#JesuisAhmed

A tragic event occurred Wednesday evening in Paris, France. Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical news magazine known for it's offensive and Islamophobic publications was gunned down by two armed men, killing 12 and injuring 10. They are linked to be radical extremists, as they screamed "Allahu Akbar!" while running out. Later on, the two men were identified, and the assumptions were right. They were two French Algerian men who were trained in Al-Qaeda, that branched from Yemen. These cowardly terrorists used Islam as a means to commit violence, even though one of the biggest sins in Islam is to commit murder. Muslims across the world had to go out of their way to condemn and apologize for these two terrorists' actions. But the question is why? What did us Muslims have to do with it? Why is it that when a self-proclaimed Muslim commits an act of terror, the entirety of the Muslim community (about 1.7 billion of us) are expected to stand up and say "this isn't us, this isn't what we do, and we're sorry about what these people did." These terrorists do not reflect us, they never did and they never will.
That day, the world justifiably mourned the victims of the attack. Peaceful demonstrations all around the world were held, with the slogan #JesuisCharlie, meaning I am Charlie in French, bringing pens, pencils, and markers to show their solidarity and protesting for the right of freedom of speech.

Times have been quite a nightmare for French Muslims, and all Muslims around the world in reaction to the attacks. Anti-Islamic crimes have blown up (quite literally) these past few days, mosques have been vandalized, a bomb exploded near a kebab shop in Paris, and powerful Islamaphobic and right-wing groups are using this tragedy to justify oppression towards already oppressed Muslims in France. A hashtag on Twitter even began to trend saying #KillAllMuslims.

However among the 12 people who were shot and killed people seem to forget the policeman who was the first to die serving his country, Ahmed Merabet, a French Muslim taken victim to the terrorists. 

We are not the two terrorists who committed the crimes against humanity, we are Ahmed Merabet, who defended a publication that criticized and ridiculed his faith. 

Ahmed Merabet must be remembered, he is who should to be the face of Muslims- not ISIS, not Al-Qaeda, or the Taliban, because he is what Islam stands for; respect and duty. 

“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” -Voltaire