Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons are not in bad taste, your outrage over them is

Liberals who couldn’t trash the magazine enough in January are having a field day.

WrittenBy:Arunabh Saikia
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Charlie Hebdo is back – and this time it’s Je ne suis pas Charlie (I’m not Charlie). In fact, for many Indian liberals – and the world over, indeed – it was the same nine months ago too.  But since the episode involved the murder of more than a dozen people in cold blood, it didn’t seem right to be so outright about the magazine’s “racism” and “bigotry”.  So some people then, said Je suis Charlie; the support, it was made categorically clear by this lot, was for the magazine’s freedom of expression but not its cartoons. There were others who attached a “but” to the freedom of expression value too. This time, though, (presumably because no one’s been gunned down yet), the criticism has been much more pointed and free flowing after the magazine published these two cartoons.

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Loosely translates to: “So close to the goal.” The hoarding says: “Special offer! 2 children’s menu for the price of 1!” Basically, it’s trying to say the Syrian child was so close to the goal of getting to the country where you get two burgers for the price of one, courtesy McDonald’s.
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Loosely translates to: A man that resembles Jesus: Christians walk on water. The child: Muslim children drown.

The cartoons, it has been contended, “mocks” the death of a Syrian child, Aylan Kurdi, who had died on a Turkish beach, while fleeing from the Syrian civil war with his family.

Author and poet Meena Kandasamy wrote on her Facebook page that the cartoons were neither freedom of speech, nor satire.

Journalist Samrat X, on Twitter, called Charlie Hebdo “a rag of racist snobs with no talent for humour, or anything”. Samrat’s position on Charlie Hebo, has, notably, been constant. He had articulately stated, in the aftermath of the attacks in January, his position on Charlie Hebdo’s brand of satire — and the idea of secularism in general. I don’t agree with either, but he, to his credit, did not conflate the two issues of freedom of speech and sensibility.

A piece in the online news portal, Catch, calls the cartoons “a perfect example of how easy it is to lose respect”.

Many other notable Indian Twitter liberals made their displeasure known.

https://twitter.com/aruns_nambiar/status/643714302793392128

Gladly, there were a few who saw the satire for what it was.

https://twitter.com/ShoaibDaniyal/status/643435965910925312

As Kandasamy points out but colossally fails to recognise, the cartoons pose two questions: one of the quality of satire and the other of freedom of expression. That the cartoons are not remotely racist, I have not a doubt in my mind.  In fact, I’d go so far to say that any adult with average intelligence should be able to discern that they are simply pot shots at Europe’s consumerist culture and Christian identity.

But that matters not, because many people may find them offensive and Islamophobic – and it is not entirely irrational to pass a value judgment on them. A lack of sense of humour, after all, is hardly criminal even if mildly annoying.  But, pray, tell me, how is it not freedom of speech?

Let us for a moment say the cartoons are indeed racist and Charlie Hebdo consists of bunch of white old men (which, just for the record, is far from the truth). Does that mean that they do not have a right to opinion?  Kandasamy has been the subject of some vicious attacks for her inflammatory writing (much of which I admire) — and people have stood up for her right to expression even if they didn’t always agree with her views. It is odd – and I am being charitable here – that an author, as strongly opinionated and anti-establishment as Kandasamy, thinks freedom of speech is conditional.

A line in the Catch article goes: Being a news outfit, it is easy to hide behind the veil of ‘freedom of speech’ and this is precisely what Hebdo did.  Even if you forgive the epic ignorance the statement betrays, it is ludicrous that a journalist thinks of freedom speech as a “veil”. While Charlie Hebo is definitely not hiding behind a veil, the author of the Catch article, though, does seem to be blinded by a mammoth wall of witlessness.

Another article in the same portal asserts: With the European Union facing the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II, our moment (or any) does not have a place for satire that strikes at the bottom.  It is a highly fallacious argument. It undermines the power and nature of satire. More crucially, it ignores Charlie Hebdo’s body of work, which has always been fervently irreverent about delicate political issues.

There’s a very predictable pattern to most of the anger against Charlie Hebdo’s latest cartoons. Most people who have been offended by them think of themselves as liberals, and think Charlie Hebdo crossed the line last time too, but refrained from saying it aloud on grounds of propriety.  More remarkably, almost all of them are vocal proponents of freedom of speech.

The irony, however, is more tragic than funny. Let me explain this.

Most of these people are reasonably smart. It is, therefore, hard to believe that the satire of the two news cartoons was lost on them – and that they genuinely believe Charlie Hebdo was making fun of a dead child. Which makes me suspect that the latest outrage against the magazine is simply people making amends for having not been able to criticise the magazine enough in the past because, you know, murdered staff and editor and all that. The covers, which led to almost the entire editorial staff being gunned down by Muslim fanatics in January, did not go down well with most of these people.  The argument articulated in many editorials and living rooms was that Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons failed to address the lopsided political environment of the world – and they were asking for it.  In short, another instance of Indian liberals failing to call a spade a spade – and then proceeding to intellectualise their hypocrisy without a second thought.

This time, on the shoulders of a dead three-year old, they have the perfect opportunity to train their gun on Charlie Hebdo’s “majoritarian” politics. Hopefully, a trigger-happy fundamentalist won’t spoil the party.

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