The unbearable weight of Charlie Hebdo toons

Let's first untangle two issues here.

1. Were the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists Islamophobes, racists, and were thus responbsible for their own deaths?

2. Should newspapers around the world have republished the toons by way of protest and upholding of free speech?

1. The first point.

What started as a trickle post the cold-blooded gruesome murders has now developed into a stream. It is being steadily suggested that the Charlie Hebdo cartoons are so bad, so offensive, so crass and mischievous, that it is almost natural justice that the cartoonists should pay for it by getting murdered.

In what Salman Rushdie aptly calls the 'but brigade', an ever-growing list of apologists at work are trying desperately to indicate that freedom of expression should carry a degree of self-censorship. Freedom is sacrosanct—but—it must be constrained in the interests of social harmony or some other goal unconnected to the primacy of individual liberty. (Read Vivek Dehejia here: http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/h9dvjWNLrQUCmbkdQu1jCK/Charlie-Hebdo-and-the-but-brigade.html?utm_source=copy).

That is one slippery slope.

Freedom of Expression is the bedrock of liberal societies, and is fiercely guarded by law in advanced nations in Europe and America. With good reason. Modern Europe has been built on the gradual retreat of oppressive traditions when faced with disbelief and mockery. To demand this cease now, as some liberals do, is to spit in the face of three centuries of history. (Read Mihir Sharma here: http://getpocket.com/a/read/811272535)

And freedom of expression cannot exist without the implicit right to offend. For FoE to work, it must be absolute. (One of the reasons why India isn't a liberal society, but more of that later).

It will be pertinent to remember that Charlie Hebdo did not single out Islam. It followed a time-honoured French satirical tradition that pulls no punches and backs out from no ridicule.

The left-wing satirical weekly has a history of pocking fun at the prophet Muhammad but also at popes, presidents and France’s high and mighty. It took digs at all forms of dogmatic thinking and sought to bring down gasbags.

In fact, in the week the cartoonists were murdered, they had taken a brutal dig at Michel Houellebecq, a well-known Islamophobe.

So why did Islam feel so threatened by the cartoons that they had to silence the mocking voices? What sort of intolerant religion teaches followers to answer a penciled mock with guns?

The Islamic militants who clearly wanted to impose a medieval speech code on a liberal society, ironically forgot that the medieval Caliphate they would want a modern society be transformed into was in itself a far more tolerant society than the home of Islam, Saudi Arabia, is right now.

Respecting religions?

What sort of an animal is "responsible satire"?

Besides, I find this a disturbing logic. Who draws the line on sand?

PK did not offend me. But PK takes a very mocking and brutally satirical look at idol worship. Not only did Hirani use one religion as the punching bag while taking perfunctory digs at others just for record, there are scenes in the movie which convey what Christianity and Islam -- both monotheistic, proselytizing faiths -- criticize Hinduism about. It questions the very basis of what constitutes Hinduism (carefully tiptoeing around Islam). It did trigger a lot of protests in India.

But, and this is important, the movie which takes a massive dig at India's dominant religion, becomes the highest-ever grosser in Bollywood. I imagine some Hindus might have seen and liked it or else this wouldn't have been possible.

But what if tomorrow some misguided Hindu youths take up guns (god forbid) against the makers of PK because the movie hurt their sensibilities? Would we then sit down and evaluate whether the degree of insult in PK was more than the degree of insult in cartoons? Would we then apply the dubious logic of shifting the blame of murders on the victims and somehow present it as though they deserved to be killed for mocking religion?

In this case, killers cease to be the violaters of the most sacrosanct of all social contracts in civil society and become some sort of vigilante justice system against all perceived hectoring of religious sensibilities.

If we are to justify and contextualize Charlie Hebbo murders, we are letting loose the possibility of civilization's degeneration into chaos.

2. The second point.

Absolutely. Because only a ruthless republishing of the cartoons will serve to bring down the culture of taking offence that so plagues religions now. There are two aspects though.

In countries where FoE has no legal heft, it could be plain risky to carry the toons and tempt a lawsuit and subsequent penalty, as in India. This is separate from the liberalness or illiberalness of the society. One assumes that in such a country as ours, where religious nutters go around wearing their faith on their sleeves, carrying Charlie Hebdo toons would be tantamount to suicide, more so as the government isn't least bit interest in uploading the freedom of expression. In fact, we have gone a step further and banned all possible avenues of right to offend with Sec 295 A.

But in liberal societies like the US, it sure was inconceivable why prominent publications like NYT, Washington Post or FT refrained from carrying the cartoons. If the terrorists had wanted to drive home their code by instilling fear of god into the opinion makers, they couldn't have succeeded more spectacularly.