The Charlie Hebdo caricatures and the general attacks on the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and Islam as “a religion of violence” are not new. They are a rehashing of centuries-old Christian Crusader and Oriental polemics based on both racism and anti-Islam propaganda.

Faced with a failure to defeat the Muslim world in the Crusades, Europeans resorted to smearing both Islam and its Prophet (pbuh) as violent and evil and inspired by the devil. It was the only way to explain their failures, whilst ignoring their own violent behaviour.

The same racist attitude existed during colonialism. It was always the African, Native Indians, Arabs, Indians or Turks who were presented as savages and their nature or beliefs considered inherently evil because of their violence in defence of their lands or resources.

The Europeans supposedly had higher values and were there to civilise the “savages”. They avoided discussing their own violent conduct and behaviour, just as all the so-called terrorism/extremism experts avoid it today.

The behaviour of Charlie Hebdo and French politicians on this issue has little to do with any higher value, it is the type of behaviour you expect from Nazi street thugs targeting Muslims to get a reaction. The French have their Nazi history too, let us not forget. The Vichy Government during the Second World War, which allied and collaborated with the German Nazi regime, sent many Jews to the gas chambers.

Why target a Prophet (pbuh) who died in 632 AD and has nothing to do with, or responsibility for, the political crisis and violence in the Muslim world today which has more to do with European behaviour than his? Whilst the French Republic was born out of terrorism, Muhammad (pbuh) established his political order relatively peacefully and without mass revenge and retaliation.

The way forward for France on this issue is not to continue down the path of colonial racial arrogance of “our values are superior to yours. This is our country”. This supremacist attitude is outdated.

No religion has had more attacks, articles, dissertations, books written against it than Islam. Muslims have never minded criticism and debate, but they will never accept abuse, insult, or racist and pornographic caricature of their most sacred personality as critique, or in the name of some non-existent unrestricted freedom of expression. We have our sacred values too.

The way forward is for an approach based on civility, mutual respect, and equality and an application of hate and disorder laws in France.

The Austrian 1912 law of Islam is perhaps an example that another European approach is possible (although this has been undermined with the rise in far-right in Austria). This considers Islam as a religion of state alongside Christian denominations. It also affords some protection to the religious feelings of Muslims.

Recently, a European Court of Human rights ruling, adjudicating on Austrian law, declared that a Austrian woman did not have the right under freedom of expression to call the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) a paedophile, and stated that Austrian courts had carefully balanced the applicant’s “right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria.”

The current actions of the French state in removing the rule of law and resorting to collective targeting and punishment of the Muslim community is reminiscent of the actions of Jacobin and Vichy State authoritarianism. It will only lead to more injustice, alienation and violence by French Muslims, and a rise in fascist and racist hate and violence among non-Muslims.

Respect breeds respect and hate breeds hate. We need to find a way of coexisting peacefully and in a civilised manner. Sadly, if French history is anything to go by, we can predict which way they will go.