rebuild the third Beit Mikdash one day through His Mashiach at the time He has appointed for this, because that is what He promises us that He will do.  The and only then will it be a House of Prayer for all people, as He has promised.  And that is all there can be for me.
  5. We must not be of this world.  That means we must resist nationalism and tribalism and love the minorities and the foreigners as we love ourselves.  Political machinations, land grabs, and pompous public declarations are not the Arm of Elohim in operation, and we must strongly resist the temptation to believe that it is.  His Arm, HaMashiach, will operate when He is ready for it.  We should be patient for that and avoid soiling ourselves with the filth of this age, while still doing what we can to help our fellow men and sharing this information with them.  And that should be enough for all of us!
Believers in those promises given to us should be very careful about soiling themselves with the politics of this present evil age.  Sometimes we have to speak up when there is injustice that harms individuals because we are after all commanded to love our fellow man as we love ourselves, and we cannot walk idly while it is going on right in front of us.  When we see a minority being disproportionately mistreated, we must speak up because we must love justice and hate injustice.  That doesn't mean we should become completely involved in the political system; we should limit our involvement to things that require our outspoken voice to remain righteous, and avoid involvement that would lead to our corruption.

Elohim is not impressed with our political manifestos.  He's only impressed with the way we live, and our dedication to His Torah, particularly the weightier matters, such as how we love and treat our fellow human beings -- all of them, even foreigners.  If that isn't enough for any of us, then we're in the wrong movement and expressing disbelief in the promises.

We must realize that we are not going to achieve the Kingdom of Elohim by votes, violence, or rallies.  We won't achieve it by siding with one evil politician over another evil politician, with our carefully and purposefully imbalanced scales.  We don't choose among the lesser of two shadim (demons) in the Kingdom of Elohim, a place where shadim have no part.  The Kingdom of Elohim is something we must wait for.  In the meantime, we can be self-contained embassies for that Olam HaBa, by reflecting it in our daily lives and sharing the hope of it with others.

Drilling Holes in Water

I usually go around 4 a.m. to pray at the Kotel (the Western or "Wailing" Wall) during each day of the Chagim, because that's a time when it's nice and quiet and not overly crowded, but this trip I've been doing it at disparate times for various reasons.  On this past Shabbat, I decided to go pray at sunset, as the Shabbat was ending.  While I was at the Kotel praying, an act of violence was perpetrated against a Jewish family who were just on their way to do what I was doing.  One of them, the father, died from stab wounds, while the mother was also seriously injured, and one of the children also received minor injuries.  A Rabbi and resident of the Old City was also killed as he tried to defend the young couple.  You can read about this incident here.

I missed all of this because I don't usually go through the route this Jewish family was going.  I usually go through the Yaffa gate and down past Chabad to the Chain Gate, or I go through the Dung Gate.  As I was leaving I saw the ruckus going on with police going through the streets of the Old City a little more quickly than usual. I only found out what exactly happened later as I was having dinner with some brothers in the Mamila Mall and we observed some Israelis marching through the streets waving the flag, headed in mass towards the Old City.

Violence breeds violence, folks!  Be clear here, Jews are never going to willingly leave Eretz HaQodesh (the Qodesh Land).  Nor will they leave Yerushalayim (Jerusalem), a city that is tied forever to their hearts.  You'd have to drag them out kicking and screaming, and believe me, it would take a significant force, more than a few stabbings or stone throwings.  Likewise, Palestinians and Armenians and everyone else who considers Yerushalayim home, a place deep in their hearts, they are not willingly leaving either.  Before taking part in yet another attack, consider that the only thing an attack of this sort will mean is that life with be a lot harder on a lot more innocent Palestinians, Armenians, other Christians, and Jews.  It won't mean that you will somehow win a victory and remove Jews (or anyone else) from the land or this city.

