Je suis Charlie...?

Je suis Charlie Hebdo... or am I? Ok, so I know that this post may look like it’s being put up several weeks too late but there is a reason behind that. This week I’m off to Paris, a city most famous for romance and fine cuisine but also, for the last month and a half, one of the most shocking terrorist attacks of recent decades. A group of cartoonists gunned down in the prime of life simply because they legitimately expressed free speech.

Well, that’s one version. Another,  that declared by the young men who did the shooting, is that they were killed because they insulted the Prophet Mohammed and as such were blasphemers who deserved to die.

It’s not a new story of course. Think Salman Rushdie and The Satanic Verses, think The Innocence of Muslims, a film of truly awful quality produced by Egyptian Copts in the US several years ago, think too of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten back in 2005, the protests around which were the original impetus behind Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons. Islam has a strong tradition of aniconism, (a practice of shunning images of divine beings, prophets and other religious figures), whereas Western Europe has a long history of lampooning and criticising religion and its institutions. Sooner or later there are going to be clashes.

But what were my thoughts on it all. After all, as someone working with minority communities and engaged in diversity issues, this really is something that one should have an opinion on! Am I Charlie, or perhaps I am Ahmed, (the French policeman also killed in the attack), or maybe I am just, well, me?

I’m going to be honest, my initial reaction was one of empathy with the cartoonists and I immediately wanted to get out a pen and paper and draw my own Mohammed cartoon in solidarity with them.

I wanted to draw it because I can; nothing should be above lampoon or criticism and I say that as a religious person myself. The moment we say that someone or something is exempt then where do we stop? I’m a Christian so why not say Jesus is out of bounds, but everything else is ok? But then why not Moses, Abraham, St. Paul and so on? What about figures from other religions? We’d have to include Buddha, Guru Nanak and of course Mohammed? But what about semi-divine human beings who are still alive? You think I’m joking but in a couple of months’ time I’m off to North Korea where citizens are required to keep a picture of the head of state, (and his dad and granddad), on the wall and to bow before their statues and present them with flowers. Criticise them and you are in trouble! So, religious figures are out, then political, then what? Is anyone fair game to be criticised no matter how controversial they may be?

But the fact is that I didn’t draw that cartoon and the reasons why I didn't are just as important as those in favour of drawing it. Firstly there’s the inescapable fact that I’m not that good an artist and so whatever I produced wouldn’t really be worth drawing anyway. Plus there is the other inescapably fact that at the moment everyone seems to be doing Mohammed cartoons in solidarity. What could I say that would add anything worthwhile? More than that though, I didn’t do it because what other people think does matter. I have Muslim friends who would not have seen my cartoon as a brave gesture of solidarity but instead as an attack on them, as another insult. And I know other people who would have seen it as proof that I see Islam as a backward religion that is worth insulting in cartoons. My cartoon would have said nothing worthwhile, solved nothing whatsoever and instead could have only caused more mistrust and unhappiness. So I didn’t draw it.

Don’t get me wrong, free speech is something that is of immense power, it is a foundation stone upon which I believe civilisation is built and I do not agree that the Prophet Mohammed or anyone else should be exempt from it. But it needs to be used where it can make a positive difference, where it can have an impact, where it can, as it has done so often in the past, reshape our world for the better. We have the right but also we have the responsibility.

So, Je suis Charlie...or not? To be honest, I’m still far from sure? Who know; perhaps after my trip to Paris I shall have a better idea?