Satire, free speech, religion and Charlie Hebdo

I am back from Spain and thought I'd pick up where I had left off with the emotive Charlie Hebdo terrorism story. I realize it is very hard for some of you to talk about it even on social media - let me tell you what happened. I was in beautiful Granada when I noticed that a reader of mine had posted a question on her Facebook page about the Charlie Hebdo attack. I composed a reply to her question but was given an error message when I tried to post that reply. I then refreshed my browser window only to find that she had removed that posting with that question altogether: in an apparent act of self-censorship. I don't like that: firstly because I thought she had asked a valid question. And secondly, if someone had said to her, "hey you can't say that on Facebook, it's offensive." Then fair enough - but I doubt anyone did, she just got scared and then censored herself minutes after having posted that question.

That is wrong because she was giving in to the terrorist who wants to censor all of us, to censor this discourse we should be able to have as sensible, mature adults. We don't need to agree with each other on the issue, but we should at least be able to talk about it without feeling scared or worried. So her question is something like this: "On social media, I see Christians being attacked all the time, like during that whole City Harvest Church saga and Sun Ho's China Wine pop career outrage, people went to town criticizing Christianity and we all just accepted it as valid discourse in the name of 'freedom of speech'. When Israel bombed the hell out of Gaza last year, people are not afraid to criticize Jews and Zionists. But we are all walking on eggshells when it comes to Islam, like we're so afraid to provoke the Muslims. And after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, this is only going to be reinforced. So why is this the case? Why are Muslims so sensitive to criticism whilst it is open season to mock any other religion?"

Well that is a fair question and I thought, since my reader has removed that from her Facebook feed, I shall talk about that on my blog today. Please note that this is a very big topic and I shall be focusing primarily on France, since the Charlie Hebdo massacre needs to be understood in the context of French society. I am also only really looking to offer my personal perspective as both an ethnic minority and an immigrant who has lived in both France and the UK for many years. I will also be using examples from the UK, since I am British and have spent more time living in the UK than France. In fact, the recent news about the terrorists in Belgium was shocking as I have been to Verviers, it was a town very near Liege where I had worked in Belgium. Now firstly, in both France and the UK, it is accepted that anyone should have the right to express an opinion about religion, even if it is one that is highly critical of religion. Such is the way we value free speech here. Both countries are secular society - that means that religion and the state are kept apart, our laws are not defined by religion(s): hence nothing is sacred, nothing is so taboo that it is off limits.

I have a personal connection to France and Paris having lived there.

Are we living in a consequence free environment where anything goes in the name of "free speech"? Hardly. Quite the opposite. Our societies dictate what is acceptable and what is not: for example, numerous people in France have been arrested for supporting the Charlie Hebdo attacks in social media. Speaking up in support of terrorism does tantamount to inciting violence against certain groups of people and there are laws clearly outlawing it. Likewise, if you said anything homophobic or racist in the UK or France, you could end up facing the wrath of the law and the sanctions of your peers: as the owner of Wigan Athletic Football Club Dave Whelan found out the hard way. Oh there are limits to what you can say in the name of "free speech" and admittedly, publications like Charlie Hebdo are indeed pushing the boundaries of what is considered acceptable, even to us liberals.

So why are Muslims so sensitive in the UK and France then? Well, thankfully not all Muslims are that intolerant here - there are some who are extremely open in the way they have engaged the wider community in light of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. That's why I like this story: a French-Muslim cafe owner in the East End of London has received death threats from another Muslim for putting up the sign "Je suis Charlie" in his cafe. The person who issued the death threat was not open for dialogue - he was offended by the "Je suis Charlie" sign and wanted it removed or else. This story shows the two extremes in the Muslim community both here in the UK and in France. We most certainly should not treat all Muslims in the West as if they are a monolithic entity - no, that wouldn't be helpful at all.

You see, I am more your typical Brit. Yes there are things that offend and upset me, I particularly have a deep hatred for anyone who works in public transport in London because those lazy fuckers are always going on strike, demanding more pay and their unions are highly unreasonable. That's why I was so pleased when Bob Crow died as he was the most vile of them all. However, I draw the line at voicing an opinion online and I know I will offend many people when I say I took great joy when I learnt that Bob Crow died. But will I issue death threats at my local tube station each time they threaten to go on strike? No I don't - I am offended and disgusted by those greedy bastards and I wish them an early death Bob Crow style, but I do not issue death threats because that is illegal and I don't wish to end up in jail. I have a clear sense of right and wrong and I know where the line is; thus I am careful not to cross it.

