No Kerry King, Terrorists Don’t Hate Your Freedom

In a recent interview, Kerry King, guitar player of Slayer and bearded manbaby, joined the collection of imbeciles focusing on the fact that the recent Paris attacks targeted a concert. For him, as well as for a number of other idiots, the fact that a concert was targeted seems to make matters worse (queue a number of “OMG IT COULD HAVE HAPPENED TO MEEEEE!). Forget about the fact that a restaurant and a football stadium were also the target of the attacks. One thing is terrorism; another one is terrorism against a concert.

There is, of course, a hint of self-promotion here. It’s about the heroism of the likes of Slayer (who, he makes sure to highlight, continued playing even after Dimebag Darrel got shot, and even flew on planes after 9-11) who are at the forefront of the rebellion against terrorism. Although at first he fell short of saying the annoying cliché that if he didn’t play “then the terrorists win,” eventually he did get around to say it. Clearly the ISIS leadership is still wondering what on earth they have to do to keep Slayer from performing. I mean, that’s their goal.

In any case, Kerry then went on to add the well-known 9/11 Bush mantra of “the terrorists hate our freedom.” By extension, they also hate rock and metal. In his words (which I’m sure are bound to be added to some monument one day):

“I am surprised that it took the terrorists this long to target a rock concert. Because they hate rock music. They hate our lifestyle. They hate our freedom and they hate that we enjoy ourselves. And, of course, it sucks. What happened makes everybody think twice about risking their lives to see a band play. But if you stop going to concerts or stop playing at them, you just do what the terrorists want you to do.”

Apparently Kerry lives so comfortably deep inside of his own asshole that  it was only a matter of time before a rock concert got hit, because they are the object of ISIS‘ hatred. In his mind, people living in caves in Afghanistan and Syria can’t fall asleep thinking about how much they hate rock. Basically, Kerry King‘s  ISIS is mostly made up of people resembling the stereotypical “80’s dad” that was featured in Twisted Sister music videos..

As much as I love heavy metal, and as much as I hate religious zealots like those of ISIS, Kerry‘s words are so brutally stupid that it’s hard to just let them slide.

Although his credentials on geopolitics are obviously lacking, Kerry’s position as a famous musician somehow give relevance to his words. People, mistakenly, pay attention to him, and grant him some sort of authority that, in reality, he does not deserve. While most of the time this might be harmless, when it deals with issues such as terrorism, with all of its consequences, the situation changes.

Besides stupidly focusing his attention on the fact that ISIS targeted a concert, Kerry is also rehashing some of the mythology about Islamic terrorism. In his mind, Mohammed Atta flew himself into the World Trade Center simply because he hates our liberties. The people who immolated themselves in Paris did so simply because they can’t stand the fact that French people have premarital sex, women have cleavages, and homosexuals are not stoned to death.

It’s a simple myth, of course, and I can understand why it’s so attractive. It offers us a possibility of looking at the world from a naive perspective in which everything we do is righteous, while everything they do is wicked. It’s a narrative with the moral complexity of your average Disney film. It frees us from the burden of looking into our foreign policies, and places us as shining example of kindness, stoically standing against the forces of evil.

The problem is that by repeating the mantra of “terrorists hate our freedom” what Kerry is doing is to perpetuate a poisonous propaganda. There is no such thing as “blowback”, no errors in the West’s behaviors in the Middle East (down to almost directly creating ISIS), no problems with our support of tyrannical, backwards regimes that support and fund the terrorists. It’s just that those cave-dwelling, camel-riding, goat-fucking idiots hate our miniskirts, iPods and MTV. You know, our freedoms.

I think David Cross said it best:

I don’t think Osama bin Laden sent those planes to attack us because he hated our freedom. I think he did it because of our support for Israel, our ties with the Saudi family and our military bases in Saudi Arabia. You know why I think that? Because that’s what he fucking said! Are we a nation of 6-year-olds? Answer: yes.

Clearly, Kerry belongs to that same 6 year-old school of thought. With his words he demonstrates the kind of intellectual depth that you’d expect from someone hiding under a blanket.

Ultimately, the people who committed the atrocities in Paris are the only ones to blame for what happened. They are the ones who chose to murder innocent civilians. Looking at their actions as mere freedom-hating deeds, however, does not help us to understand, prevent or combat the kind of fundamentalism that created these murderers.What is more, it also gives fuel to the kind of politicians and leaders who want to convince an ignorant population (of the likes of Kerry King) that we can continue stomping the faces of a large number of people, without ever seeing any bloodshed ourselves.

Photo credit of Kerry King: Suelen Pessoa