Double standards

Whenever Western governments have faced the question of banning speech and works of art that will likely incite violence from Muslims, they have hidden behind the rhetoric of free speech. In the case of the US, there actually is a precedent, however imperfectly applied, that it constitutionally protects speech that is hateful and could even directly lead to violence. France, however, which has allowed the publication of cartoons mocking the Holy Prophet (pbuh), has no such excuse. This is a country which has a history of restricting free speech in the interest of public order. It is also one of the handful of European countries which have actually made Holocaust denial a crime punishable by imprisonment. In 1990, France passed the Gayssot Act, which outlawed questioning the existence of crimes against humanity and punished any infraction with one to five years of jail time. When challenged in the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the law was upheld as being necessary to guard against anti-Semitism.

Given the presence of such laws in France, clearly the publication of the caricatures against the Holy Prophet (pbuh) could have been prevented on the grounds of public safety. It would also not be a stretch to call France out for having a double standard when it comes to Muslims. The ban on the hijab targeted Muslims while the rise of far-right politicians such as Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter Marine has shifted the debate in France in a somewhat xenophobic direction. In fact, as a colonial power it had a policy, more or less, of repressing the cultures of its subjects — and one needn’t look farther than Algeria in this regard.

By allowing the publication of the cartoons, France has shown that it is home to a glaring double standard. Anti-Semitic material is banned under French law but anti-Islamic material and expressions are not. No wonder that Muslims the world over, not just in France, seem to think that many European countries have a different policy for them and another for the rest of the world.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th, 2012.