Everyone here is stuck with everyone else here.  One who chooses a path of violence and terrorism to settle his grievances will leave his grievances even more unsettled, become a martyr to the cause of drilling holes in water, and leave his life and his name to be swallowed up into the abyss.  Choose instead to concentrate on learning to get along, on appreciating each other's differences, and on granting some goodwill all the way around. That latter path will neutralize grievances before they can germinate, will add peace to your life, and will ensure your name is in the record of the One who holds the ultimate reward.

This Pope Isn't Turning the Other Cheek

Quoting Pope Francis from an article on yahoo.com today, titled Pope on Charlie Hebdo: There are limits to free expression:
"'If my good friend Dr. Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch,' Francis said, throwing a pretend punch his way. 'It's normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.' … 'There are so many people who speak badly about religions or other religions, who make fun of them, who make a game out of the religions of others,' he said. 'They are provocateurs. And what happens to them is what would happen to Dr. Gasparri if he says a curse word against my mother. There is a limit.'"
This Pope has had a public image campaign of unifying people who are divided by political, economic, and religious schisms since he took the "throne", but if this is any sign of the unity he's offering, I'd just assume stay divided.  Not being a Catholic, I pesosnally don't really elevate the words of the Pope to any significant extent.  In fact, being what is historically referred to as a "Quartodecimani", a "Sabbatarian", and a "Judaizer", and knowing the violent history of the Bishops of Rome, who are the various Popes' pre-Nicene forebearers, and eventually the Popes themselves towards those who were pegged with such titles, I'm apt to put him into the category of ignorable, at least in these modern times of relative religious liberty when one can ignore religious figures with visions of statesmanship without being subsequently taxed the coin of his life.  And I would do just that were it not for his huge sphere of influence.  One can personally ignore his edicts, but among a large segment of the public, they carry some real weight, and many of those are voters and statesmen themselves.  Let me be clear here: this Pope certainly should be warning against using angry and provocative words, and should be teaching that everyone should choose their words carefully and respectfully, but he should NOT be justifying violent responses when these words don't fit that criteria.

Aside from the obvious problem of a sitting Pope in a modern society handing out justifications of bloody violence through theoretical anecdotes about insults directed to his mother, he hasn't properly analyzed what the implementation of his limitations would mean to the concept of Freedom of Speech.  I posit that if his limitations ever become commonly accepted in the West, Freedom of Speech will be a right and a value which will no longer exist.  Salman Rushdie, an author who knows a thing or two about both the importance of preserving this value and the dangers that can be faced if it is not stringently protected, had this to say about the subject: "What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist."

Addendum: Je Suis Et Ne Suis Pas Charlie Hebdo

After writing the blog Je Suis Et Ne Suis Pas Charlie Hebdo yesterday, I ran across an online article on Reason magazine's website called Charlie Hebdo in the Dock.  It illustrates that in France and in several other E.U. countries (Germany, the Netherlands, The United Kingdom, and Sweden), using religion, race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, or disability as the basis of an insult to another individual or group of individuals is a crime punishable by a fine of €22,500 and six months in jail.  Graduating from mere insults to defamation or advocation of discrimination, hatred, or violence can be punished with up to a year in prison.  As I had mentioned in this very blog yesterday (in the fourth paragraph), the French Council for the Muslim Faith sued the "Charlie Hebdo" publishers and pushed prosecution of its editor using these very laws.  While the Courts sided with Charlie Hebdo in that case, it is more than little scary to think that the editor of "Charlie Hebdo" was facing potential prison time for the hurt feelings that resulted from the illustrations.

