Charlie Hebdo, a satirical French magazine, recently became much more famous than it ever was. Early this month, it came out with a provocative issue whose cover presented a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, and the headline, "100 lashes if you don't die laughing." Shortly afterwards, the offices of the magazine were firebombed, and its website got hacked,
Luckily, no one died. But this incident underlined a recurrent conflict between European notions oreportedly, by a group of Turkish Muslims.f free speech and the Islamic notions of the sacred. The pro-Charlie Hebdo demonstrators that gathered outside Paris City Hall last Sunday were expressing one side of that dilemma by declaring their "right to blaspheme." Even mainstream Muslim organizations, however, have long been arguing for laws against blasphemy.
Do we have an irreconcilable gap, then, between Islam and free speech?
I am sure many, among both Muslims and Westerners, would readily say "yes" to this question, but I am not one of them. I rather propose a different answer by differentiating between the moral and the legal spheres.
Let me explain. The problem with some of Europeans who declare their "right to blasphemy" is that they are asking from Muslims to abandon their respect for the sacred. "Learning to take a joke is part of living in Western society," writes a commentator on the web. "Nothing is sacred here -- get used to it."
But, well, no. Neither Muslims nor other believers will "get used to" the idea that nothing is sacred. A sense of the sacred is the very thing that makes them believers. And, as Nietzsche once put it well, the sacred is whatever it is in a culture at which one cannot laugh.
However, having a sense of the sacred is one thing, forcing others to respect it, by law or brute force, is another. And while no Muslim worthy of his name would lose his respect for God, the Prophet Muhammad, and other symbols of Islam, he might well refrain from using legal prosecution or violent reaction to those who do not show the same respect.
My basis for this claim is nothing other than the holiest source of Islam, the Quran. The most relevant verse on this topic, the one that tells Muslims what to do in the face of mockery of their faith, reads as follows:
"When you hear God's revelations disbelieved in and mocked at, do not sit with them until they enter into some other discourse; surely then you would be like them." (4:140)
As I explain in my book, in my chapter on "Freedom from Islam," what we see suggested here is a civilized form of disapproval: Muslims are not supposed to be a part of a discourse that mocks Islam. But all they have to do is to stay away from it. And even then, that is only until the discourse changes. Once mockery ends, dialogue can restart. (By the way, this verse is from a "Medinan" chapter. It, in other words, comes from a later phase in which Muslims had military power, and thus it can't be explained away as resulting from necessity.)
If we apply the spirit of this verse to the modern world, we can say that Muslims can boycott anti-Islamic rhetoric by refusing to join conversations, buying newspapers and magazines, or watching films and plays that mock the values of their faith. But that's it. Disapproving and boycotting is the Quranic thing to do, whereas violence and threats are not.
So, if I were a French Muslim, I would end my subscription to Charlie Hebdo, if I had one. I would also express that I found their cartoons about Prophet Muhammad disrespectful to the Muslim community. But that's it. The violent attack on the magazine cannot be justified or tolerated. And its "right to blasphemy" cannot be countered by anything other than a peaceful stance for the sacred.
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"So in the great realm of religion, there can be no force. No one can be compelled to pray. No matter how you tie him down, or crush him down on his face or on his knees, it is above the power of the human race to put in that man, by force, the spirit of prayer. You cannot do it. Neither can you compel anybody to worship a God. Worship rises from the heart like perfume from a flower. It cannot obey; it cannot do that which some one else commands. It must he absolutely true to the law of its own nature. And do you think any God would be satisfied with compulsory worship? Would he like to see long rows of poor, ignorant slaves on their terrified knees repeating words without a soul -- giving him what you might call the shucks of sound? Will any God be satisfied with that? And so I say, we must be as free in one department of thought as another. "
The moment you introduce force into religion, you create a world of hypocrites and will never again know the truth of what any man thinks.
"The foundation of irreligious criticism is this: Man makes religion,
religion does not make man ... Religious suffering is, at one and the same
time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering.
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless
world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the
demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions
about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that
requires illusions."
-- Karl Marx
Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
February, 1844
Many people have pointed out that Europeans aren't expecting Muslims to disregard the sacred and adjust, they're asking not to be killed when a Muslim gets offended.
I just don't see myself ever having to write a piece "Atheists vs. Cartoons: What to do against faith?"...and procede to have to say "Now, non-believers, it's not reasonable to kill anyone." Grow up, get with society and get it together.
What do you do against blasphemy? You move on and live within society or go somewhere else. Change it through the mechanisms that are agreed upon to be reasonable and diplomatic. Turble, just turble.
When THEY attack Jewish people, it's called antisemitism.
When THEY attack women, it's called sexism.
When THEY attack homosexuality, it's called intolerance.
When THEY attack your country, it's called treason...
When THEY attack a religious sect, it's called hate;
but, when THEY attack Islam and the Prophet Muhammad (SAW), it's called FREEDOM of SPEECH?
I promise not to say anything worse about Islam than what Islam says about disbelievers.
So either all are fair game for satire, riduclue and debate(like any other idea), or none are, in which case nothing can ever be said, as it's bound to be blaspehmous to some religion.
Hell, even pointing out mistakes in religious texts can be considered blasphemy.
The problem, unique it seems to islam, is that when something, like a teddy bear's name, or a cartoon appears, and offense it taken, in some sections of the islamic community it seems that violence is an acceptable response.
Now we can give the benefit of the doubt to the majority of muslims, but and here's the thing, these "extremists" are living with the majority, yet they seem confident that their actions will not result in any action being taken against them, like ostracism or censure or reporting to the police. Which begs the question, why?, why is it tolerated, where does their condifence come from?
The xtians are daily exposed to much more "blasphemous" attacks on a regular basis, Piss Christ springs to mind, yet despite this there is no violent reaction from either "extremists" or mainstream xtians. Why the difference?
The worse part is that some of them are willing to kill for it. Anywhere in the world. Examples are many. See Danish cartoons and various attempts by American, Middle Eastern and Central Asian Muslims to murder said cartoonists in Europe.
Next time maybe plan out your thoughts with an outline before posting! Outlines work wonders.
Glenn Greenwald in Salon.com discusses the effects of police violence perpetrated peaceful protesters on the curb of free speech:
"The intent and effect of such abuse is that it renders those guaranteed freedoms meaningless. If a population becomes bullied or intimidated out of exercising rights offered on paper, those rights effectively cease to exist. Every time the citizenry watches peaceful protesters getting pepper-sprayed — or hears that an Occupy protester suffered brain damage and almost died after being shot in the skull with a rubber bullet — many become increasingly fearful of participating in this citizen movement, and also become fearful in general of exercising their rights in a way that is bothersome or threatening to those in power. That’s a natural response, and it’s exactly what the climate of fear imposed by all abusive police state actions is intended to achieve: to coerce citizens to “decide” on their own to be passive and compliant — to refrain from exercising their rights — out of fear of what will happen if they don’t."
On paper, we have our rights.
http://politics.salon.com/2011/11/20/the_roots_of_the_uc_davis_pepper_spraying/