Writer Mehdi Hasan has written and article that is quite good but I feel I just have to make various comments on it.
Here we go.
Dear liberal pundit,
You and I didn’t like George W Bush. Remember his puerile declaration after 9/11 that “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists”? Yet now, in the wake of another horrific terrorist attack, you appear to have updated Dubya’s slogan: either you are with free speech… or you are against it. Either vous êtes Charlie Hebdo… or you’re a freedom-hating fanatic.
I’m writing to you to make a simple request: please stop. You think you’re defying the terrorists when, in reality, you’re playing into their bloodstained hands by dividing and demonizing. Us and them. The enlightened and liberal west v the backward, barbaric Muslims. The massacre in Paris on 7 January was, you keep telling us, an attack on free speech. (ACTUALLY THE TERRORISTS THEMSELVES MADE IT CLEAR THAT IT WAS AN ATTACK ON FREE SPEECH. I GUESS YOU DID NOT HEAR THAT PART) The conservative former French president Nicolas Sarkozy agrees, calling it “a war declared on civilisation”. So, too, does the liberal-left pin-up Jon Snow, who crassly tweeted about a “clash of civilisations” and referred to “Europe’s belief in freedom of expression”.
In the midst of all the post-Paris grief, hypocrisy and hyperbole abounds. Yes, the attack was an act of unquantifiable evil; an inexcusable and merciless murder of innocents. (WELL WE AT LEAST AGREE ON THAT) But was it really a “bid to assassinate” free speech (ITV’s Mark Austin), to “desecrate” our ideas of “free thought” (Stephen Fry)? It was a crime – not an act of war – perpetrated by disaffected young men; radicalised not by drawings of the Prophet in Europe in 2006 or 2011, as it turns out, but by images of US torture in Iraq in 2004.
Please get a grip. None of us believes in an untrammelled right to free speech. (MAYBE YOU DON’T BUT I CERTAINY DO) We all agree there are always going to be lines that, for the purposes of law and order, cannot be crossed; or for the purposes of taste and decency, should not be crossed. We differ only on where those lines should be drawn.
(I AGREE WITH THAT…KILLING PEOPLE FOR A DRAWING IS ONE OF THOSE LINES)
Has your publication, for example, run cartoons mocking the Holocaust? No? (IF THEY DID WE WOULD BE OFFENDED BUT WOULD WE GO OUT AND KILL THE PEOPLE INVOLVED…HIGHLY UNLIKELY) How about caricatures of the 9/11 victims falling from the twin towers? (IF THEY DID WE WOULD BE OFFENDED BUT WOULD WE GO OUT AND KILL THE PEOPLE INVOLVED…HIGHLY UNLIKELY) I didn’t think so (and I am glad it hasn’t). Consider also the “thought experiment” offered by the Oxford philosopher Brian Klug. Imagine, he writes, if a man had joined the “unity rally” in Paris on 11 January “wearing a badge that said ‘Je suis Chérif’” – the first name of one of the Charlie Hebdo gunmen. Suppose, Klug adds, he carried a placard with a cartoon mocking the murdered journalists. “How would the crowd have reacted?… ( SURE IT IS FREE SPEECH AND WE SHOULD RESPECT IT BUT IT WOULD BE STUPID TO DO BUT STILL MOST OF US STILL BELIEVE HE HAS THE RGHT TO SAY IT) Would they have seen this lone individual as a hero, standing up for liberty and freedom of speech? Or would they have been profoundly offended?” (OF COURSE THEY WOULD BE OFFENDED BUT WE HAVE HAD RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN THE USA THAT HAVE GONE TO FUNERALS OF FALLEN SOLDIERS AND INSULTED THE FAMILIES OF DEAD SOLDIERS BUT NO ONE WAS KILLED AT THESE RALLIES… YELLING AND CURSING YES, BUT NO ONE WENT TO THEIR CHURCH AND BLEW THEM UP…CAN YOU SAY THE SAME THING ABOUT THESE MUSLIM TERRORISTS…NO YOU CAN’T, SO DON’T USE THAT RIDICULOUS EXAMPLE) Do you disagree with Klug’s conclusion that the man “would have been lucky to get away with his life”?
