The past few days have been dominated by reports about the massacre of journalists and cartoonists at the weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris — and now there is news about further attacks in Paris. These are very troubling events and raise a lot of issues. Simply put, nothing justifies murder, nothing mitigates the crime.
However, we can also say that it is wrong for a magazine to profit from obscene insults to the religious beliefs of a whole people — especially when they are members of an already racially victimized and marginalized community who live in France as a consequence of its own genocidal colonial history. And it’s foolish to expect that a nation’s imperial past and contemporary military interventions will have no negative outcomes.
Political satire that targets the powerful or the reactionary role of some religious figures or institutions is different fromintentionally denigrating a people’s beliefs and culture (see here – warning, offensive – and in particular this one). Some of us in Dorchester People for Peace are secular, some of various faiths, but none of us, I believe, would defend the wholesale ridicule of African-American religious pieties, even if we might disagree with institutional or doctrinal positions – such as opposition to marriage equality or the pro-Zionist stance of some leaders or churches. We would rightly call such insults racism.
Ironically, given the targeted incitement against immigrants within Europe, one of the police officers who was killed defending the building where the attack took place, Ahmed Merabet, was Muslim with immigrant roots.
In the great tradition of the French Revolution, LIBERTÉ is a hallowed principle, but so also are EGALITÉ and FRATERNITÉ. . . Some would add: HUMANITÉ.
Mass. Peace Action and Dorchester People for Peace member Hayat Imam (a practicing Muslim) sent this email response from Bangladesh.
(readers are invited to share their own views or comments):
I unreservedly condemn the murders at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo by Muslim perpetrators or non-Muslim provocateurs. I condemn it because this act was extreme, violent, intolerant, and devoid of compassion and humanity.
For these very same reasons, I want to express my deep disapproval of the editorial board of Charlie Hebdo that continued to belittle and needlessly insult the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), without caring that it hurt the hearts of millions of Muslims who love and revere this gentle man. Similarly, I also disapprove of a film like “The Interview”, which insults and disregards the feelings of a whole nation with its plot of assassinating its living leader, or abhor pornography that markets extreme violence and degradation of half of humanity.
The cry seems to be “in the name of free speech, it is my right to denigrate whoever I please”! But that cry is disingenuous because it is a cover up for hidden agendas and double standards. In fact the hallmark of a civilized society is that we must show self-restraint and self-censorship. It would be hard to swallow comments glorifying the Holocaust or justifying racist supremacy. I cling to the premise that compassion and humanity are our birthright as human beings. Let’s not get derailed by false pretenses regarding free-speech.