Protecting people from experiencing offense is quite the rabbit hole into which France and these other countries can descend, especially when it can result in such stiff sentences for those doing the offending.  Another article from Reason magazine's website, titled France Arrests Comedian Dieudonné for Condoning Acts of Terrorism on Facebook, shows just how far down that rabbit hole France can go.  Quoting the article:
"... the controversial and allegedly anti-Semitic French political comedian Dieudonné was being investigated by a Paris prosecutor over a Facebook post in which he wrote 'I feel like Charlie Coulibaly'—mashing together the names Charlie Hebdo and Amedy Coulibaly, the mass murderer in the kosher supermarket. Well, today, Dieudonné has been arrested on suspicion of condoning acts of terrorism, a crime with a maximum penalty of seven years in prison and a €100,000 fine."
 The article goes on to say: 
"The arrest is part of a nationwide clampdown on free speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre... A shocking 54 people have been arrested for speech offenses in the past week, reports the Associated Press."
It's not just unfortunate that this is happening, it's precisely what I stated emphatically in this blog that we MUST oppose!  This is NOT the lesson that the French Government and the people of France should be learning from all of this!  Using institutional violence against those who exercise their tongues and their pens is not going to solve their problem with those who use vigilante violence against those who exercise their tongues and their pens.  Showing no respect for freedom of speech and freedom of the press is not going to help them win their battle against those who have no respect for freedom of speech and freedom of the press!  Abandoning their values will not protect their values!

While it's not quite the death penalty that France is seeking in these cases, and so by degree doesn't reach the extremes of the extremists, it's still institutional war waged against the tongue, the pen, and the keyboard, which is more subversive as a trend in a country like France than the actions of an obviously subversive subgroup.  When these extremist groups see their Government taking an organized and institutional route to silence unpopular or offensive speech, it should come as no surprise if they are tempted to identify their cause and their motivations as the other side of the same French coin.

Je Suis Et Ne Suis Pas Charlie Hebdo

I got a chance to see those "Charlie Hebdo" cartoons that are so controversial, and seeing them had the effect of allowing me to formulate my thoughts about recent events surrounding them.  I want to go through some of the concerns, the pessimism, that I have about the conduct of extremist Muslims and the effect they inevitably have on the relationship of the West with Islam, and I also want to go through my more optimistic views of what I think (or rather what I hope) the future holds for Islam and the West.

One issue obviously broke a serious faux pas among Muslims by inviting a fictional Mohammed to be a guest editor.  The cover of the issue featured Mohammed with a smile on his face saying "100 Coups de Fouet, Si Vous N'etes Pas Morts De Rire!", or "100 Lashes if You Don't Die of Laughter!".  To write in the name of Mohammed is a pretty daring thing to do, and the extremists responded by firebombing the "Charlie Hebdo" offices, burning them to the ground.  The "Charlie Hebdo" editors didn't let that stop them... the next issue issue showed an image of Mohammed making out with a "Charlie Hebdo" editor, with the caption "L'amour Plus Fort Que La Haine", or "Love Is Stronger Than Hate".  "Charlie Hebdo" has always pushed the line here, even in the face of very real threats.  It is famous for a show of solidarity with Danish newspaper "Jyllands-Poste" by re-publishing the cartoons originally published by that paper which depict Mohammed as posing for nude pictures, along with other intentionally offensive illustrations.  The original publication in Denmark caused a firestorm of threats against the paper as well as violent riots in countries with large Muslim populations which led to many deaths.

What surprises me in all of this is that while we hear a lot about the Muslim cartoons, which are indeed brutal satires, they are hardly only hard on Muslims.  They accuse Christians and Jews as well, and even Buddhists, other religious types, and apparently even atheists.  In one cartoon it shows an Imam, a Priest, and a Rabbi yelling "Il Faut Voiler 'Charlie Hebdo'!", which means "'Charlie Hebdo' Must Be veiled (i.e. Censored)!"  A third one was titled "Intouchables 2", and had a Rabbi pushing around an injured Muslim in a wheelchair, with both saying in unison "Faut Pas Se Moquer!", or "Must Not Mock!", which clearly implies that both Jews and Muslims have become politically "untouchable".  Just to show how broadly they operated, one of their covers featured a Rabbi making out with a Nazi soldier.  There was probably a verbal outcry from Christians and Jews over these, but notably there wasn't a violent one.  It would be nearly impossible for me not to recognize that while there have been similar Christian reactions to these types of representations, the likelihood of an extremist Muslim group being responsible for such acts seems to be far greater, and much more hair-triggered.