Let’s be clear: I agree there is no justification whatsoever for gunning down journalists or cartoonists. (WELL WE AGREE ON ONE THING AT LEAST)
I disagree with your seeming view that the right to offend comes with no corresponding responsibility; and I do not believe that a right to offend automatically translates into a duty to offend.(NO ONE SAID THAT IT DOESN’T COME WITH RESPONSIBILITY AND IF IT CAUSES DANGER TO PEOPLE THE PERSONS COULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE BUT PICTURES OR WORDS ARE NOT SAME AS GOING INTO THAT FAMOUS THEATRE SETTING AND YELLING FIRE. OF COURSE IF YOU ARE SAYING THAT PRINTING SAID CARTOONS WOULD GIVE TERRORISTS THE RIGHT TO KILL BECAUSE THEY ARE OFFENDED OR THAT BY PRINTING THEM WE HAVE GIVEN THEM THE RIGHT TO KILL BECAUSE TO THEM IT IS LIKE YELLING FIRE THEN YOU SIR ARE FROM SOME DISTANT PLANET OF IDIOTS. I HOPE THAT HASN’T OFFENDED YOU TO THE POINT YOU MAY WANT TO KILL ME)
When you say “Je suis Charlie”, is that an endorsement of Charlie Hebdo’s depiction of the French justice minister, Christiane Taubira, who is black, drawn as a monkey? Of crude caricatures of bulbous-nosed Arabs that must make Edward Said turn in his grave?
(YES IT IS AN ENDORSEMENT…THAT IS THE POINT…YOU CAN SAY IT BECAUSE YOU HAVE THAT RIGHT…NOBODY HAS TO AGREE WITH IT)
Lampooning racism by reproducing brazenly racist imagery is a pretty dubious satirical tactic. Also, as the former Charlie Hebdo journalist Olivier Cyran argued in 2013, an “Islamophobic neurosis gradually took over” the magazine after 9/11, which then effectively endorsed attacks on “members of a minority religion with no influence in the corridors of power”. (WELL IF YOU DO THE DEED THEN YOU ARE A TARGET FOR SATIRE…DUBIOUS OR NOT IS UNIMPORTANT. YOU DON’T WANT TO BE ATTACKED IN THE PRESS THEN DON’T COMMIT MEDEVAEL ACTS)
It’s for these reasons that I can’t “be”, don’t want to “be”, Charlie – if anything, we should want to be Ahmed, the Muslim policeman who was killed while protecting the magazine’s right to exist. (I KNOW I COULD BE CRITICIZED FOR THIS BUT DID THE TERRORISTS EVEN KNOW THE POLICEMAN LAYING ON THE GROUND WAS A MUSLIM? I DOUBT IT…THEY SAW A COP AND SHOT HIM; SO I REALLY DID NOT EVEN TAKE THE FACT THE MAN WAS A MUSLIM INTO ACCOUNT. TO ME THEY JUST KILLED A COP. YOU MAY WANT TO ‘JE SUIS AHMED’ BECAUSE HE WAS KILLED AND WAS A HUMAN BEING…BUT NOT BECAUSE HE WAS MUSLIM) As the novelist Teju Cole has observed, “It is possible to defend the right to obscene… speech without promoting or sponsoring the content of that speech.”
And why have you been so silent on the glaring double standards? Did you not know that Charlie Hebdo sacked the veteran French cartoonist Maurice Sinet in 2008 for making an allegedly anti-Semitic remark? Were you not aware that Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published caricatures of the Prophet in 2005, reportedly rejected cartoons mocking Christ because they would “provoke an outcry” and proudly declared it would “in no circumstances… publish Holocaust cartoons”? (SEE HERE’S YOUR PROBLEM…THEY DID NOT RUN THEM BECAUSE THEY WERE THREATENED WITH DEATH…THERE COULD HAVE BEEN AN OUTCRY…NOT THE SAME AS KILLING. ALSO IF A PAPER DOES NOT WANT TO PRINT SOMETHING IT IS THEIR RIGHT NOT TO AND IT DOES HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS ARGUMENT. IF THE PUBLISHER DOES NOT WANT TO PRINT SOMETHING ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST BECAUSE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WERE KILLED IS IN ABSOLUTELY NO WAY THE SAME AS PUBLISHING CARTOONS OF A RELIGIOUS LEADER WHO DID NOT SUFFER FROM MASS KILLING. THIS WAS AN ABSURD THING TO EVEN BRING UP BUT IT DOES SHOW YOUR MINDSET)
