Showing support for Charlie Hebdo does not mean that publications in Europe or America replicate the editorial judgements of the French magazine. PHOTO: AFP
No matter what the provocation, a significant section of Europeans seem to have justifiably gone into a reactive mode. And as a consequence, the political and social elements championing anti-Muslim and anti-immigration policies in Europe, especially in France, seem to have suddenly found a more urgent as well as a more cogent reason to justify their hate campaigns. The six million Muslims living in France understandably dread a backlash and fear that the sense of Islamophobia already very visible in their country would further deepen.
The National Front, the French political party that promotes Islamophobia and relentlessly raises the spectre of the so-called threat it holds for French society and its values is said to have already out-paced the French Socialist Party in popularity polls. And its leader Le Pen, who has been knocking for some years on the doors of his country’s mainstream politics from the margins, it is feared, is likely to use the bloody incident to further his hate campaign. There is little doubt that the French extreme right is expected to benefit immensely from these killings. And French Muslims are likely, as a consequence, to suffer more. This situation is not likely to remain confined to France alone.
The rest of the West, too, is likely to experience the aftershocks. In the UK, the ultra-right UK Independence Party is likely to use the event as a more persuasive argument in its campaign against London’s current immigration policy, a campaign which the mainstream political parties are already finding increasingly difficult to oppose. In Sweden, the Democratic Party that promotes anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiments and which in recent polls has been getting 15 per cent support is also expected to cash on the Paris massacre. Indeed, those who would suffer the most from this event would be the majority of the West’s Muslim population, most of which is made up of law-abiding, ordinary people who believe in the policy of live and let live and who do not subscribe to the distorted version of their faith that is being propagated by a handful of misguided extremists.
The reason behind the daylight massacre is said to be the publication of highly provocative cartoons published in the recent past, which had deeply offended Muslims. What is frustrating is the fact that the weekly in question, highly popular in the 1960s, had become too obscure by the current Parisian standards and is said to have become a museum piece. What this reprehensible attack has done is to instigate other major Western publications to republish the same offensive cartoons that Charlie Hebdo had carried, ostensibly in a bid to show solidarity with the magazine. One wonders whether this is the right way to show solidarity and condemn these attacks. Showing support for Charlie Hebdo does not mean that publications in Europe or America replicate the editorial judgements of the French magazine. Before these attacks, even those who believed in artistic license and liberal use of freedom of expression are said to have started feeling sickened by the sick lampooning indulged in by this relic of the past, offending equally, Muslims, Jews and Christians and politicians of all colours and hues. Along with this unnecessary brutality, the likely backlash against the Muslim population of the West in response makes the perpetrators doubly guilty.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 11th, 2015.
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It certainly is!!
I may not like those cartoons, but people who like them have every right to see it. It is not my right to deny them that right.
Nice balanced editorial. We need to revisit Newtons Law -- Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Killing because we feel insulted by something can never be acceptable, since we all have suffered insults multiple times in our lives and if we follow this example, the world will have millions of mass murderers. That Islam is in crisis is visible to all, that the Islamic narrative is under the control of religious extremists is also very evident. That this needs to change is obvious. The West has had fairly open immigration policies that they are slowly coming to rue, due to social disharmony. Sooner or later there will be a backlash not merely against Muslim immigrants, chance are that fewer visas may be issued to Muslims, more so those from Islamic countries. Somehow this will impact economic progress of Muslim countries. We live in an age where scientific spirit needs to be encouraged and cultivated, not an no questioning attitude that stifles the process of rational inquiry. More so in an era where intellectual capital will drive innovation as we slowly move away from resource based wealth to human resource based initiatives. There is a crying need to keep up with changing times else those rooted to fixed and dated ideologies will suffer economic atrophy and frustration. In a dynamic world where the only constant is rapid change, adaptability, flexibility and ability to cooperate will separate winners from losers. No country can afford to carry historical or ideological lodestones around its neck and expect to compete. All countries will need to focus on education, development and empowerment of their human resources, else they will never get the leadership that can capitalize on the opportunities available.
A lot of "sensible" muslims have supported the attack against Charlie.
Editorial too is trying to defend the attack subtly. Crying for hate campaign against Muslims/ Islam but unable to see that intolerance and violent means will have its reactions. why call it a hate campaign (will follow). This is what Muslims have earned by allowing the extreme intolerance be used by the society's so called misguided members.
When muslims are in minority, they create problems. When in majority too, they create problems.
Here is the reason for the growing Islamophobia around the world: When a large majority of a faith believes that anyone who attacks their faith deserves a violent fate, whereas attacks on other faiths is perfectly normal and acceptable.
Islamophobia happens because people will treat you exactly like how you treat others. Expecting a different outcome is foolishness.
We deny basic human rights to minorities in Musim countries but constantly whine about Islamophobia and discrimination of Muslims in countries where we are minorities. We should have the decency to admit Muslims have equal privileges and freedoms unavailable to non-muslims in our countries. This is not the time to start whining about Muslim phobia.