Je Suis Embrouillé

Are you Charlie, or not?

Immediately after the catastrophe in Paris last week, the “je suis Charlie” cri de couer went viral. Everybody, it seemed, wanted to stand side by side against the extremists, in defence of the freedom of speech. Not long afterwards, the meme was rejected by many others. “Je ne suis pas Charlie,” said those who found covers such as these unacceptable:

Context is everything. A magazine cover proclaiming “the Quran is shit” is redolent of my history class in school, when we were taught about anti-Semitism in 1930's Germany. However, satirical left leaning magazines, read by progressives who read the content of the magazine before forming a judgement based on the cover illustration, cannot be honestly compared with educational textbooks in Nazi Germany that asked basic maths questions like “if a Jew buys a loaf of bread for one mark, and sells the loaf of bread to a German mother for five marks, how many marks does the Jew take home?”

If you are in-the-know, a French person who understands that Charlie Hebdo staff tend to be progressive and pro-immigration, your view of cartoons that depict black politicians as monkeys will be very different to the view of most non-French observers who have only begun familiarising themselves with the magazine in the last week. Both perceptions are real. One view is more informed than the other, but it is true that sometimes you have to step back in order to see the wood from the trees. In other words, while you and I are in on our joke, should we be wary of how the joke will look to everyone else? That is the real essence of the debate for non-Muslims, much moreso than whether we don “je suis Charlie” badges and proclaim our defiance of religious extremists.

Many Muslims argue that non-Muslims have no right to draw pictures of Mohammed, since it is more offensive to them than if a man had physically abused their wife (example of a real-life rebuke I was given earlier today). The holes in that argument poke themselves, as far as I am concerned. But for those of us who deny the special privilege of offence claimed by the religious, should we reconsider our approach if we know that many people will take offence without understanding the context, that people will take offence, whether we think they should or not? To release such an image knowingly, afterall, is to throw a cultural grenade into the public sphere.

The principle of the freedom of speech is said to be held paramount in Western society. The attack in Paris triggers an instinctive reaction, then. Because, from an early age, we are all acquainted with the principle espoused by one of France’s greatest citizens, Voltaire: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Most people concur with this principle. I bet that if I asked everybody in my office tomorrow whether they agree with the idea, maybe one or two at most would voice dissonance. I was reading an interview with Shami Chakrabarti in the New Humanist earlier in which she said that she would support people’s right to propagate racist views in their family, their social circle, or their church, as long as they were not doing so while offering some form of publicly available service or goods. I admire Shami very much, but feel dissatisfied with this distinction. It says to me that if I enter your hotel reception, asking for a room, you cannot refuse me because you don’t like people with my skin colour; but if I enter your church, you are free to deliver a racist philippic in front of your congregation, while I shrink back towards the door in fear. I understand the reason Shami has drawn a line, determining what is acceptable and what is not, but I find the demarcation unsatisfying.

In any case, whether Charlie Hebdo is speaking to a parishioner or a customer, cartoons depicting Jews with dollar signs in their eyes, black women as monkeys, and so on, are intended to be controversial, and the objective is met. In my private life, I do not shy away from using inflammatory language. I am staunchly anti-racist, and if I desire to mock my racist opponents by aping their views ironically, I will do just that among friends. I am not so sure I would do it on the cover of a national publication, but perhaps I should be sure that I would. After all, my meaning in that situation is not racist at all, and in fact is exactly the opposite, mocking those who hold such views. My reason for not publishing such mimicry would be fear of offending the very people I consider myself to be “defending”.

What would be patently obvious to me is that if I publish a cartoon depicting a black person as a monkey, in what was actually a scathing attack on the holders of such views, I risk offending black people and anti-racists generally who saw the illustration, but did not read the accompanying article. Of course, people should reserve their opinions until they have at least understood the context of the image, but I cannot help wondering whether those who would label the image grossly irresponsible, potentially inciting of hatred even, have a point.

There is a distinction to be made clear, though, between the racist, anti-immigrant tones of cartoons of Nigerian female captives of Boko Haram, etc, and the illustrations of hapless Muslims proclaiming “the Quran is shit”. In the first instance, the views of racists are being mocked. In the second instance, the religion of Islam is being mocked. I reserve the right to mock your religion, even though I choose not to exercise it. But in fact, should we not be grateful that some people do poke that bear, if only to defend our right to do so? The problem is that, against a constant stream of negative images of Muslims in the mainstream Western media, it is unsurprising that many Muslims feel demonised and oppressed. If anything, without the clear agenda in the mainstream media provoking Muslims all the time, perhaps the Charlie Hebdo covers would not have triggered such evil and contempt in the hearts of these vile murderers. That is beside the point, though, of course, when people resort to such measures, thereby depriving their own actions of any aetiological justification.

For some balance, perhaps, it is worth pointing out that Charlie Hebdo dishes out the same treatment to everyone. As an Englishman, I encourage many more such covers as this: