For some years now, the editors and cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo were trying to push a message to their readers – that Islam is an intolerant religion and Muslims are barbarians. This was just one message among many. There were other targets of lampooning including Jesus Christ, Kim Jong-Un, Jewish rabbis, and French far right politicians.
The satirical attacks on Islam and Muslims were often vile and tasteless. The archive of racist, anti-Muslim cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo may well prove to be a goldmine for postmodern scholars, critical theorists and Edward Said wannabes – a primary source for essays with titles like “Knowledge production through hegemonic copulation of subaltern religious icons in Orientalist sequential art” (extra points for citing Foucault and Žižek). Many of us, however, looked at those cartoons and then just yawned. Tactless satire can indeed be very boring.
Then came the massacre of January 7, and our slumber was broken not because some French cartoonist poked us but because two gunmen broke into the editorial office of Charlie Hebdo and slaughtered twelve people. Kalashnikovs are more useful than pencils, especially for executing the staff of a newspaper who insulted Islam and its prophet. It was a brutal, gruesome carnage. What messages about Islam and Muslims were ultimately established by whom? I leave the answer to this question for my readers to work out. Verily, Allah knows best.
Within hours of the massacre in Paris, we have been reminded by different people from different directions that those gunmen (and their getaway driver) do not represent Muslims and their actions do not conform to Islam. Quite a no-brainer.
Two, three, or even 20,000 Muslims are not representative of nearly 2 billion Muslims worldwide. And establishing a connection between actual teachings of Islam and repugnant actions by some of its followers is not always an easy exercise – not easier than establishing the connection between the Catholic prescription of clerical celibacy and sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests.
But, what about fundamentalist Muslims or Islam in Islamic countries? In other words, how tolerant are Islamists (armed or unarmed) and Islamic/Muslim societies (theocracies or paratheocracies) towards those who commit the crimes of blasphemy and apostasy (perceived or real)?
Here, it is quite clear that a significant number of Muslims worldwide are virulently intolerant of criticism or insult of their religion (blasphemy) and ruthless against deviation from their religion (apostasy). And this is not exclusive to members of al-Qaeda, ISIS, or Boko Haram.
Take the cases concerning Humayun Azad, Taslima Nasreen, or Daud Haider in Bangladesh. Azad’s book Naree was banned in 1995; Nasreen was forced into exile in 1994; Haider was forced into exile in 1974/75. Their crimes? Blasphemy and apostasy.
And all of these were years before al-Qaeda became the leading franchise of global jihad. Even then, it was not al-Qaeda (or JMB, or Jamaat) that imprisoned cartoonist Arifur Rahman in 2007 or arrested four bloggers in 2013 or sacked a minister in 2014. These were not random events. For the first time is an event, the fifth time is a statistic. Are Bangladeshi Muslims tolerant of academic or feminist critiques of Islam (as opposed to vile, tasteless, and provocative cartoons) – what do the numbers say?
The numbers, of course, are very clear about worldwide Muslim attitude or tolerance towards blasphemy and apostasy. Take the study by Riaz Hassan of Flinders University in Australia. Between 1996 and 2002, Hassan surveyed more than 6,300 Muslims in seven countries about their religious and societal attitudes. One of the questions in the survey was concerning “a person [who] publicly admitted that he/she did not believe in Allah.”
In Egypt, 91% respondents agreed that “a book he/she wrote should be removed from the library;” 94% agreed that “he/she should not be allowed to preach his beliefs to others;” 69% agreed that “he/she should be fired from a job in the government;” 90% agreed that “he/she should not be allowed to teach in a university/school.”
The survey found Muslims in Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia to have a “strong” attitude against blasphemy/apostasy. In a survey of surveys in 2012, PEW Research Centre found apostasy outlawed or penalised in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Comoros, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Maldives, Malaysia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and UAE – all members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
Given these names and numbers, it is quite difficult to digest the claim now being advanced that Charlie Hebdo “was asking for it by provoking” and therefore the victims of the massacre themselves were responsible for their own murders.
Note the similarity between this and the most common of rape apology – “women get raped because they dress provocatively.” We of course do not blame or hold responsible all men when some men perpetrate sexual violence. However, we can never deny the role of patriarchy, misogyny, and sexism in fuelling men’s violence against women, especially when such violence is seen as a sign of masculinity or mardangi.
When some Muslims resort to deadly violence because they were somehow provoked by blasphemy of others, we must then look into religious intolerance that fuels such violence. On the question of intolerance, there already is the laudable call for more tolerance towards Muslims in Western societies.
We must stay alert against anti-Muslim bigotry and hate crimes following the massacre in Paris. At the same time, Muslim/Islamic societies must also issue a call for more openness and tolerance – especially towards those who criticise, ridicule, or even attack Islam. For tolerance is not a claim, but a practice.