I guess for me, there is a sense of resignation when I am offended by the actions of the public transport workers. Yes I think they are lazy greedy bastards with a sense of entitlement, but what can I do? I can refuse to use public transport as much as possible: I cycle around London most of the time vand only use public transport for journeys that stretch beyond a reasonable bike ride (30 minutes). Since I live in the heart of London in the West End, practically everywhere I need to go is within a 30 minutes bike ride radius of my home. That's the way I react to the situation: there is something I can do, I can boycott public transport in London by becoming a cyclist. Thus when those lazy bastards go on strike, I can still zip through the streets of London on my bike without being held ransom by their strikes. That's my reaction to the situation: I cycle, I don't issue death threats. I have strong opinions but I'm still a reasonable person.

Some news stories can provoke a rather extreme reaction.

Nonetheless, we have to try to understand the Muslims who do issue death threats as in the case of the Je suis Charlie cafe in the East End of London. In doing so, they are taking matters into their own hands because they have no faith in the system. You see, in a democracy, it sucks to be in the minority when you are overruled by the will of the majority. Singaporeans who do not like the PAP still have to contend with the fact that 60.14% of the electorate chose the PAP at the last elections, hence they do have the democratic mandate to form a government and if you don't like the PAP, well, you tak suka, you boleh keular dari Singapura. In the case of Singapore, there are plenty of Singaporeans who have indeed taken matters into their own hands, such as the infamous Roy Ngerng, with rather disastrous consequences I'm afraid. I've not heard anything from him in a few months, what is he up to these days?

You see, the vast majority of the French and British people have stood up in the last few days to say, "Je suis Charlie!" because they have been just so mortified by the horrific massacre in the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris. If you are person who wants to voice an opinion to the contrary, well your voice is just going to be drowned out and you risk arrest if you dare speak in support of the terrorists. Even prominent Muslims - such as the Muslim mayor of Rotterdam - are speaking up in support of the "Je suis Charlie" movement and told Muslims in the Netherlands to "fuck off" if they don't want to embrace freedom in Europe. So what can you do if you find yourself in the minority, holding an opinion that is contrary to the prevailing attitude held by the majority? What if you complain but are told that there's really nothing to be done even if you are very offended apart from voicing your objections? What can you do then?

Well there are two options. You can either keep quiet about it and turn the other cheek, or you can take matters into your own hands. People do take matters into their own hands have a few ways of doing so and in the case of Islam in the West, there are certain buttons they are conditioned to push. Issuing death threats or killing journalists are very extreme measures, More often than not, a much simpler button to push is simply to play the victim's card. I have seen everyone from ethnic minorities to religious groups to women to the LGBT community play the victim's card: quite simply, you're saying, "I have been a victim of discrimination, I deserve protection within the framework of the law." This is a direct appeal to common sense, a plea for justice. It can work of course, because we do have anti-discrimination laws to protect people from bigotry in our societies and certainly, discriminating against someone on the basis of religion or race/ethnicity/culture is illegal in both France and the UK.

Allow me to share a story from my primary school days in Sembawang: there was an irritating boy in my class, let's call him Kang. He managed to get hold of a pile of rubber bands and was shooting those randomly at people around him. I was hit on the neck and boy it did hurt - I had two choices, I could report him to the teacher or I could take matters into my own hands. As the teacher was busy, I tried to reason with him, but to no avail. Kang wasn't a reasonable person, he was an idiot who took joy in causing pain to others. The teacher had scolded him many times before for his behaviour but he always persisted. I knew that if I had responded with violence by hitting Kang (believe you me, I was tempted) I would get into trouble myself, so I didn't quite know what to do. Kang got into fights all the time anyway, that's just the way he was. Kang then fired a rubber at a girl (let's call her May) and it hit May at the top of her head, on her hair. May knew exactly how to react: she screamed at the top of her voice - I swore it was so loud that practically everyone in the school heard her blood-curdling scream, even the teacher from next door ran over to see what had happened. May held her eye, screaming and crying so convincingly, "Kang shot a rubber band into my eye!"

May knew how to get what she want, but was she right?

That was a lie of course, I saw that Kang had fired it at her head, it didn't go anywhere near her eye. But May was putting on a good show as she wanted to get Kang into trouble, she was screaming and crying so loudly that the teacher said, "we must get her to the hospital at once, should we call an ambulance or can we get someone to drive her to Toa Payoh hospital immediately?" By this time, May had been crying so much that her eyes were red, so the teacher was alarmed at how red her eyes were. Kang protested that he didn't shoot her eye, that he had only hit May's hair but the teacher didn't believe him and asked me as I was standing close by. "Did Kang shoot that rubber band into May's eye?" Having been a victim of Kang's rubber bands and having failed to reason with Kang, I got vindictive and lied. "Yes he did. He was shooting rubber bands at everybody!" Kang got into a lot of trouble over that incident. I knew that if May hadn't put on such a good show, she wouldn't have managed to get the teachers to give her the kind of  attention she needed. In short, she had seen me fail in trying to reason with Kang and she knew exactly how to get what she wanted: she played the victim's card really well.

