Aftandilian: Don’t Alienate Moderate Muslims
Gregory Aftandilian, visiting lecturer in International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, said that the response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris need not alienate moderate Muslims.
The remarks were made in the blog for the Global Policy Journal on Jan. 16.
In his article, Aftandilian states:
The brutal killings in and near Paris in the offices of the satirical journal Charlie Hebdo and at the kosher supermarket have understandably and rightly elicited widespread condemnation in France and around the world. No one should be killed for satirical writings or cartoons—no matter how offensive they seem—and no one should be killed on account of their religion or ethnicity.
That being said, the decision by Charlie Hebdo and some American media outlets to publish another political cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed is counter-productive to the fight against Islamist extremists, as such depictions alienate many mainstream Muslims—the very allies we need to discredit the extremist ideologies of ISIL and Al-Qaeda.
You can read the entire article here.
Aftandilian an associate of the Middle East Center at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell and a Senior Fellow for the Middle East at the Center for National Policy in Washington, D.C. He spent over 21 years in government service, most recently on Capitol Hill where he was foreign policy adviser to Congressman Chris Van Hollen (2007-2008), professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and foreign policy adviser to Senator Paul Sarbanes (2000-2004), and foreign policy fellow to the late Senator Edward Kennedy (1999). Prior to these positions, Mr. Aftandilian worked for thirteen years as a Middle East analyst at the U.S. Department of State where he was a recipient of the Department’s Superior Honor Award for his analyses on Egypt. His other government experiences include analytical work for the U.S. Department of Defense and the Library of Congress.