For instance, you might think that the more provocative cartoons are the ones that really upset the extremist Muslims in France the most, and certainly all of them have to a great extent, but the one that really raised the ire of moderates and extremists alike was very mild by comparison -- it featured the Prophet Mohammed covering his eyes with his hands while shedding tears, saying "C'est Dur D'être Aimé Par Des Cons", or "It's Hard to Be Loved by Jerks!"  This one certainly seems very tame by most Western standards, and even depicts IMO what is claimed that many moderate Muslims say privately about their extremist cousins, but it was this cover that bothered the largest moderate Muslim organization in France, the French Council for the Muslim Faith, so much that they sued the "Charlie Hebdo" publishers, claiming that they were attempting to incite riots.  One is tempted to consider them as not so moderate after all, and perhaps mentally classify them as an organization that doesn't properly represent French Muslim opinions and ideology, until one realizes that this is a national organization elected by French Muslims to represent them before the French Government, and is the de facto group which takes on this task.

When looking into this group, and looking into French politics around Islam in general, I was surprised to find that in France, some jurisdictions are actually under enforced sharia law, under the blessing of the French Government.  In those areas, French law is secondary to sharia.  I realize that a privately owned commune can be under any law it wants really, even a harsh religious law, but even in a country of religious freedom like the United States, someone under such rules willingly can appeal at ANY TIME to US Law and shirk enforcement of a religious law.  In France apparently, that is not the case within specific jurisdictions.  A few years ago, I remember when some US State legislatures passed laws against the establishment of sharia law in any of their respective States' jurisdictions.  At the time I balked at that as an unnecessary show of arms, or even a rather stupid erection of white middle-class Christian tail-feathers.  I have to apologize for that now -- I have to admit that I would never, could never, abide jurisdictional sharia law being enforced as a primary within the United States, and if I were a French citizen or resident, this arrangement would certainly ruffle my tail feathers more than a little.  Now that I know that this scenario can exist in a Western country, I can certainly understand the rationale of States enacting this kind of restriction.

Before it sounds like I've sided with Western knee-jerk reactions given some of the pessimistic concerns I've listed, I want to state this outright: I am convinced that a great many Muslims are in fact moderate, and many others are in fact also very liberal.  But let me be equally as frank in stating that the only thing that leads me to believe this so strongly is my firm friendships with several Muslims who are in this vein of thought, and their frank admissions to me.  If I were to rely on the very seemingly public voices of Islam and not these private ones, I certainly would not have firm legging to hold that opinion.  In fact, I wonder sometimes why some of these people I know don't more openly condemn the violence they see, and say things like "Not in my name" or the like in more public venues.  This is, I believe, what must happen if not only the tide of public Western opinion is to be turned, but the tide of violence originating from seemingly empowered extremist Islamic fundamentalist groups.

France has the largest Muslim population of any country in the European Union.  As a result, it is a testing ground for what it means, and what it will mean, for other EU countries to allow more immigration of Muslims from countries that have a larger segment of extremists (and in this case, I must exclude European countries which have mostly moderate populations, such as Turkey).  There's certainly a strong impression among many Europeans that Muslims are trying to hijack their culture and their legal systems, and thus their way of life, not just through persuasion but through other means, legal and illegal (i.e., forceful means). Islam's future in the EU will be determined by how many moderate Muslims not only speak out against this kind of violence, but which ones openly embrace Western values, particularly those that relate to rights Westerners consider to be basic, such as Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Religion and what that latter category of freedom largely implies: Freedom FROM Religion.  It would be nice, I think, to see more Muslims embracing this Western principle, openly and honestly and without reserve.  That I believe is firmly needed to reverse these current trends.  Perception is often more important than reality, at least more important to the direction of various political actions, because perception feeds the philosophy that in turn directs these actions.  If a majority remains silent against a vocal minority, then the vocal minority will certainly be more influential on public opinion and thus political direction, though sometimes, as is the case now, in a direction that is harmful rather than beneficial to both the majority and the minority of the main minority group.

