Charlie Hebdo: Unending Muslim Anger At The West - Despite The Hypocrisy, The West Must Accept Complicity In The Deaths!
13 January 2015
By Abdulrazaq Magaji
A special edition of Charlie Hebdo is on sale.
Emboldened by the hypocritical speeches that
characterised last Sunday's international solidarity
rally in Paris, editors of the rag-sheet claimed three
million copies would be on sale for the next one week.
A sell-out is guaranteed and this means cool cash for
a publication whose weekly print never exceeded fifty
thousand.
As usual, hypocrisy has won and the world is basking
in its warped victory. In the thick of the madness to
commend bigots' right to offend, there was no
semblance of a whimper from world leaders that rallied
in Paris in condemnation of the excesses of Charlie
Hebdo. Iran, Turkey and a few Muslim organizations
preached moderation from the fringes but had their
voices drowned in the global display of hypocrisy.
This is hardly surprising, anyway! The message:
Charlie Hebdo did nothing wrong in caricaturing
prophets; it is their attackers that are black-faced,
intolerant Muslim fundamentalists!
Despite the hypocrisy, the West must accept complicity
in the deaths! During the week, seventeen people, made
up of journalists, cartoonists, police officers,
bystanders and three terrorists were killed and the
whole world literally came to a standstill. The anger
that greeted the killings and the global condemnation
that followed are justified. Prime minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and President Mahmud Abass, leaders of the
two countries that are responsible, albeit indirectly,
for last week's and similar targeted killings
elsewhere made it to Paris!
Overnight, a little known, backwater publication has
become world known. This could have been the aim of
its founders but it is safe to hazard a guess that the
seventeen people that were killed would still be alive
had one-tenth of those who rallied in Paris last
Sunday shouted down Charlie Hebdo and condemned the
excesses of its editors over the years. But the world
chose to play the ostrich, in the selective defence of
a dubious and hypocritical culture of freedom of
speech, as Charlie Hebdo and similar outfits and
individuals insulted and assaulted the sensibilities
of others.
According to Western narratives, which we must all
subscribe to, it is considered appropriate for people,
including Jews, to shred and make bonfires of copies
of the Holy Qur'an just as it is fashionable for
people to caricature and depict the Holy Prophet
Muhammad without considering its offence on Muslims.
In the same West, official sanctions, including long
spells in prison await expression of anti-Semitic
views such as denial of the holocaust, the term used
to describe the alleged incineration of six million
Jews by Europeans on European soil. It is on account
of holocaust-denial that Iran is being treated as a
pariah state. Freedom of speech, eh?
The unfortunate Charlie Hebdo massacre reminds us of
the frustration of the average Muslims arising from
this dilemma. Muslims are enjoined to show reverence
for all divinely-revealed books: the Holy Qur'an is
one; the others being the Old and New Testaments of
the Holy Bible, a collection of revelations which
Muslims refer to as Azzabur, Attaurah and Injil.
Rejecting any of these clearly renders a Muslim an
apostate. In essence, a Muslim cannot shred or make a
bonfire of the Holy Qur'an or the Holy Bible. Ditto
for all Prophets: None is considered a Muslim if they
insult any of the Prophets of God prominent among them
being Jesus, known to Muslims as Isa. Many non-Muslims
would be surprised to hear that Muslims would rise in
condemnation if, God forbid, a Muslim caricatures
Jesus or any Prophet for that matter!
In addition to these, Muslims are enjoined to show
reverence for and, defend places of worship which, to
them are mosques, churches and synagogues. Even in
times of war, those who seek refuge in these places
are free from being attacked. It is in the spirit of
these and several Qur'anic injunctions that mainstream
Muslims condemn and dismiss as non-Muslims and
apostates extremist groups such as Boko Haram that
target Christians and their places of worship. Muslims
have several issues with the way the West treats them
and their religion. In fact, there is this general
perception among even the most liberal Muslims that
the West deliberately seeks to undermine Islam. The
point is not that this charge is easily brushed aside;
what is at issue is that Muslims worldwide just cannot
understand why Westerners fail to understand the
Muslims' dilemma after several centuries of direct
contact between the two worlds. It is this failure,
which Muslims perceive as deliberate, that has been at
the heart of the persistent Muslim anger at the West.
What this boils down to is that since his religion
does not permit him to make a bonfire of revealed
books and depict Prophets, the Muslim is left with one
of three options when his dilemma pushes him to the
point of frustration, to the point of getting even
with the West. One, and this is favoured by majority
of Muslims, is to ignore those who deliberately seek
to undermine Islam through depicting Prophets in
cartoons and amateur videos. Two, and this is favoured
by adherents of Shi'a sect as represented by its
elevation to state policy in Iran, is to promote
holocaust-denial to state policy. The third, as with
Charlie Hebdo, is the recourse to taking up arms to
‘avenge the Prophet.'
Muslims have reasons to believe that the West has a
deliberate agenda to undermine Islam. And there is a
long-standing historical narrative behind this
feeling. According to this narrative, going back to
the Middle Ages, Christian forces from the West have
persistently sought to break the grip of Islam on its
people. By holding fast, Muslims believe, they were
able to flourish as a civilization, at times
superseding the West in many dimensions. With the
desire by the West to turn the blind eye or even
encourage Islamophobia, Muslims today, increasingly
feel justified in their belief that the onslaught on
Islam has assumed a more threatening dimension. The
fear is reinforced by the acquisition of weapons of
mass destruction which they easily deploy in defence
of Israel at the expense of the Muslim world.
Contrary to the popular misconceptions in the West,
very few Muslims subscribe to the warped ideas of Al
Qaeda and ISIS. In the same vein, many Muslims
subscribe to Western liberal democracy that seeks to
undermine their religion. What is more, a referendum
in Muslim communities would reveal that majority of
Muslims do not subscribe to the idea of wiping Israel
off the surface of the earth.
It is the failure on the part of the West to do what
it ought to do that fuels the terror machine of Al-Qa'eda
and sundry groups. It may be a bitter pill to swallow
but truth is that the Palestine is central to the
problem of terror that has gripped the world. And
doing what the West ought to do is to resolve the
Palestinian question. Otherwise, the world is not
about to see the end of more Charlie Hebdos.
* Abdulrazaq Magaji is based in Abuja, Nigeria
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EsinIslam.Com
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