I was heartened to read Pope Francis say this week that those who ridicule others’ religions should expect a punch in reaction. He was not justifying the slaying of the 12 editorial members of the French satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, or of the four Jews at the kosher supermarket. Rather, he was trying to explain that when you repeatedly offend someone’s most cherished principals you could expect a violent reaction.
For sure, we all like to think that we are rational, thinking beings that are above irrational violence and that in our modern, civilized societies we can deal with rude behavior either by ignoring it or through dialogue. Clearly in the Charlie Hebdo case neither strategy worked. The problem with France is that it has become fanatically secular, almost as annoying as fanatically religious states are. Turkey used to be the same way until the rise of the Islamists occurred and balanced things out a bit. Banning the use of headscarves in public spaces in both Turkey and France was a mistake in my opinion, infringing on the personal right of every woman to cover her hair or not. The state should not be involved in such personal decisions.
The other problem in France is the lack of protection that Muslims face when it comes to being criticized unfairly. The French have anti-hate laws that protect Jews from unjust criticism or mockery, while Muslims do not. That is why the continued publication of blasphemous sketches Charlie Hebdo was exceptionally galling to Muslims to everywhere. The cartoonists of the newspaper were and are fierce secularists in a society that has gone largely post-religion. So for them, the beliefs of Muslims around the world are silly and are to be lampooned incessantly and without mercy. This is unfortunate and unfair. The newspaper was sued in court several times over its blasphemous contents, but was never barred from printing more of them because France does not provide specific protection for Muslims. If French law had provided some protection to the sentiments of Muslims, the cartoons could have been toned down and this tragedy averted.
What is also surprising to me is the lack of questioning by French society of what led the two Kouachi brothers, of Algerian descent but born and brought up in the Paris suburbs, to become so radicalized with what is happening now in the Middle East that they would be propelled to kill. In an interview with a French journalist I heard one of the brothers say that they had attacked Charlie Hebdo to avenge Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), but also because of the thousands of innocent women and children being killed by western bombing of Syria and Iraq. This may sound like Islamic State (IS) propaganda to many, but it is essential that we understand how these young European Muslims are being radicalized to such an extent, mostly while in prison with other charismatic Muslim prisoners, that they are convinced to commit terrorist acts once they are freed.
It is ironic and sad that the terrorists killing in the name of Islam have done so much harm to our religion and to Arabs in general. Hatred against Islam and Arabs is surely spiking in Europe, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again used the unity march in Paris last week to urge European Jews to immigrate to Israel, of course at the cost of the Palestinians since Israel proper is quite small and illegal Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories don’t stop growing.
France needs to seriously rethink its anti-defamation laws and include Islam and Muslims in it, especially since there are five million French Muslims and only 500,000 Jews. Jews get special protection in France today because of the guilt over the country’s sorry history of the Vichy administration collaborating with the Nazis in World War II. That is understandable. But Muslims deserve respect too. There is still too much anti-Muslim sentiment in France today, which in part made Charlie Hebdo cartoonists feel they could constantly mock Islam. It’s time that French Muslims said enough is enough and that they won’t stand for it any more.
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The writer is a Saudi journalist based in Brazil.
