Posted by ou… la liberté d’expression est non négociable.
The offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical newspaper which has attracted controversy for lampooning Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, were attacked today, resulting in the deaths of 12 people and injuries to 3 others. From the New York Times:
Among the dead were four prominent cartoonists who have repeatedly lampooned Islamic terrorists and the prophet Muhammad, leading to speculation that the attack was the work of Islamic militants acting alone or in concert with extremist groups. A police guard assigned to protect the newspaper was among the first victims. A second police officer, who responded to reports of the shooting, was killed on the sidewalk outside the offices by the fleeing suspects, the Paris police said. The shooting of the second police officer was captured in a widely-seen video.
Speech has consequences. Sometimes it can get you in hot water with your bosses or friends and family. It can get you fired. Freedom of speech does not constitute freedom from criticism. If you say something stupid, you may deserve to be called out on it. If you say something offensive, you may deserve to be criticized. Criticized. Not to be murdered or even have your life threatened.
I care not for those who will point out the crimes of the West against the Middle East. As if that is justification for this barbarism. Firstly, the offenders-in-chief at Charlie Hebdo are just writers. Their weapons are words, not bombs. Words must be met with words. Not violence.
Secondly, I would venture to say that no one gets to throw stones because all of our houses are made of glass. I would wager that those self-styled jihadis have also laughed at jokes about Christianity, Judaism, Christ, Moses or the Dark Lord Cthulhu.
We make fun of everything – religion, sexuality, sports, gender, etc. We laugh, we get offended and then we go home to bed.I’m not saying that people have no right to be offended. But it is an immature and ultimately weak mind that is so easily offended that it meets words with violence. If Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons offend, so be it. Come back at them with a different cartoon. Lampoon Christ or Moses. Lampoon French President Francois Hollande or American President Barack Obama (lawd knows we do enough of that already over here). Metaphorical bullets. Not real ones.
There is, I think, something deeper at work than blindly defending one’s religion against such lightweight slights. It is the product of a deep-seated historical insecurity that leads (some) Muslims to violence at a mere insult against the religion. It comes not from a position of strength but from seeing the weakness of the so-called modern Islamic states. The power and wealth of the Muslim caliphates once stretched as far as the eye could see. But with their downfall and the rise of the ‘west’, with European colonization of formerly Muslim-held lands and especially with the trouncing of the Arab powers at the hands of Israel, many Muslims have become uncertain about their place in an increasingly globalized world.
Gone are the institutions and monuments in which they would have taken such pride in past centuries, to be replaced by the feckless thug states of the Middle East and independent Africa. And yet, the masses still allow themselves to be swayed by lesser rulers because they yearn for those bygone times. When Islam was ascendent. When the muazzin’s call to prayer could be heard from Samarkand to Córdoba.
And so this insecurity manifests itself as flailing attempts to return to the time of their forefathers. It is a difficult thing to reconcile a deen as total as Islam with the amoralistic, capitalistic requirements of the modern world. Not impossible. But certainly difficult. Change has hit these people so quickly that they cannot cope. And so they retreat and dream of Shangri-La. And when that heaven-on-earth does not appear, they lash out.
And a cartoonist pays the price for his insolence.
Related Articles
