The Innocence of Charlie Hebdo

The Innocence of Charlie Hebdo

As the event unfolded, people gathered in Paris to show solidarity with the victims in Charlie Hebdo. People condemned the attack from around the world, expressed sympathy, shock and disapproval. In the meantime, there were millions of people right in Paris and other places who did not share this sentiment. 

Some parts of the world have ruptured following the killings of the owners and publishers of a satirical magazine in Paris, even though there are other inhumane and more tragic killings of innocent people in north-eastern Nigeria’s town of Baga, (but I tell you they are blacks), and many more around the world by the U S drones which the world chooses to remain silent on. In everything there is selection, there is liberty to consider whose death is worthy mourning and acknowledging. Although some have the view that others elsewhere should also stand up for their people. But thousands of people that converged at Paris were not all Parisians, nor member of a single continent or religion.

Going by the culture of frees speech of the Western societies, the Charlie Hebdo were innocent because nobody in his own land would allow “invaders” to overrule their long-standing heritages. The magazine has given excuses that it has been French culture to satirize on the ground of free speech and thought; and given that they are “civilized “ society – the paper has been publishing cartoons and satires on prominent religious and political leaders.  It is on this argument that years back the paper won a case against some Muslim communities when they dragged it to the court for publishing filthy cartoons on the Muslims’ holiest icon. Various French presidents sent letters to be read publicly to the court while hearing the case in support of the paper.   

But free speech does not warrant insults on other people’ belief – no matter how “backward,” “barbaric” and “uneducated,” at least they are human beings with feelings like everyone.  There has been opposition from many quotas around the world, not against free speech, satire or publishing cartoons, but against the hate and racist approach of the magazine and its supporters. I’m saying this because I learnt that everyone has condemned the attack but only very few (not wracked with psychiatric disarray) have the clue that nothing could happen without something, to condemn the paper for its provocations and its insensitivity to “the belief of others.” Don’t we agree that we will respect each other’s belief especially in this rapidly globalized world?

Other than what appears on the surface, one with discerning mind can learn that it’s not only in defense of free speech – if true it is, but the hypocrisy of those who set a racist agenda against certain sensibilities. It seems to me that some people have made up their mind to portray Islam as violent religion. Killing of human being is an appalling and condemnable tragedy as disrespecting our prophet.

But I still I don’t know on what ground some people ganged up in Paris.  if it’s the killing, where were these people when thousands of people were killed in the same week in Baga, (they are blacks), where were these people when Israeli forces massacred hundreds of unarmed innocent kids in Gaza and where are these people when the US drones silently kill unarmed civilians, kids and women in other places around the world? Where were these people when police gunned down black teenagers in the US and the authority are very reluctant to punish the culprits? There is selection everywhere. Some deaths are meaningful.

I’m telling the world that this is not the first time free speech has been in crisis in Western societies. The tradition of free speech has been there in crisis for long. There were history of heresy trials, and witches had always gotten it terribly bad during the Protestant Europe. So, the idea that the attack on Charlie Hebdo is the only threat to freedom of expression is a mere hypocrisy. If it is truly in defense of free speech, where were these people when Egyptian government imprisoned Aljazeera journalists?  Edward Snowden has been hunted for revealing government information, Chelsea Manning is serving thirty-five-year prison term for her role in Wikileaks. There are many instances like the mass surveillance on social media where anti-police or anti-Iraqi war comments were monitored and punished. But people did not rally against this.

These incidents are not solidified as have done the Charlie Hebdo.  Why?

Particularly me, I cherish freedom of speech and thought as well as investigation of deep thought. There are many books we read that deconstruct any religious theory about the existence of God, and make reference to them, but such writings have some degree of objectivity. What about Charlie Hebdo?

All the cartoons and what have you are their rights, but the obnoxiously ‘sublime’ tad of malice, hatred and racism laced subtly in the magazine is the most horrific and dangerous of all. There are some far right-wing fundamentalists who are opportunists busy thinly filing their Islamaphobia.

