Solidarité : Thoughts on the Charlie Hebdo massacre
- By Sumantra Maitra
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E-mail China.org.cn, January 14, 2015
Finally, the argument to vilify Charlie Hebdo as racist denigrates the Muslim cop who died protecting the magazine, killed by the terrorists in the pavement outside the office in true spirit of Voltaire, and the Muslim hero who saved Jews in the second terror attack in a kosher shop. It also denigrates all the free thinking Muslims, from Majid Nawaz, to Taslima Nasreen, to Mona Eltahawy to Salman Rushdie, to millions of normal people who are bearing the first brunt of this despicable global tyranny, by putting them in the same bracket as the Jihadists.
The third argument is that the world should wait for an Islamic renaissance. This is actually a serious argument which merits a serious discussion. Renaissance is not a temporal process. It can be argued that Islam will someday have its own reformation, its own Martin Luther, Galileo, and Darwin, but where is the assurance? The renaissance in Europe didn't come in one day, it took over 700 years, and millions dead, to reach that point, the question is that, are we ready to allow that in the modern day? Are we ready to be indifferent to merciless slaughter ravaging and wiping off half of the population of the world, before an entire religion comes up to age?
The answer is no, we don't have to. There are already liberal moderate Muslims, who can be the reformers in their own community and culture. The modern secular Muslims, who want to have just a quiet and happy life, thinking about their own family and children and cars and weekend clubbing, or who want to write about how misplaced their faith is when it comes to tolerance. But that is where we are failing as humans. The fact that we are so afraid to criticize evil groups in one specific religion, out of fear of looking racist, is we are failing to support moderate, reformist secular voices, which deserve our every support. It is this fear of looking racist, is what prevented us to criticize the British Pakistani gangs sex-grooming scandals, it stopped us from supporting Theo Van Gogh when he was butchered in Netherlands, when Kurt Westergaard had to go on hiding after a crazed fanatic attacked him with an axe in his own house in his own free country, or when Ayaan Ali Hirsi had to leave Netherlands in fear of death.
Someone told me a few days back that I am taking sides, just because it feels good to be a hero. I don't know if I am a hero. I don't even know if I am right. History will judge that, I suppose. I just know that in the ongoing fight between civilization and barbarism, I am at least taking a side. But in this struggle, it would be hard for me and my conscience personally, to know that I didn't play my part. Modern civilization, with all its blessings destroyed something within some of us, the spirit to stand for what we believe is right; for progress. I hope, for the sake of sanity, we get that spirit back in time, before it's too late.
Sumantra Maitra is a foreign affairs journalist, and research scholar on Foreign Policy and Neo-Realism, based in New Zealand. He tweets @MrMaitra.
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