Following the attack on Charlie Hebdo and eleven of his colleagues in Paris, France, a familiar refrain rang out from several quarters. Some journalists from major news networks have dubbed the assault on the satirical magazine, which had published for several years, caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed of Islam – mocking him, and calling him a terrorist, or the Prophet of Terrorists, so the argument went – a collision of cultures: a Western one that champions freedom of speech and an Islamic one that does not tolerate free speech.
Both observations are wrong.
Western culture does not in any way tolerate free speech and countries with a majority Muslim population are not entirely speechless.
For the sake of argument we shall limit ourselves to France where the attack took place.
French comedian Dieudonné who freely speaks, in satire of course, about the holocaust is a case in point. The mayors of three French cities banned him from performing, insisting that he had repeatedly violated French laws against inciting racial and religious hatred and denial of the holocaust.
Across the Atlantic Ocean, even the French-American basketball player, Tony Parker, was forced to apologize when he claimed he had inadvertently offended people by posing with Dieudonné while making a gesture called the “quenelle,” which was invented by the French comic.
Many people, predominantly Jews in France, insist that the quenelle is a kind of inverted Nazi salute, but Dieudonné claims it is simply a defiant “up yours” to the establishment, even though he still made little jokes about gas chambers at one recorded performance.
After ten years of legal cat-and-mouse games in France, in which Dieudonné—whose full name is Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, the son of a Cameroonian and a white French woman—he has been convicted for inciting racial hate, and the government of François Hollande appears to have decided that enough is enough – he’s banned everywhere.
How does his story inform our dialogue about free speech in France? Or yet, why has this story been conveniently forgotten when discussions about free speech in France arise?
There is one reason and one reason alone. When it comes to free speech, some people, Jews, can be offended, and limitations on free speech are thus placed wherever it is deemed fit. While others, Muslims, cannot claim to be offended.
The difference here I will recognize; Dieudonné is not dead, at least not yet, but Charlie Hebdo and his entourage are dead. I do not in any way condone this type of violence. Hence we must take pragmatic steps when we discuss issues surrounding free speech – who declares it and when? Who supports it and when?
Across the Atlantic Ocean from France, free speech takes on an even deeper color. Many newspapers in the United States cannot publish the N-word. And like banning comedians from mocking the holocaust, this is equally monitored in good faith.
It seems, in their most general terms and most specific of details, different things offend different people. And we don’t necessarily know why? The name for the Washington Football Team in the U.S., The Red Skins, is also a more recent debate between what offends and what does not! In this case for a group of Native Americans who have claimed offense.
Instead of play the enlightenment game of scientific advancement with Jews, African Americans or Native Americans – or the ‘I know it all so let me tell you’ game – why don’t we try something more akin to pushing for peace, tranquility and respect?
People get offended over different things for different reasons and we don’t have to know why. But we can respect them!
That would mean we must learn to be receptive towards one another whether that means we can’t publish the N-word in every sentence, or that we cannot make fun of the holocaust, or yet, that we absolutely should not make fun of a Prophet that many other civilized people revere as close to none but God!
Can we respect that?
It is the biggest hypocrisy that the French and the U.S. especially are crying out about free speech when this is a clear case of do not offend people. Especially when this is the one thing that Muslims do not want anybody to do. Can that be respected? Is it that hard to try not to offend? Nobody wants anybody to get killed, but I think we all have to be mindful of what would incite violence in other people and at least try not to step on anybody’s toes.
Here’s a little known fact: the Swastika symbol that the Nazis used was originally an Ancient Egyptian symbol meaning peace. But now Jews all around the world don’t want anyone to use the symbol, because they associate it with the Holocaust, no matter that the symbol has an original meaning before Europeans appropriated it for their own use. People comply with the wishes of Jews, so not to offend. So why can’t people comply with the wishes of Muslims to not depict the Prophet Mohammed, so not to offend? This is hardly a complex issue at hand. Either everyone makes a pact to not offend, so I guess we can start using Swastikas again.
Couldn’t agree more emphatically. This is about respect. We have to be the bigger people. But for some reason we are bullying the people we claim are lesser than us. Bullying is our way now to say – fuck you! Which is fine. Only we are not going to gain any respect with our other words!