Somebody somewhere wrote some opinion like this:  “at the same time why the West does need to impinge on other people’ cultural, political and religious sensitivities? The Sony picture hack is an example of this. Just imagine the outrage if North Korea, Iran, Syria, or Russia have made a comedy of the assassination of the first black American President and cast him in an unflattering light. Also the Western media applies greater sensitivities and censorship when it comes to matters concerning Jewish people and their faith.” Why shouldn’t they apply similar deference when it comes to Islam? 

Some people have even agreed that Edward Snowden should be hunted. “He willfully broke the law and jeopardized our country’s security. If he thought what he was doing was right, he should have been man enough to face the consequence.”  See it for goodness sake. If someone really did something bad he should expect the consequence! If you can lunge into such outcry about the killing in Paris, then the only innocence of Charlies is racism. We all condemned the killing but nobody cares to send an apology for the violation of the belief we hold so dear. So I’m not Charlie because I’m not racist.

Since people like Edward Snowden have violated what the citizens of their country believed to be the rule or something they hold dearly with respect, then you should also consider the sensibilities of others – and you should always predict to bear the consequence. These people only brought their fate upon themselves and you should not expect me to carry the guilt for the crime I did not commit – just as I did not blame the crime of some uneducated street-roamers in the US Jim-Crow era or some fundamentalists and deranged Nazi bigots. I have my own problems with the terrorists back home. They are killing me and my friends for our resistance to join their belief. I know some are not Charlie but they are to their enemy. I ‘m not terrorists but I ‘m to my enemy.

When some unruly people killed, you don’t expect me to take the blame because they are Muslims – the way I don’t generalize all people as killers in Ferguson or Israel or conclude that all Germans are Nazi – even when their people have actively participated in various pogrom.

The US has no-go area, the manifest of no joke on security issue, the French societies are fundamentalists when it comes to free speech, and the Muslims have no tolerance for a joke on the prophet. Maybe, you just can’t understand how we respect our prophet, the way we can’t understand how you respect free speech.

We have been economical with the truth. But truth should be told: Now we have to stop the expansion of Islamic organizations that are building mosques and are “imposing” Shari’ah against the laws of their host communities.  Many countries including France have adopted a clandestine way of suppressing minority view in the form of ban on Hijab under the veneer of secularism. But we should ask where they have thrown away the freedom that allows one to practice their religion. It is negotiable to say that everyone has given equal right to preach and practice their religion.   

My conclusion is that some people cannot come out publicly to declare war or their hatred against Islam, but will derive enormous pleasure when some group of people did. The Muslims on the other hand, although brutally and badly affected than anybody by the terror attacks, could not come out publicly to attack what they perceived as suppression, oppression and hatred against their religion but will in turn be happy if ISIS or Alqaeda does the work.

French political leaders, intellectuals and their citizens are right to defend their norms and values, something they cherish and seek to protect at all cost when seemed to be offended or denied. They have all the right for that. But they should also not forget that other people have their norms and values they would protect at all cost. As they could not surrender their values and norms, so do Muslims all over the world.

What I found a staggering shock is how the French society appears that provincial, so remote from the mainstream that doesn’t think their action is hurting certain sensibilities.  Muhammad (pbuh) cannot be sacred to you, the only thing that is sacred to you is your freedom something you rather die standing for than die on your knees. Yet other people believe in reverence of their religion who will rather die defending   than leaving it to ridicule. Each of the faction is fundamentalist! people who are downright incapable of viewing it from multiple perspectives - in a free world and global village where tolerance seems to come from a certain minority who are always to submit and tolerate or else they would be called barbaric.

How can we co-exist where you already made up your mind that I should always submit and tolerate, with the expectation of me to always grant respect to your values while you could not for a single moment care about mine? If you have the face to condemn the activities of those who attacked the magazine, then why couldn’t you be fair enough to also condemn their attack on the holiest person in Islam? We expect at least a mock condemnation, but nothing yet comes out. I’m not Charlie! I will never be!

