We hold freedom sacred—human freedom everywhere—and we reject the enslavement or degradation of any human being because of their religion, race, gender, or color. A human being is free in what they believe, what they wear, and what they eat, and is free to express themselves and their beliefs; however, they are not free to attack others because they believe differently, dress differently, or eat differently. Here, exactly, freedom exceeds its bounds and transforms from a human right into a pretext for attacking another human being.
But the question that forces itself upon us is: what logic drives a person, regardless of their level of education or culture, to attribute a religion followed by hundreds of millions of people to one person or a group of people who committed a crime in its name? Can an individual killer represent a nation or entire peoples? And can the act of an individual or a group turn into evidence of the nature of an entire religion or an entire culture?
Describing an entire religion as "fascist" must not be based on the actions of individuals or groups that attribute themselves to it. Fascism, in its historical and political sense, is a concept linked to specific systems and political movements, and it is not valid to turn it into a sweeping description for hundreds of millions of people because of the actions of extremist groups. Conflating religion with groups that speak in its name, and peoples with organizations that practice violence, leads to a result no less dangerous than the crime itself: turning the "other"—whether a religion or a people—into a monolithic block, erasing the distinctions between individuals, groups, states, and religion.
It is very dangerous for this conflation to turn into an elitist vision that views the "other" as being in constant need of someone to understand, define, classify, and judge them. Their religion is described as living in a crisis and in need of reform, as if all its followers were one block with no history and no capacity for self-reflection. Here, the matter is no longer an intellectual discussion about religion or a critique of some of its interpretations and practices; rather, it turns into placing the "other" in a lower rank, speaking in their name, and drawing their features as perceived by the believer in their own superiority.
European history itself offers examples of the danger of this logic when religion or civilizational/political superiority becomes a justification for excluding the "other" and labeling them as backward. The Crusades in the Middle Ages were linked, in a fundamental aspect of their discourse and institutions, to a religious and military call to reclaim the Holy Land, then took on multiple forms and went beyond the initial objective in some stages, even including conflicts within the Christian world itself. It should not, of course, follow that the critique of that historical experience turns into an accusation against all Christians or all Europeans; just as it is not permissible to hold an entire religion responsible for a crime committed by individuals in its name, it is not permissible to hold entire peoples responsible for the actions of specific historical regimes and movements.
This same rule must govern our view of European colonialism. During the phase of colonial expansion, French colonialism in Algeria, for instance, was not synonymous with Christianity as Algerians knew it; rather, it was a colonial political project during which French colonial forces committed widespread acts of violence, repression, and murder.
One of the most telling examples of the relationship between colonialism and the history of anthropology is that the anthropological vision in French scientific institutions expanded during the nineteenth century in tandem with colonial expansion and European reach. They established the Museum of Man, which housed the skulls of fallen leaders from the colonized countries. This is a strange act, and its violence is not diminished by the return of twenty-four skulls that were kept in the French Museum of Man to Algeria in 2020.
In these events, another face of the logic of superiority emerges: when a human being turns from a being with dignity and rights into a "subject" for study and classification, and when the stronger party feels that their possession of power gives them the right to decide the value of others, to seize their resources, and to speak of them as backward peoples who need someone to manage their affairs. The most dangerous aspect of this logic is not violence alone, but the idea that precedes it: that others are not human to the same extent that we are, and that their rights are negotiable because we possess power.
Here, colonialism meets all forms of fascism and racism at a fundamental point: turning difference into a hierarchical classification, and then turning that hierarchy into a right to control. Therefore, fascism should not be limited to an individual who kills or a group that practices violence, but rather one should look at the political and intellectual structure that makes the erasure, subjugation, or dehumanization of the "other" a legitimate matter.
It is also incorrect to view a specific European political or historical experience as if it were a description applicable to all of Europe; for history is more complex than that. The world has known repressive regimes, wars, and tyranny in various regions and cultures, just as it has known, at the same time, European intellectual, philosophical, and literary currents that resisted tyranny, racism, and colonialism and defended freedom and human dignity. Therefore, criticizing superiority is not done by replacing one form of superiority with another, but by rejecting the principle itself wherever it appears.
In the Islamic world, a distinction must be made between states and societies on the one hand, and groups and organizations that practice violence on the other. It is not correct to view Islamic societies through the actions of extremist organizations, just as it is not correct to reduce Islam to the actions of a group that raises Islamic slogans. Many Muslim-majority countries have faced the violence of armed and extremist groups, and many Islamic countries have participated to varying degrees in international efforts to combat these groups.
The distinction we present here is not merely a linguistic act, but a moral and logical necessity. Just as an individual killer does not represent an entire religion, an extremist group does not represent an entire people, a political regime does not represent its entire nation, and the act of a specific state does not represent an entire religion.
The issue in the end is not defending one group against another, nor is it exonerating one culture while condemning another, but rather defending a single principle that should be valid for everyone: a human is a human before being Muslim or Christian, Arab or European, white or black, a believer or a non-believer.
When difference becomes a reason to despise a human being, when freedom turns into a pretext for hatred, and when superiority in power turns into a right to control, the path becomes paved for stripping the "other" of their humanity. And then the question is no longer: "Who are we and who are they?" Instead, the question becomes: "Can we defend the humanity of a human being when this human being is different from us?"
