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Its surprising that nothing on Nairaland has shown the popular wave sweeping the internet #JeSuisCharlie.

THE news from Pari has been grim. Gunmen killed, at the current count,
twelve people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical weekly.

The obvious cause of the rampage is Charlie Hebdo ’s habit of satirising Islam.
It had eagerly joined a debate that has roiled Europe for almost a decade. In
2005 a Danish newspaper, Jyllands Posten , published 12 cartoons of the
prophet Muhammad. Some of them were offensive. (Most were not.) But the
Danish paper intended to provoke a debate about self-censorship in Europe. It
succeeded; Danish institutions in the Middle East were set on fire and one of
the cartoonists, who had depicted Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, was
attacked with an axe. Charlie Hebdo picked up the cause with gusto, repeatedly
satirising Muhammad and Islam in its papers, including a naked Muhammad,
and an issue “guest-edited” by Islam’s prophet (“ Charia Hebdo: 100 lashes if
you don’t laugh!”). At least two Muslims appear to have been offended to the
point of mass murder.

Islam does not forbid mention of God or the prophet—indeed, the declaration of
the faith, the shahadah , requires both. Instead, the taboo is displaced to the
visual world: God and Muhammad may not be depicted in art. This was
probably originally intended to prevent idol-worship. (As, indeed, was another of
the ten commandments of Judaism and Christianity: “You shall make no idols
or graven images.”) But taboos grow and shift by their nature: today, even
harmless images no one would worship as an idol are taboo. The Danish
cartoon crisis came after a left-wing writer struggled to find anyone who would
illustrate his children’s book about the life of Muhammad. Jyllands Posten ’s
cartoons came as a direct response.

Old story. Has already gotten resolved.