One week after the Brussels attack, the French magazine Charlie Hebdo published an English editorial in which it asked: "How did we end up here?" It claimed that "the attacks are merely the visible part of a very large iceberg indeed. They are the last phase of a process of cowing and silencing long in motion and on the widest possible scale." The magazine then goes on to answer its own question by blaming three individuals: French Muslim scholar Dr. Tariq Ramadan, a Muslim woman with a veil and a Muslim baker who refuses to sell pork. How it answers this question reveals much about the inherent hatred and warmongering of militant secularism.Charlie Hebdo is best known for its irreverent attacks on religion. But it is also known for its attempt to present them as rational criticism. Its tasteless and indecent caricatures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam claim to be based on logical arguments and enlightened critique. Its new editorial goes beyond all this and reaches a new low in anti-Muslim bigotry. It blames the very presence of Muslims in the European public sphere for all that has gone wrong in the old continent.The militant secularism of Charlie Hebdo commits the very mistake for which it criticizes fanaticism, as it scraps nuance and lumps together all Muslims and people of faith into a category of evil versus the good people of Charlie Hebdo and the company. Instead of making a logical and ethical distinction between mainstream Muslims, who make up the vast majority of the 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, and the violent extremists rejected by Muslims across the board, it treats Muslims as suspects of radicalism and extremism.The selection of Ramadan, a nameless Muslim woman with a veil and a Muslim baker down the street is not coincidental and reveals the extent to which militant secularism sees Muslims as responsible for violent extremism and terrorism. This is more than guilt by association. It is blatant bigotry under the veneer of satire, atheism, rationalism and liberal European values.Ramadan, a Muslim and a European with a commendable knowledge of both worlds, would be honored, I believe, to be associated with the Muslim woman and baker and countless other law-abiding and devout Muslims living in Europe, the U.S. and the Muslim world. So would we. But the selection of these figures shows that Charlie Hebdo is against the very presence of any and all Muslims in Europe as if it can lay such an exclusivist claim to European culture and public space. It seems to dread the normalcy of a Muslim European intellectual, an ordinary Muslim woman and a talented Muslim baker.Charlie Hebdo thinks it can say this with impunity because its militant secularism claims hegemony over the truth and presents its version of reason and rationality as the only valid path to veritable knowledge and virtue. How is this different from the exclusivist claims of DAESH, al-Qaida, the Ku Klux Klan or neo-Nazis? How can one begin with the assumption that the only way to talk about religion is to attack it as irrational, inhuman or violent? Since when has setting such preconditions become a hallmark of rational thought?This is not about critical thinking or sound reasoning, but rather militant secularismtarget="_blank"'>The fanaticism and violence of DAESH, al-Qaida and similar organizations must be rejected on grounds of principle, not simply as a matter of political convenience. But so must militant secularism that seeks to justify racism and bigotry in the name of enlightened reason and freedom.