It’s on this note I am reminding the world that I can make peace with anyone who has respect  for my belief the way I regard other people’ belief – whatever it is for that matter, the free speech. But I cannot make peace with someone who could ridicule my prophet. Nothing could justify the abuse of my belief as you think adamantly that nothing could justify the undermining of your free speech. I might be wrong if I missed the point of Britain, German and French societies’ ways of life. Yet other people have also missed the type of my society where respect for other people’ belief exists. So the only way of building civilized society (so we believe in our religion) is to grant fairness to all and respect, regarding the belief of everyone. We can live harmoniously if I don’t look down upon you as someone doomed to damnation in as much as you don’t undermine the little god I curve and believe to worship.

Intrusion and Imposition are what make people rise against such odd and hubristic behavior at whatever cost. You can stop the expansion of Islam in Western countries by whatever means you possess and demand the immigrants who travelled to your land to be harassed if they could not blend with the culture of the host communities. No excuse for that matter! Notice that immigrants did not make it there by plane, it was with chains around their wrists. Yet you have the gut to travel up to my land to force me with gun and kangaroo international laws to accept democracy, gay marriage, secularism and other anti-religious policies to a people with their own civilization, and force them to sacrifice their heritages right on their land.  It is liberation!

We believe in our Shari’ah and you believe in your Western values. So live and let live. For me I only require you to leave alone do my religion. Use of brute force and demonization would not help matter in any way. It would only make Muslims to put a stiff resistance. Muslims are the people who have no role model other than their prophet. So any labeling and pressure could not move them. It’s hardly to tell an incident where a Muslim denounced their religion because of the embarrassment caused by the activities of terrorists, or following demonization and hatred of Islam in any vivid or subtle manner.

If the attack on Charlie Hebdo is attack on free speech, yet attack on Islam is an attack on me. What the world seems to be unaware of or deliberately ignorant of is that the gathering in Paris and brewing storm of Islamaphobia could not change anything. The West should never surrender their heritage and Muslims should always continue to see any disrespect to their religion as uncultured, barbaric, uncivilized, and racist presentation under the veneer of free speech.

But my worry is that Charlie Hebdo did not physically carry any weapon to attack anybody, so why should they be attacked? And they say they do their work on anybody. Stick hurts bones but words don’t. After all the cartoons are not close commensurate of the revered prophet. Can mere words justify a killing? Me? - nor, I don’t kill but American drones and the police in Ferguson as well as Tony Blair and French forces fighting on foreign soils do.

So, there are many other ways people can oppose the magazine although some might have this belief that the system have already alienated minority where leaders had taken side in a judicial system designed to tell White from Black, Muslim from non-Muslim and rich from poor.

But it seems to me that there is much more than cartoons conflict on one hand, and free speech on the other, between the magazine publishers and the attackers. Everyone is such extremist and fundamentalist to their view, nobody will listen to each other. They would never for a single second allow the attackers to have a sense that they could win. Yet, we can read the unspoken determination of the attackers to carry out deadlier attacks if this continues. You can publish everything weekly or even daily, but the attackers believe to strike once in every four years, for example. To them is achievement!

But if the paper believes what they are doing is the right thing like the BBC or the Washington Post or any other media is doing, why should it be always guarded by security?  Then the government of France must cut funds from other sectors and invest them in security to secure their people. But I’m afraid, French government should establish a counseling-seeking delegation to contact the almighty USA and its warlords and experts if fighting somebody who is ready to die is that easy thin proven.

It is sad how the attack lent popularity to the small-circulating paper, unknown to the attackers that certain stupidities are easily defeated when ignored. Charlie Hebdo’s Wednesday edition to include cartoons of ‘mohammed’ and would be translated into sixteen languages. Please I need a copy here!