Image: Ben Ledbetter/Flickr
On Wednesday, 7 January 2015, gunmen equipped with automatic rifles stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical weekly, and killed 10 journalists and two police officers. Charlie Hebdo has, on occasion, published inflammatory caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. The gunmen are heard on footage saying they “avenged the Prophet”.
People around the world, including clerics and other Muslim leaders, have denounced the attack as a savage act of terrorism. The denunciation, however, has not insulated the incident from reactionary discourse. News outlets across the world are indiscriminately lumping Muslims into a monolithic group that shares culpability for terrorism. Don Lemon of CNN, for example, stupefied a well-known Muslim human rights activist by asking whether he and other Muslims support the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
A reactionary hashtag, #JesuisCharlie (I am Charlie), sprang up hours after the incident to show solidarity with the victims. And then another hashtag: #JeSuisAhmed, to honor Ahmed Merabet, a Muslim police officer who was stationed outside Charlie Hebdo‘s offices, was also killed by the gunmen.
The reaction to the reaction: #JeNeSuisPasCharlie (I am not Charlie) – peddled by activists who claim that, while they stand for free speech, they reject Charlie Hebdo‘s “racist” cartoons – is the primary concern on this column.
The speed at which we backed up into unreflective binary positions is not surprising. The questions posed by the Charlie Hebdo attack are unsurprisingly complex. The kneejerk reaction is to “defend free speech” and to ignore the intricate nuances of its discontents. Before attempting the more difficult questions, let me take the straightforward stuff of the way.
First, is true that all Muslims take offense in caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad? The answer is a resolute yes! Anyone who identifies as a Muslim believes that the Messenger is sacrosanct and would therefore find caricatured depictions of the Messenger offensive. The more challenging question is how Muslims react to the offense and why. (See below.)
Second, are caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad protected speech in France? Absolutely. Article 11 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789), a fundamental document in French society, regards free communication of ideas and opinions as “one of the most precious of the rights of man”. The Press Law of 1881 gives effect to this precious right. Subsequent amendments in 1944, 1972 and 2004, carve out restrictions, such as a prohibition on hate speech, discrimination, defamation and holocaust denial.
Some commentators have argued that the cartoons were intentionally offensive or racist and, therefore, not protected speech. I consider this next.
Are caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad racist?
The claim that offensive caricatures of the Prophet are racist has been peddled by people like Jordan Weissmann at Slate and Jacob Canfield, a cartoonist who wrote in a widely circulated post [cited by the New York Times].
Weismann argues that Charlie Hebdo cartoonists “simply rendered Islam’s founder as a hook-nosed wretch straight out of Edward Said’s nightmares, seemingly for no purpose beyond antagonising Muslims who […] believe that depicting Muhammad at all is blasphemous.” He argues that free speech is used is used by French nationalists as a cloak for racism and xenophobia.
Likewise, Canfield argues that Charlie Hebdo cartoons are racists and anti-Islam. He claims that the “incredibly racist cartoons” by the “white editorial staff” provoked France’s marginalized Muslim immigrant community. He then makes a puzzling comment: “changing your twitter avatar to a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad is a racist thing to do.”
National Review Online reported that Salah-Aldeen Khadr, an editor and executive producer at Al Jazeera English, shares this view. In an office-wide memo, Khadr called the cartoons racist, obnoxious and offensive.
There is an obvious problem with the racism claim: in what universe is Islam a race? However, even if you somehow twist yourself into this box (and ignore the millions of white Muslims), the claim is reactionary, bland and, ironically, racist.
There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world constituting more than 23% of the global population. Muslims are spread across regions, from democracies to theocracies and everything in-between. There are millions of white Muslims. Over 80% of (Caucasian) Albanians are Muslims. Substantial parts of the former Yugoslavia adhere to Islam.
Canfield (and many others crying racism) are not concerned about Caucasian Muslims, or else they would not casually point out that the editorial staff at Charlie Hebdo is white. Their suggestion is directed, with exquisite subtlety, at black and brown Muslims, who are portrayed as a monolithic group that is anxious to annihilate freedom and other “European values”.
