SOLIDARITY WITH WHAT?:

Top U.S. officials' conspicuous absence  was not so much a display of insensitivity as understandable caution: Whom exactly would the U.S. leaders be in solidarity with?

Then there was the matter of the extreme-right Front National. Like everyone else, it is against terrorism. It's also against immigration and not so friendly toward Muslims (and has a history of anti-Semitism, as well). But what if it wanted to march with everyone else? [...]

Everyone who marched did so for their own understanding of what the Charlie Hebdo attack meant. I wouldn't be surprised if the perpetrators of the recent "warning" attacks against French Muslims also joined the crowd.

According to MAMA, a U.K. organization monitoring anti-Muslim attacks, 15 such incidents have taken place in France since last Wednesday. Some have been quite graphic: anti-Arab graffiti on mosques, bullets fired and training grenades tossed at prayer houses, a boar's head and entrails left outside a prayer room with a note saying, "Next time it will be one of your heads."

Xenophobes elsewhere in Europe will also take this chance to assert themselves. Tonight, in Dresden, Germany, the anti-Islamic group Pegida intends to hold what will probably be its biggest rally yet. Since the Charlie Hebdo shootings, Pegida's Facebook page has added about 20,000 supporters. German Justice minister Heiko Maas called on Pegida to cancel the gathering, denouncing the group as "hypocrites" who have protested against the "lying press" and are suddenly full of sympathy for its fallen representatives. The Pegida page's only response has been, "What can one say???"

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