Not much is known about the people who attacked Charlie Hebdo and killed twelve people. Were they Islamic extremists as many have said? Is there a connection to Albania or Yemen? Was there a grand plot to divide the French public, resentment, or madness?
In an important way, it doesn't matter.
The purpose of terrorism is to instill terror, and that's it. No political content is necessary.
Many have added to the definition and argued about it, but these are the behavior of terrified people.
If, as Frank Herbert penned in Dune, fear is the mind-killer, then terror is the mind-genocide. It makes people stupid and angry and vicious. It triggers the animalistic fight-or-flight response. It rips away all civilization, love, kindness, and especially laughter.
Once you've done it, it really doesn't matter which side you pick. You could be against Muslims or Islamophobes or conservatives or progressives or Catholics or Protestants or anything at all. It doesn't matter. If you do it, you have picked a side: the side of picking sides, the side of terror.
After all, the conflicts of terror need sides, and each has its role.
I hear people cry, "But, my side is good. It's the right side. Mine is the side of truth and justice and decency, unlike that other side over there." Yet the other side is certain of the opposite. It always is.
They probably want to give me a piece of their minds, knock some sense into me, show me the One True Way™. So did the gunmen. So does everyone in terror with righteous outrage.
Or you could avoid terror altogether and pick the side of laughter. That's what Charlie Hebdo wants you to do; it's what and those like them are for. If it offends you and makes you angry, you are picking the side of terror.
Don't be afraid to laugh. Laugh even at the dead. If there is no afterlife, the dead don't mind, and if there is, they are guaranteed to be laughing up a storm.
After all, if you cannot laugh at terrible tragedy, what can you laugh at?
Just don't kill anyone, OK?