The idea that freedom of speech is a “European value” is ignorant; it disregards the millions of black and brown Muslims who cherish freedom and democracy. Thousands of Muslims died during the Arab Spring fighting for freedoms, including freedom of speech. Muslims in South Africa—where I am from—struggled for, and vehemently defend, freedom of speech. They dabble in robust discourse without rushing for balaclavas and Kalashnikovs!
There is a subtle suggestion that Muslims are somehow more prone to violence over blasphemy, which is plain ignorance. It infantilizes countless Muslims who are battling for freedom of speech in Islamic theocracies. The most recent example is Raif Badawi, who was sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison in Saudi Arabia for “insulting Islam”.
I imagine that an overwhelming majority of Muslims have better things to do than police insults to Islam. It is generally young poor Muslims who are forced into violence through the dubious duty to “avenge the Prophet”. Former chairman of Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission Afrasiyab Khattak warned as far back as 2001 that youths were forced by leaders to wage holy war “in defense of Islam”. These youths are the victims, not perpetrators.
Perhaps as important: blasphemy laws are not unique to Islam. In relatively recent times blasphemy laws were prevalent in parts of the Western world. A blasphemy law carrying harsh sentences was abolished in France only in 1791. The last prosecution and conviction for blasphemy in Britain was as recent as 1921. Blasphemy remains a crime under Article 166 of the Strafgesetzbuch—the German criminal code.
Why draw the damned cartoons anyway?
In a fit of self-righteousness, critics of Charlie Hebdo have completely ignored the publication’s history and purpose. Charlie Hebdo is leftist, anti-establishment and anti-religion. In 1970 the French government banned Charlie Hebdo’s predecessor, Hara-Kiri, for insulting (then) President Charles de Gaulle. Satirical magazines are popular among the leftists and anarchists lot in France.
The most obvious justification for the cartoons is the exact purpose of the magazine: left-leaning radical satire! As Salman Rushdie asked on Bill Maher’s show, “What would a respectful political cartoon look like?” Islam is not the only target; there are no sacred cows and everyone is fair game.
There is another, perhaps more profound, justification: by taking a wee at Muslims, like it does everyone else, Charlie Hebdo disempowered far-right crackpots claiming Islam is “anti-European”.
Hebdo‘s message was both simple and potent: Muslims can take a joke. Yes, they will be offended, like Catholics are offended by caricatures of the Pope. They will be offended like Christians are offended by caricatures of Jesus. But they, like other victims of vile humor, will take it up the chin.
Jacques Hyzagi, a former staffer at Charlie Hebdo, highlighted the hostility of French society towards Jews and Muslims in a column in the New York Observer. He says, “Being a Muslim or a Jew in France is equal to being black in the United States. You are not second-class, but you are. ”
Indeed, a poll by Gallup found that 39% of French people think, “Wearing the hijab is a threat to European culture”. According to the same poll, 25% of French people believe that Muslims are sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
Far-right organizations like the National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, have gained traction by pledging to purge France of Muslims and their “anti-European values”. In the wake of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, Le Pen has called for France to suspend the Schengen Area Agreement and to tighten controls on immigration.
Ironically, the next cover of Charlie Hebdo was going to feature a caricature of Michel Houellebecq. Houellebecq’s most recent novel, Submission, peddles fear of Sharia law after a Muslim takeover in France. The novel is one among many examples of a new wave of nationalism in France and across Europe.
The attack on Charlie Hebdo has given far-right nationalists like Le Pen and Houellebecq an acerbic weapon to peddle fear of “a Muslim takeover” in Europe. The attack gave them a citation. Moreover, those who suggest that “Muslims” were “provoked” are feeding into this idiotic view that Muslims (specifically black and brown Muslims) hate freedom of speech and are somehow more prone to violence.
We should see the incident what it is: an act of terrorism by a single terrorist organization. The murderers may have invoked Islam to justify conduct that has nothing to do with Islam or its adherents.
Finally, how far with your free speech?
Free speech does not protect people who say things everyone likes. It protects people who say precisely the things that others find distasteful, unpatriotic or blasphemous. It protects people who criticize religion, politicians and other centers of power.
It was never a condition of freedom of speech that a statement or opinion must be fair, respectful, agreeable or politically correct. The law carves outs discriminatory, defamatory or hateful opinions that incite harm on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion or belief. Slaughtered Hebdo cartoonists did nothing of the sort. If they did, courts in France have ample power to make right those wrongs.
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