To illustrate my point from the resources of the past, there was a time when Jews were thought of as extremists in the Roman Empire mainly because of their vocal and violent extremist minorities.  Judaism was the Islam of the end of B.C.E. and the first century C.E., with factions (Pharisees, Sadducees, Netzarim), cults (Essenes), moderates (Boethusians, Hillel Pharisees), extremists (Shammai Pharisees), and even terrorists (the Zealots and particularly the Sicarii).  They were thought of by the powers that be as a respectable yet uncompromising and unpredictable religious group that was growing at an alarming rate.  Indeed, this was a time when Jews heavily proselytized and expanded, until one in ten living within the Roman Empire were Jewish either by birth or by conversion.  Like Islam today among Western sensibilities, Rome had a difficult time defining Judaism as it existed -- it ranged from very liberal views to violent extremist ones, and everything in between.  One thing is for sure though, extremists were the loudest and most noticeable, partly because liberals and moderates among them were afraid to speak out.  Rome gave Jews full religious rights, but also treated them as a group that needed to be monitored very closely.  It could be argued that by not being more vocal against these more violent minorities, the Jewish community as a whole paid a terrible price.  The Roman backlash almost led to their extinction, destroyed their religious center of worship, scattered their decimated population to the four winds, and effectively kept the majority of them out of their homeland for nearly 1900 years.

Christianity also had a period of time when it dominated religious thought with the sword during its 1200 year phase as a monolithic and all-encompassing political power, a movement that insisted on absolute adherence and devotion, and that punished its very skewed and loose interpretations of blasphemy to a degree that today would make the average Christian's neck hair stand on end.  Christianity was for all intents and purposes the Western equivalent to Islam in the East during that period, which included the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages.  What broke their power was first a Renaissance, and then the Age of Enlightenment, the latter of which began in the 17th century, culminated in the 18th and 19th Centuries, and is basically still going on today.   In between those events were several reformation movements, including the Protestant Reformation, most of which were obviously related to both of these milestone movements.

Some are saying that what Islam needs is the first of those "reformation events": an open show of force by the West to put their foot down, and stamp out extremism in a bloody show-down.  It could certainly work out that way, especially if extremist Muslims keep the upper hand as they have.  However, I certainly prefer and deeply hope and pray that this NEVER happens and that the latter route will be the path that prevails.  Islam had a Renaissance many centuries ago; what it desperately needs now is its own Age of Enlightenment, a floodgate to move the moderate and even more classically liberal views held among faithful Muslims to the forefront, so powerfully that extremism is completely overshadowed.  Like extremist groups in Judaism and Christianity, the Muslim extremist groups will never be stamped out, but with a concerted and uncompromising effort from the Muslim center and left, extremist groups can become a rather extreme minority, with an extremely minor voice.

We need an intellectual revolution, not a bloody one.  Some don't believe that such an intellectual revolution is possible given the current state of affairs and either the presumed non-existence of such moderation in the Muslim communities, or the unwillingness of moderate Muslims to speak out loudly.  It is certainly possible that it won't work out the way I hope, but to those who think it cannot, it's important to point out that that the Age of Enlightenment in the West did not see the invention of these ideas now held dear within its territories -- those merely came to the forefront during that period.  They were already secret treasures debated and grasped by many behind closed doors, which gradually came to the forefront until the floodgates irreversibly opened.  The Age of Enlightenment brought to the forefront what was already dearly held treasure within human safe houses, firmly transferring those theoretical causes from the hemispheres of the brains of thoughtful Western men into the Western hemisphere of this planet.

I sincerely hope we see that, but there are ways that we can discourage this and even sabotage it without realizing it, and we could do so with what we think are good intentions.  What will surely keep the Dark Ages upon us is if we in the West decide to operate as if we too are still stuck in our own Dark Aged past.  If we compromise our own views on Western values, by blaming the victims of these attacks for saying hurtful things, and not putting the blame solely and completely on those who not only lack boundaries in their own physical and now very bloody war against those victims, then I think we can't hope to ever see a loud and vocal moderate and liberal Muslim population willing to come forth.  Free speech is more important than hurt feelings -- because it is the one mechanism that will allow those individuals to come forward and speak freely.  Without it, they very likely won't take the risk.