Such is the world we live in: people are not always reasonable, it is not always possible to achieve a positive result through amicable means and sometimes, the only way to get what you want is to play the victim's card and lie. In an ideal world, Kang wouldn't have been shooting rubber bands at May and I in the first place, but then again, the world is full of people like Kang and sometimes the only way to stop him was to take matters into our own hands as trying to be reasonable or honest doesn't work. When we apply this principle to the complexities of modern society, people often give in to the temptation to play the victim's card because they know that it could often get them a better result than if they tried to be reasonable. This has nothing to do with Islam or any kind of religion - this is simply the mindset of people who choose to play the victim's card. Likewise, I'm sure we have all felt the temptation to play it before.

How do you feel about people who play the victim's card?

So we have a situation whereby if a cafe owner refuses to hire someone because he is Muslim or black, then it is discrimination and illegal. But if a satirical magazine like Charlie Hebdo wants to mock Islam, then you have the right to be offended and protest, but it is not illegal. Believe you me, even I don't know how we can get this balance right - I am appalled by the way UKIP can get away with downright racist rhetoric and don't get me started on the appallingly homophobic crap spewed by some of the religious organizations; but I accept that it is better to have a somewhat messy situation like this than to have the kind of censorship in Singapore where everyone is extremely cagey about expressing any kind of opinion that is not sanctioned by the state.

This is all underlined by the rule of law: an understanding that if anyone crosses the line by going too far, then it is up to the state to sort it out the situation through the enforcement of law and that is why we have legislation for example outlawing hate speech.  This is something I was taught as a child in Singapore: if another student misbehaves, you do not take matters into your own hands. You simply run to the teacher and report the incident, with the understanding that the teacher would step in and resolve everything. This is something we are expected to do as members of society by extension of that same concept: this does however fall apart if people have no faith in the figures in authority (the police, the government, community leaders etc)  to give them the justice they seek. It is only when they are driven by such utter desperation and despair that they take matters into their own hands, as in the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

Do Muslims have trust in the authority in France and the UK? I would like to think that the vast majority do, but a small minority don't. In the case of France, Muslims are expected to assimilate and become very French if they want to be accepted as part of French society, but that does not sit well with French Muslims who wish to pursue a stricter form of Islam. Take the simple act of attending a social gathering in France, like a birthday party or an office party. Alcohol would be served at such an occasion and snacks which are not Halal would be  served - a more secular Muslim would gladly attend the event but refuse to drink any alcohol or eat any of the snacks. A stricter Muslim would simply choose not to go to such an event for a number of reasons: perhaps he would not feel comfortable socializing with others who are intoxicated by the effects of alcohol or perhaps he would not feel comfortable standing out as the only person who is not participating in the drinking and eating. He then has a choice: do I want to show the French people that I am assimilating into their culture, or do I stick by the rules of my religion?

French culture can be unforgiving to those who are seen not to assimilate and this is a vicious cycle that has been going on for decades. Muslim immigrants who do not assimilate quickly enough are pushed to the margins of society, their children are brought up feeling alienated, lacking a sense of belonging to France. Their parents may also be a part of the problem, if they are simply not in a position to teach their children how to assimilate, when they are not leading my example themselves. As a result, they are unable to access the best education and jobs - they feel a sense of frustration and despair and this is makes them vulnerable to become radicalized by the extremists who feed off this sense of frustration. It is within this context that the Muslim community in France and the UK are particularly sensitive to any kind of criticism in the media. They already experience discrimination and alienation thus they are far less likely to simply turn the other cheek when someone makes fun of their religion. Claiming victimhood when they feel offended is just one of the ways they are trying to empower themselves and their community, because they can influence the actions of others by speaking up as a victim. And guess what? Playing the victim works - otherwise they wouldn't do it.

Another fact that may explain this phenomena is that the Muslims in the West often are practicing Muslims who take their religion very seriously. In the case of Christianity, well, it is a religion experience a steep decline in the UK. In the last census, 59.5% of the respondents claimed they were Christians, but only about 10% of the UK population bother going to church regularly on Sundays. In France, 58% of French people are Christian (Catholics and Protestants combined) but only about 15% bother going to church on Sundays. And if you were to look at these statistics over time, the number of people who have declared that they are Christians and the number of church goers have fallen steadily over the last few decades as the average age of church congregations have risen steadily. This is because it is primarily the elderly who keep going to church whilst the youths in France and the UK have little interest in religion. As the older church goers die off, the percentage of practicing Christians keep falling in France and the UK. Islam however, has shown a steady growth and the number of Muslims in both countries have grown.

