Consequently, it is too simplistic to explain the war against ISIS in terms of familiar dichotomies—Islam/the West, tradition/modernity, theocracy/democracy, repression/freedom. Nor is it appropriate to explain the Islmaist militant attacks on the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, (2015) as an over-assertion of western freedom of speech rights, which showed little respect for Islam and western Muslims. While progressive journalists at the New York Times believed that western states need to reconcile speech freedom with respect for pluralism, Lewis (2015b) argues that speech freedom actually doesn't exist in the west. Speech and other freedoms are not equally distributed in western states, but are subject to the violent hierarchies around which these states are organised. Until we have equality of speech, Lewis contends, there can never be 'freedom of speech' or anything else.