Immoral compass

By now, many of us would have heard about the massacre that had befallen 12 staffers and editors of a French weekly magazine called Charlie Hebdo at the hands of two Islamist gunmen last January 7. Within an hour after the attack, the words #JeSuisCharlie (#IamCharlie) made waves on social media to support freedom of speech, and citizens from different parts of the world took to the streets and online pages to identify with these victims and the magazine they worked for.

If you are not familiar with the content produced by Charlie Hebdo – and a good number of us are not, because we are not from Paris – then a quick google image search of the publication will give you a pretty good idea of the brand of satire it stands for. Officially, it identifies as secular, atheist, and far-left-wing, often publishing content criticizing religion, culture, and politics. The image search will also give you an eyeful of cartoons depicting a naked Mohammad bending over, as well as an Egyptian trying to use a copy of the Quran as a shield from bullets, among others.

Prior to this month’s attack, Charlie had been victim to several other violent retaliations against its depictions of Islam and its greatest prophet, Mohammed, and many find radical Islam the easiest culprit to name. Some would argue that this was clear because Charlie Hebdo had also published content designed to offend other religions, Christianity and Judaism included. It had published cartoons that ridiculed the Pope and other Christian figures – cartoons that would never have seen the light of day if published in the Philippines – in the name of satire, and were not once attacked by the Catholic Church.

But the difference, I think, lies in the fact that French muslims are the clear minority in their society. They are subject to hate speech and discrimination, while muslim girls and women have been attacked in public simply for wearing hijabs. In this scenario, anyone can make fun of the Pope and elicit a few laughs, but that same audience will also be welcoming the Pope with open arms if he comes to visit, will praise his humility, his strength, and his progressive stance on science and technology. Others may snigger at images of the Pope resigning to marry one of his swiss guards or dancing in a flamingo costume, but the general public will not question his holiness. On the other hand, content that demonizes and makes fun of Mohammed reinforces already pervasive stereotypes against Islam and its faithful. Even if it is satire.

I think the thing about “satire” is that it is so easy to hide behind. Oh, my content is deeply islamophobic, racist, and sexist, you think? It’s satire you uneducated fool. It’s not crass, they can say, it’s humor for intellectuals.

Satire works if it is pit against structures of power, if it criticizes and makes fun of the powerful. It is irreverent, engaging, and serious at its core, using humor to expose and criticize political and social faults in society, and what’s clear to me is that a lot of the work done by Charlie Hebdo was not satire. Its cartoons have been called brave and daring, but all it did, I think, was deliberately provoke extremist faithfuls and shock the public in order to earn profit.

In this way, Charlie’s brand of satire towards the muslim minority does not criticize or expose contemporary social faults. The content is just another element of the already very toxic, systematic oppression of French muslims. It further marginalized a minority that was already very marginalized, and while Charlie was indeed harmful and oppressive, the French government – and the modern, liberal world in general – had sit back and let it happen.

I want to make it clear: I’m not saying that the editors of Charlie Hebdo deserved the massacre. No one does. But we can not say “Je suis Charlie” and turn our backs on the oppression that Charlie encouraged and perpetuated in the already very racist, Islamophobic city of Paris.

What’s more, the French government and the all-seeing watchdogs of international media will not talk about the fact that during the week following the massacre of the staff of Charlie Hebdo, three mosques were bombed, while Jews and other non-whites were held hostage and killed in the city of Paris. As of press time, a total of 128 anti-muslim acts have been commited in France this year, including 33 acts against mosques and 95 threats against muslims.

Meanwhile, 37 died and dozens were injured in Al-Qaeda bombing attacks in Yemen. Over two thousand women, children, and elderly were massacred at the hands of Boko Haram in Nigeria. So many human lives lost in horrible violence, yet the world will rally against the massacre of 12 French staffers of a newspaper I would bet my tuition fee many had never even heard of prior to the attack. There are no hashtags for these other victims, no 24-hour news coverage, no town square in France named after them the way Charlie Hebdo has, not even profile pictures shaded black in solidarity – because the world is too busy being Charlie.

I am not pointing all of this out because suffering is some sort of contest. It is not a case of “A, B, and C having higher death counts than D, therefore we have to mourn A, B, and C.” But I must point out the stark difference between the world’s sympathy for Charlie Hebdo and its reaction (or lack thereof) to the suffering of so many others.

I am pointing all of this out because there is something to be said about a society that will defend the free speech of a publication whose content only served to worsen the already lethal state of Islamophobia in France, rather than worry about the rights of French muslims and other minorities. There is something to be said about a culture that will identify with and mourn a group of editors than to even think about the slaughter and irreparable damage suffered by other non-white communities elsewhere.

I suppose this is a product of a society that finds it much easier to defend freedom of speech than to examine the morally grey areas that surround Charlie and the society it belongs to. The massacre and the events that followed are not simply a freedom of speech issue, they are also symptomatic of deeply entrenched Islamophobia and racism worldwide. But I suppose defending freedom of speech is easier to discuss. There is less guilt and more glamor, but it is also intellectually lazy and deeply problematic.

We don’t have to identify with Charlie Hebdo to know that killing is wrong and that freedom of speech is a universal right. But we do have to find the humanity in ourselves to understand that it is not a simple case of black and white – Islam vs freedom of speech, or even radical ideology vs modern democracy. By all means let us condemn the murder of 12 human beings in Paris last January 7. But let us not make Charlie Hebdo a tragic champion of free speech, or forget that wellbeing of communities – particularly those of the minority – are more important than fighting for our freedom to lambast them.