Lets call a spade a spade here shall we, what happened at the offices of Charlie Hebdo last Wednesday was a grotesque act of savagery and murder & what happened at the same offices before the attack in the name of cartoons and satire wasn’t anything short of extremely offensive and demeaning either. Demeaning not towards just Islam but almost all the religions of the world and also towards many values we as humans uphold.
After the attack there was a natural outpouring of sympathy on social media for the victims of this attack and against the religion of Islam with hashtags and cries ranging from the immediate need for immigration reforms in europe ( yah right as the attackers are home grown) to outright #killallmuslims. Most people from Pakistan jumped on the reactionary bandwagon on either side and started crying hoarse either for censorship of such speech or waxing lyrical over how “Charlie hebdo” was the paragon of Free speech and a french institution which had a luminous and glorious  history.
The point I am trying to make is twofold, firstly there is no sane reason for killing anyone over a cartoon or a satirical piece and I am not going to interject this statement with a yet or a but either. Even if examined under shariah law the “state” is supposed to give due punishment for crimes and not “individuals” However what constitutes free speech in the world of “Charlie Hebdo” needs to be examined as well before we start banging the drum for the imminent war of civilisations or the “us vs them” narrative all over the world. Charlie hebdo was responsible for cartoons which were quite sexist, misogynist, demeaning and would meet the demands of any hate speech standard in our world. The question im asking is,  why are we supposed to adhere to the french standard for satire or support it? I say this because I find cartoons making fun of Islam just as demeaning as those making fun of Lord Ganesh or Buddha or Jesus Christ. We can blare the trumpets of free speech all we want but the fact of the matter is that  although we do not adhere to the same systems of morality all over this world, we all do believe in a commonality of what is within the bounds of reason and what is not. Tomorrow if someone started distributing child porn and called it his protest for free speech or his method of pushing our boundaries at least I wouldn’t stand for it would you? Hence I will never say #Iamcharlie
Secondly 37 people were just killed in a terrorist attack in yemen as well last week to little or no coverage by the international media. Primarily because that attack does not feature in the “us vs them” narrative same as the peshawar attack on school children doesn’t. Although in the case of the peshawar attack the citizens of the world did unite with us for a few days at least contrary to their media. Nobody wants to believe that muslims are the target of these terrorists more than any other race or religion in the world and we have the numbers to prove it, yet we are somehow supposed to feel guilty for their attacks? Who in the west feels guilty for that grand operation in Iraq I ask and that too by their military not just a rogue terrorist group! Plus have we or has the west forgotten that their history is rife with examples of this same narrative and its hold on their imaginations as it has been brought up again and again even harking back to ancient times. The island of civilisation vs the sea of savages buffeting its shores is nothing new yet they always seem to fall for it and now we the savages are supposed to fall for it as well? Oh sorry old chap…we fucked up again.. its our violent religion you see…thats all there is to it.. none of your fault.. those drones  are showering people with rose petals but these assholes still try to take a piss at you.. #killthemall?
We as a world do need to understand and question exactly how is a country’s barometer for “freedom” being fair when the right of a muslim woman to wear hijab is not sacrosanct to “freedom” but the publishing of hate cartoons is? where anti semitism is a crime by anti muslim is not? I think France needs to examine closely what “freedom” constitutes for them or whether their intensity for secularism both historically and now is even at pace with the existing population of more than 5 million of their own muslim residents or their rights.
As for apologising for Al Qaeda or ISIS or any other nutso group that has got it in their mind to start or attempt any other barbaric attacks – this savage is all out of apology for others insanity.
#againstallterrorism #withallhumanity
Comments are closed.