SUCH
are the times that a French satirical magazine holding no sacred cows, and
boasting a circulation of less than 50,000 in a country of over 60 million, can
print 3 million copies after its editor and eleven others are brutally gunned
down by two masked men during an editorial meeting.
The
Charlie Hebdo magazine – the word ‘Hebdo’ meaning ‘weekly’ and ‘Charlie’ referencing Charlie Brown in
‘Peanuts’ and former president Charles de Gaulle – enjoyed a patchy existence,
even decades before the infamous Muhammad cartoon saga began in 2006.
In
2011 the firebombing of its offices (in response to an edition featuring the
Islamic prophet) had its editor, Stephane Chabonnier, being granted 24-hour
police protection.
Originally
launched in the 1960’s as Hara Kiri, and banned twice in the De Gaulle era,
Charlie Hebdo – which first appeared in 1970 – is the successor to Hara Kiri. Charlie
Hebdo ceased publication in 1981 and was re-born 10 years later. Since
then, the magazine has mercilessly – if not crassly – lampooned religion and politics.
In 2008 it lost a curious anti-Semitism case concerning Jean Sarkozy, son of
then president Nicolas Sarkozy, who embraced Judaism to marry his fiancée, a
Jewish heiress.
Charlie
Hebdo’s commentary – that Jean Sarkozy would ‘go far’ because of his engagement
– saw its cartoonist, Maurice Sinet, being fired. He sued his employers and won
over R1 million in damages.
In
February 2006 Charlie Hebdo published a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad weeping
and saying “ce’st dur être aimé par des cons” (it’s hard to be loved by
idiots). The context was the rise of Islamic extremism.
The
Paris mosque sued the magazine for slandering the Muslim community and
indulging in racism by equating Islam with terror. Charlie Hebdo was acquitted
on the grounds that Islamic extremism, and not Islam, was the editorial focus.
The magazine sold 300,000 copies of that edition, which also included a panel
of the infamous Danish Jyllands-Posten cartoons.
In
2011 Charlie Hebdo published an edition entitled ‘Charia Hebdo’, a play on the
word Shari’ah, or Islamic Holy Law. Claiming that the issue had been ‘guest
edited’ by Muhammad, a cartoon had him saying ‘100 lashes if you don’t die
laughing’.
In
the dawn hours of 2 November the Charlie Hebdo offices were firebombed and its
computer system hacked. Unbowed, the
magazine published further cartoons of the Prophet in September the
following year, this time featuring him
unclothed – a major insult to the Islamic faith.
Since
the Paris terror attacks – allegedly credited to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
– there has been much conjecture. Whether it was a bona-fide Al-Qaeda operation
or a false flag one (in retaliation to France supporting a Palestinian state as
some claim) is not the question here, as was the begrudged presence of Israeli
Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at a march expressing solidarity for its 17
victims.
Nor
is there space to discuss the sad fact that the world remained silent as
another extremist Salafi-Wahhabi group, Boko Haram, slaughtered an estimated
2,000 innocent people and destroyed over 16 villages in northern Nigeria.
What
is pertinent right now is to explain exactly why Muslims feel so outraged by
Charlie Hebdo’s stubborn insistence on attacking their most sacred personality,
and why it constitutes such a grave affront in the eyes of 1.6 billion people.
Firstly,
the Prophet Muhammad was extremely lenient towards those who insulted or
attacked him. The point is that the violent, bloodthirsty vengeance of contemporary
extremist groupings doesn’t belong to Islam. Burdening ordinary Muslims with it,
as some do, is grossly unfair.
Groupings
such as ISIS, Jubhat al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda, who are – incredibly and shockingly
– incapable of rustling together one qualified or credible religious judge
between them, do not appear to comprehend that their attempted return to the
era of the Prophet is, in fact, a major deviation from it.
They
need to be reminded of the compassionate character of the person they so
righteously claim to emulate at the pull of a trigger. In Mecca the Prophet
Muhammad had a neighbour who would throw garbage on him whenever he passed by.
He did not respond. Yet when she fell ill, he was the first to visit her.
When
a Bedouin urinated in his mosque, he forbad his companions from punishing the
man. He simply ordered them to rinse away his urine. When a Christian
delegation came to visit him, he did not cut their throats like ISIS, but allowed
them to pray in his mosque. The Prophet even tolerated, Hind, who’d eaten the
liver of his beloved uncle, Hamzah.
Secondly,
Islamic scholars have codified human rights into five key categories: the right
to faith, the right to life, the right of family, the right of property and the
right to intellectual expression. Imam Ghazali, the 11th century
colossus, added another category: the right of human dignity, or character.
Therefore,
to purposefully denigrate the Prophet Muhammad is regarded as hugely offensive
in the Islamic realm because it violates the sixth principle. Incidentally, honour has to accrue to all divine
messengers, including Jesus, Isaac, Ishmael, Joseph, Jonah, John the Baptist Abraham
and Moses.
And
whilst the Charlie Hebdo saga is said to revolve more around freedom of
expression in France than the question of faith itself, its editors need to
appreciate that not only 10 million French Muslims – but the whole world Islamic
community – becomes deeply offended whenever its cartoonists lampoon the
Prophet.
Part
of the solution to all this, apart from the obvious suggestions of open dialogue
and inter-faith understanding in a secular environment, is a question of
constitutionality. At the bottom of the social ladder, French Muslims – and by
extension their Islam – is perceived as a secondary or inferior social
construct at odds with overall French identity.
In
France today every faith needs to be constitutionally equal, not only in
principle, but in practice. It is this question that needs to be urgently addressed
to avoid extremist mischief makers, and ignorant editors, from pitting people
against each other on the basis of their supposed differences.