So in this context, it is easy for French and the British to mock Christianity since the vast majority of them either don't take it seriously or do not practice it at all - only 10-15% of the population bother going to church regularly and they recognize that in doing so, they are a minority within their communities. Christianity has lost its ability to impact Western societies decades ago with its decline, the new religion ruling the west are the twin pillars of capitalism and consumerism. Have you seen what Christmas has become in the West? It is of course, unreasonable to expect Muslims to take that same cavalier approach to religion when they have a very different attitude when it comes to Islam. Nonetheless, Christians who do take their religion seriously can and of course do speak up when they feel that their religion is under attack and this has created so much terror and fear in Northern Ireland over the last few decades: so many people have been killed, so many lives destroyed in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, all in the name of religion. Remember that Islam is not the only religion associated with terrorism!

Consumerism is the now the main "religion" in the UK

Furthermore, there is a culture of self-deprecation in the West that simply does not exist in the East. So if you said to me, "hey Alex, you've put on weight, you must've gained like 5 kilograms", I would laugh it off and reply, "Really? Thank you! That's great! Because what you didn't know is that I've actually gained 12 kilograms in the last few months but you think I've gained only 5 kilograms!" That's self-depreciation to deflect an insult and it is something that Brits and French have used over the centuries - it is a part of our literary tradition. However, when my neighbour in Singapore said to my sister that she had put on weight, my sister ran home crying and swore, "I hate that stupid bitch next door! I never want to talk to her ever again! How dare she call me fat!" Being Singaporean, she just took offence and didn't know how to react to the rather blunt comment about her weight from our neighbour. It's a cultural thing.

So if someone makes fun of you or something associated with your culture or religion, you either make a joke out of it or you find something about the other party to make fun of. Some Arab journalists and cartoonists understand that principle and have done just that - you can see their work here. Of course, it takes a certain amount of wit, intellect and ability with words/graphics to come up with such an eloquent response and not everyone is capable of that. Let's not pretend for a moment that everyone in the UK or France has the wit of Shakespeare or Moliere - but that is why magazines like Charlie Hebdo and Private Eye (the UK equivalent, a great satirical magazine) exist. Many of us are more than happy to let the journalists and cartoonists express those sentiments on our behalf and we simply consume their work (be it in print format or on TV - there are plenty of comedy programmes based on satire in the UK, see clip below). This is no different from the way I don't bake my own bread - I buy it from the supermarket instead because it is cheap and I know I cannot produce that same quality of bread in my kitchen. Likewise, I didn't try to come up with the whole #JesuisCharlie concept - I merely jumped on the bandwagon when everyone was using it on social media.

Perhaps it is a little simplistic for me dismiss this as just a cultural misunderstanding, but I do believe that a lot of foreigners simply do not get British humour. And as for French humour, even with my very good command of the French language (after having studied at a top French university and worked in France), sometimes I still don't get French humour because it is one thing to be able to speak French well, it is another to understand the subtle nuances of a joke which makes the punchline funny within a certain cultural context. So even if I don't find a French joke drôle, my first instinct would be to pause and think, "why is this funny, what is the French cultural context I am missing?", rather than risk jumping to the wrong conclusion and possibly taking offence. Of course, expecting Muslims to take the same approach when they see the prophet Mohammed being depicted on the cover of Charlie Hebdo in a satirical manner is, admittedly, a big ask because you're expecting them to play by French rules: "We are making fun of your religion but please do feel free to make fun of us in return if you take offence." Well some people do not believe that the French satirical magazines should get to make all the rules, especially in the age of the internet where anything you publish goes global in a matter of seconds online. Why should French culture get to dictate the rules of engagement? Why are they not considering the cultural context of others affected by their works of satire?

I speak as both an ethnic minority and as an immigrant in the UK (I have also lived and worked in France, Belgium and Germany): there are bound to be clashes of culture when you find yourself in my position, that is inevitable. The culture that I grew up with was vastly different from what I am encountering today, but there is a lot of adapting to do and none of that is easy, of course. And yes, I do believe that if some immigrants in Europe do find the culture so difficult and impossible to assimilate and adapt to, then they should seriously consider moving to another country where they will feel a lot happier and comfortable with the culture. That would be taking the path of least resistance: after all, look at the terrorists who carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre. What did they achieve? They got killed in the process but did they manage to change French society? No. Might they have been happier if they have simply moved to another country and lived happily there? Let's not forget that the Kouachi brothers were young men who had a whole life ahead of them - the fact that they died this way, in a terribly misguided attempt to change French society, is undeniably very sad. I've lived in France. Either accept it for what it is or move away. But no, you can't change it - not even with a Kalashnikov in your hand. Instead, be rational and pick your battles in life, so you can be happy.

That's it from me on this issue - I know it is a huge topic and I am not going to be able to cover everything, so if there is another aspect that you wish to talk about after having read my piece, that's what the comments section below is for. I am just trying to give my personal response to an awkward question that my Singaporean reader didn't dare to ask properly. Over to you, let's see what your response is on this issue. Thank you so much for reading. Merci beaucoup.