The attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead sent shock waves around the world. Many people have felt uncomfortable with defending the magazine though, believing it's content to be offensive and bigoted. This leaves many unsure on what is the right stance to take in the aftermath of the killings.
Whatever can be said about Charlie Hebdo as a publication, there can be no doubt what-so-ever that the killings were wrong. No caveats of "but..." on the end of that, it was just wrong. There is no cartoon imaginable that could deserve the drawer to be executed.
And lets face it, there is always the opportunity to offend. I know this very well from comedy. I've even done family friendly improv-comedy shows that have lead to complaints.
What I have learnt from this is that whilst you can argue your corner to discuss issues around a potential misunderstanding, you cannot tell someone what they can are cannot be offended by. It is entirely down to the point of view of the individual.
Charlie Hebdo offended many with various cartoons that can, and correctly in my view, be considered bigoted. Perhaps there is more nuance to many of them than you would realise on first viewing, but there are certainly aspects that generalise about racial minorities. This is racism.
The main cause of offence for Muslims of course are the cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammed. Any image of Muhammed is considered harem, strictly forbidden.
It may seem extreme to non-Muslims, but consider the myriad images of Jesus that depict him as a white, western male, like a pensive Brad Pitt after a bout of the shits. That should be offensive to Christians, but instead the image has stuck.
Whilst some would say Muslims shouldn't be offended by the cartoons, that to me is not the point. They are offended by it. Not just some perceived section of the religion that is deemed "fundamentalist" or "extreme", but potentially all of them. What is the point of that?
In France there were Unity demonstrations attended by millions of people. Many holding Je Suis Charlie banners, and some holding Je Suis Ahmed banners. At the very head of the march was superb showing of sheer, brilliant, hypocrisy.
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| I wonder if the other few million are shouting "hold up!" |
Leading political figures from around the world led the demonstration, linking arms in their own sign of unity. Unity, that is, in getting a nice photo op, not unity with the rest of the demonstration as can be seen in the picture above.
Above all though is their hypocrisy in marching in defence of free speech. They all have crimes against their names in this respect, but to name just a few:
- Sameh Shoukry, Egypt Foreign minister - Egypt currently has three Al-Jazeera journalists in prison on "Terrorism" charges. In July 2013 1000 members of the Muslim Brotherhood were slaughtered when trying to demonstrate. There are 40,000 political prisoners in jail
- Ahmet Davutoglu, Prime Minister of Turkey - The country that held the record for the most journalists in prison anywhere in the world in 2012 and 2013
- Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel - 7 journalists murdered in attacks n Gaza in 2014.
As I said though, every leaders government has crimes in its name to some degree or other against freedom of speech.
It's not just world leaders who have a conflicting view on free speech, we all do. Mehdi Hassan in an excellent article in the New Statesman talks about this conflict. He points out that Charlie Hebdo fired one of it's cartoonists, Maurice Sinet, in 2008 for making anti-Semitic remarks. So attacking Muslims is fine, commendable even, but attacking Jewish people means you loose your job.
In no way am I defending anti-Semitism, but again, it's certainly a hypocritical position to take. He also pointed out that in a YouGov poll, 82% of the UK's voters said they would like to see jail sentences for those who burn poppies!
You can't vigorously defend free speech unless you defend the right for someone to say something that deeply offends you. That's the point.
"All these political arguments are all good and fine," I hear you say, "but when are you going to mention Boyzone?"
Don't worry fans, that time is now.
The reason why, is that this debate reminds me of when Stephen Gately died in 2009, and the furore that followed after a piece was published in the Daily Mail by Jan Moir. She blamed his death on his lifestyle, which was seen as her essentially blaming his death on him being Gay.
Unsurprisingly, the balloon went up over that. The Press Complaints Commission received over 1000 complaints, possibly record breaking. And understandably so, it was an appalling piece of gutter "journalism".
At the same time Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, was appearing on Question Time. As soon as it was announced he would be appearing there was an explosion of protests in response, saying he should not be allowed on the program. Needless to say, free speech was a hot topic at the time.
When asked on Question Time whether the Daily Mail should have published the article by Jan Moir the entire panel said that they should be free to publish, and clearly said that there should be no pressure from Government to change any legal framework to stop such freedom of expression.
The only person to say they shouldn't have published was Nick Griffin. It's fair to say that as a life long committed Nazi, he ain't exactly "Gay-friendly". However, for the first time in his life, he was right.
The problem was the framing of the argument. The right answer, to me, is pretty obvious. Should the Daily Mail have published the article? No. Should they have been free to publish the article? Yes.
You have to defend freedom of expression completely, but individuals and organisations still have the choice of how to express themselves. If a columnist at the Daily Mail sent the editor an article detailing their view that Jimmy Saville was such a good entertainer he deserved to have a few under age girls as personal sex slaves, do you think they would publish it? Of course not!
Should they be free to? Yes. But then people would stop buying the paper, which is our freedom. A freedom I use to my advantage every day.
Rewinding slightly though, were the protests right saying that Nick Griffin shouldn't be allowed on Question Time? Yes, I think they were. The reason is that he is a Nazi. They hide what they truly believe in the hope of gaining respectability in order to grow their organisation. Organisations that wish to gain power, and once they do, would impose a system with no freedom of speech what-so-ever. No democracy, just Fascist rule.
You cannot have the right to free speech if you wish to smash it.
One worrying trend following the attacks in Paris has been the rise in Islamophobic attacks in France. Largely unreported in the media, 26 Mosques have been attacked, with such things as pigs heads, grenades, and even someone shooting a gun through a window. 60 attacks have been reported, but there may be many more that have gone unreported.
Do you think that the two gunmen who carried out the killings at the offices of Charlie Hebdo did so because of some cartoons? That is why they targeted the office, but is that really why you would be willing to fill?
They were willing to kill, and sacrifice themselves,because of the ongoing bloodshed of Muslims around the world. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the list just goes on and on. We are presented an image in the Britain of all these conflict zones being "over there". Europe and America is "over here".
9 people shot in Paris shocks you. Many more slaughtered anywhere in the Middle East and you don't care. However, Muslims are taught to feel a connection with everyone of their faith. Those countries aren't merely "over there" for them.
But also, they are angry for other reasons. They face problems at home of racism of course, but also the effects of austerity, of job losses, of cuts in services and benefits. Problems that effect us all.
There is the message from our Government that is like a parent, putting an arm around Muslims and saying "it's ok, you're welcome here. But whilst you're under my roof, you must live by my rules." The problem is, our government is an abusive parent.
So a number of Muslims are angry. And they have absolutely every right to be. Furious in fact. You think white people don't have the same issues? Why do you think people get involved with the EDL or other such extremist organisations?
People feel the need to fight, but they don't know in what direction to punch. EDL fight Muslims and immigration and multi-culturalism in general. The terrorists in Paris attacked cartoonists. Charlie Hebdo attacks immigrants.
EDL and the terrorist are punching sideways, attacking people who are actually in the same shit as they are. Charlie Hebdo punches down, those people who are actually the most affected. What we need to do is all unite together and punch up.
To do that we need to organise and unite where possible, be a pole to attract people to the real fight.
Join the demonstrations in London, Cardiff or Glasgow on 21st March to Stand up to Racism. It's not the answer, but it's certainly asking the right question.