It never serves the interest of justice to blame a rape victim for dressing provocatively among a group of sex offenders. It might lack wisdom, but Western values insist that it contains ZERO crime.  Many years ago, an adult magazine in the United States published a parody of Jerry Falwell, an American fundamentalist minister of a large Protestant organization based in Virginia, in which Falwell was represented to be discussing his first sexual experience as part of an ad for Campari liquors.  Falwell sued the adult magazine in question, and the case went all the way to the US Supreme Court.  There's no question that this was offensive to Falwell, and to most of his lay constituents, but it fell well within the rights of the publication in question because it was an obvious parody of a public figure, as the Supreme Court recognized in its decision.  There was very little question among US liberals and moderates that this was the right decision.  If some Christian minister in a similar circumstance had responded with violence, I think it would be VERY doubtful that anything other than a small minority would be rushing to his defense or claiming that the parodying sources were at fault for the violence maintained against them.  We must be consistent in this, even when we perceive these individuals to be underdogs, as I think many of us do in the case of Muslims in the West.  There can be no excuse for this kind of a reaction, and we must never condone it.

Nobody is saying you have to agree with or even like what the editors of "Charlie Hebdo" said or did.  If you consider yourself to be a stranger and a sojourner in this world as I do, then we should take the warnings of Yahuda (Jude) which he wrote in his Epistle seriously by avoiding issuance of such slander, regardless of our strong feelings and the nature of our targets:
"But Mika’el the chief messenger, in contending with the deceiver when he disputed about the body of Mosheh, presumed not to bring against him a blasphemous accusation, but said, 'YHWH rebuke you!' But these blaspheme that which they do not know. And that which they know naturally, like unreasoning beasts, in these they corrupt themselves." (Yahuda / Jude 1:9-10).   
Think on that one: being warned that even false or hyperbolic accusations against Satan himself are unacceptable for those walking in the Light of Elohim.  Imagine the fundamentalist Christian ministers who would be scandalized by such a statement if they spent the time necessary to properly understand it from their own Scriptures.  I believe that everyone should take this advice and be very careful about the accusations they issue from their lips, especially those of us who are in covenant with Elohim.

It can be perplexing for someone like me, someone dedicated to abiding by and obeying the scriptures, and thus having strong views like these about how careful we must be to choose our words, to defend Freedom of Speech so resolutely when said speech involves depiction of despicable acts in relation to their subjects and extreme hyperbole of the kind warned against.  I don't do this in the interest of promoting the offenses themselves, but because I realize that without such a resolute defense, my right and ability to say what I need to say as a watchman before YHWH my Elohim will be compromised -- to afford myself this right, I must afford it to others.  By all means be careful in choosing your words, avoid slander, and advise others to do so as well.  Be a persuader, not a provocateur.  But remember that if "Charlie Hebdo" is denied the right to say, illustrate, or publish what they did, and if we avoid supporting that right in every venue for which they had lawful means to exercise it, then we too will eventually find ourselves subject to a restriction that may prove unbearable to each of us in the execution of our individual parts in the collective mission that Elohim has given us.  We must insist on the full enforcement of the rights of groups like "Charlie Hebdo" against aggressors that would legally or violently attempt to prevent the exercise of these rights, by every institution that we have established for these purposes.  We must insist on this, from every public official who has a say in the enforcement of said rights, all the way from mail room workers and basement IT dwellers, to the guys sitting in the Oval Office and their international equivalents.  If we relent in this one iota, we will be doing more to sabotage any movement which liberal and moderate Muslims make to vocalize and thus move their ideas to the forefront.  If the editors of "Charlie Hebdo" don't have freedom to speak freely, neither will they -- and neither will we.