People should demand public statements like, “I condemn this act,” from those who have some kind of accountability in connection with the act. There is always a crucial line between feeling revulsion at a crime and feeling it necessary to dissociate oneself from that crime. Did you benefit from a crime? Could you have stopped the crime? Did you contribute, even unwittingly, to the crime? If so, you may have to stand up and denounce it.
In connection with the recent Paris killings, some mainstream commentators such as New York Times columnist Roger Cohen ask why “moderate” Muslims cannot simply “come out and say” that “I do not support this.” Former congressman Barney Frank writes that he wishes that Muslims would “speak out more strongly.” Such liberal commentary is not substantially different from Rupert Murdoch’s tweet that Muslims like myself “must be held responsible.”
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It is worth remembering that the perpetrators of crimes such as the Charlie Hebdo massacre are always screaming “Revenge!” but Western commentators choose to dwell on what innocent Muslims are going to do about it, or whether Islam is to blame.
Why do they not instead ask, as New Yorker writer George Packer chose not to do, “Revenge for what?” Do they fear they might bring to light crimes, much greater crimes, that they themselves should have “spoken out” about long ago? Perhaps it is more comfortable to keep the conversation focused on Muslims and their religion than it is to investigate whether one’s own country or one’s own group has anything it might have to “condemn.”