Muslims, I guess, are expected to have thicker skins than their Christian and Jewish brethren. (HERE IS A QUESTION FOR YOU. HOW MANY CARTOONS HAVE YOU SEEN MAKING FUN OF THOUSANDS OF MUSLIMS BEING KILLED IN TERRORIST ATTACKS IN THE MIDDLE EAST?. HOW MANY CARTOONS HAVE YOU SEEN SATIRIZING THE VICTIMS OF BOKO HARAM? YOUR COMMENT HERE WAS NOT VERY WELL THOUGHT OUT WAS IT?) Context matters, too. You ask us to laugh at a cartoon of the Prophet (NO ONE IS ASKING YOU TO LAUGH AT THE CARTOONS…YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE SAYING THAT. SURE YOU CAN BE OFFENDED…YOU JUST HAVE TO RESPECT THE FREEDOM FOR OTHERS TO CRITICIZE BUT OBVIOUS LIKE OTHER MUSLIMS, YOU HAVE A THIN SKIN) while ignoring the vilification of Islam across the continent (have you visited Germany lately?) and the widespread discrimination against Muslims in education, employment and public life – especially in France. ( AHHH…IF MUSLIMS ARE BEING VILIFIED, DO YOU THINK THERE COULD POSSIBLY BE A REASON? DO YOU SEE OTHERS BEING VILIFIED LIKE MUSLIMS. IF YOU GIVE THE REST OF THE WORLD REASON TO VILIFY YOU THEN YOU HAVE TO LIVE WITH IT. STOP YOUR OWN PEOPLE FROM GIVING THE WORLD REASONS TO VILIFY YOU. IT IS ONLY YOUR OWN ARROGANCE THAT DOES NOT ALLOW YOU TO SEE WHY MUSLIMS ARE BEING TREATED THIS WAY. LET’S SEE…CATHOLICS ARE TERRORIZED IN THE MIDDLE EAST, WOMEN ARE TREATED LIKE SPERM RECEPTACLES AND HIDDEN BEHIND SACKS…MUSLIMS ARE KILLING CHILDREN IN SCHOOLS BECAUSE THEY ARE TRYING TO GET AN EDUCATION…THE LIST GOES ON AND ON…SO TELL ME AGAIN WHY MUSLIMS SHOULDN’T BE VILLIFIED) You ask Muslims to denounce a handful of extremists as an existential threat to free speech while turning a blind eye to the much bigger threat to it posed by our elected leaders.(ALL YOU YOU SERIOUS… A HANDFUL OF EXTREMISTS? A FEW MILLION IS NOT A HANDFUL OF EXTREMISTS…ONE TENTH OF A POPULATION IS NOT A HANDFUL…IT IS A FUCKING MOVEMENT AND YOU ARE A REPORTER?)
Does it not bother you to see Barack Obama – who demanded that Yemen keep the anti-drone journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye behind bars, after he was convicted on “terrorism-related charges” in a kangaroo court – jump on the free speech ban wagon? Weren’t you sickened to see Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of a country that was responsible for the killing of seven journalists in Gaza in 2014, attend the “unity rally” in Paris? Bibi was joined by Angela Merkel, chancellor of a country where Holocaust denial is punishable by up to five years in prison, and David Cameron, who wants to ban non-violent “extremists” committed to the “overthrow of democracy” from appearing on television. (CONVENIENTLY YOU JUMPED TO POLITICS BECAUSE YOUR ARGUMENT ON FREE SPEECH IS SO FLAWED)
Then there are your readers. Will you have a word with them, please? According to a 2011 YouGov poll, 82% of voters backed the prosecution of protesters who set fire to poppies. (THE WORD I WOULD GIVE THEM IS CONTINUE BECAUSE IT SEEMS THAT AT LEAST ONE MUSLIM IS AN ARROGANT REPORTER WHO DOES NOT SEE WORLD FACTS BUT SEES ISLAMIC FACTS AND THE POOR REPORTER HAD HIS FEELINGS HURT)
Apparently, it isn’t just Muslims who get offended. (THEY MAY NOT BE THE ONLY ONES OFFENDED BUT THEY ARE PRETTY WELL THE ONLY ONES WHO KILL INDISCRIMINATELY WHEN THEY ARE OFFENDED. EXPLAIN THAT ONE TO ME YOU SILLY MAN)
Yours faithfully,
Mehdi
(SAD…SAD…SAD BUT I’M SURE YOU GOT YOU NAME OUT THERE…TERRORISTS EVERYWHERE WILL LOVE YOU)
Mehdi Hasan is the political director of the Huffington Post UK, co-author of ED: The Milibands and the Making of a Labour Leader and author of The Debt Delusion. He presents The Cafe on Al Jazeera English.