When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

You've reached your limit of one free article.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime .

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Exclusive International news coverage

Ad-free experience NEW

Weekly digital Magazine NEW

9 daily & weekly Newsletters

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Free trial

30-days free access, then $2.90
per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Terror in Europe

Paris To Copenhagen, We Must Not Yield

The targets of the attack in the two capitals were the same, free speech and Jews. Now Europe has an obligation to both its future and past to stand up to this evil with not a single alibi.

Danish policemen  at Copenhagen's cultural center Krudttoenden that was attacked on Feb. 15
Danish policemen at Copenhagen's cultural center Krudttoenden that was attacked on Feb. 15

-Editorial-

PARIS — In the tolerant Copenhagen, capital city of a Denmark praised as a model for social integration, jihadist brutality has struck once again. With the same targets as in Paris a month before: freedom of speech, Jews, the police. The same evil requires the same answer: Let us not yield, nor mince words.

The similarity between the two tragedies is striking. The Danish killer attacked a cultural center hosting an event Saturday on “Art, Blasphemy and Free Speech,” in tribute to Charlie Hebdo. He opened fire from outside the building, killing one of the participants, filmmaker Finn Norgaard, and wounding three police officers. A few hours later, he attacked a synagogue and killed a man posted outside, Dan Uzan, a member of Copenhagen’s Jewish community.

The choice of targets reveals the same pathology — that of an Islamist-brewed hatred that intends to terrorize a democratic society and satisfy its violent anti-Semitism. That same jihadist hatred, meanwhile, justifies the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya on Sunday. Acting out is a specific criminal violence that has nothing to do whatsoever with any sort of economic or social context. This is particularly true in Denmark, where the welfare state is without a doubt one of the most comprehensive and protective on the continent.

Whatever we think of the incriminated caricatures, both in Copenhagen and in Paris, and though they can offend and hurt the beliefs of all, they’re part of the freedom of speech, in Denmark as well as in France, and there can be no compromise on this principle. We must defend the right to blasphemy for and of all.

European jihadism has taken the stereotypes of Europe’s old anti-Semitism and made them its own, adapting to the present times, mixing in conspiracy theories imported from the Middle East and spreading across the Internet.

It is the product of Islamism, an infantile — or senile — disease of Islam, similar to what the Inquisition was for the children of a sick Christianity. In that sense, it definitely has “something to do with Islam.” The intellectual decline in the Arab world, where Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism have their rightful place in the press, also allow it to spread.

With courage, Jewish representatives in France and in Denmark said that salvation is to be found in the jurisdiction of our democracies. Not in the exile of the Jews of Europe towards Israel, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again did not miss the opportunity to call for.

Let’s instead paraphrase what filmmaker Claude Lanzmann wrote in Le Monde on Jan. 13: “Europe without the Jews of Europe wouldn’t be Europe anymore,” because it would signify “the posthumous victory of Hitler.”

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Society

Should Christians Be Scared Of Horror Movies?

Horror films have a complicated and rich history with christian themes and influences, but how healthy is it for audiences watching?

Should Christians Be Scared Of Horror Movies?

"The Nun II" was released on Sept. 2023.

Joseph Holmes

“The Nun II” has little to show for itself except for its repetitive jump scares — but could it also be a danger to your soul?

Christians have a complicated relationship with the horror genre. On the one hand, horror movies are one of the few types of Hollywood films that unapologetically treat Christianity (particularly Catholicism) as good.

“The Exorcist” remains one of the most successful and acclaimed movies of all time. More recently, “The Conjuring” franchise — about a wholesome husband and wife duo who fight demons for the Catholic Church in the 1970s and related spinoffs about the monsters they’ve fought — has more reverent references to Jesus than almost any movie I can think of in recent memory (even more than many faith-based films).

The Catholic film critic Deacon Steven Greydanus once mentioned that one of the few places where you can find substantial positive Catholic representation was inhorror films.

Keep reading...Show less

The latest