Yes, I belong to the same profession as that of people who
were massacred in Paris, I condemn the attack on them as strongly as the former
French president Nicolas Sarkozy or Chairman of News Corporation Rupert Murdoch
did, and I practice the same faith that the murderers in the killing claim to
follow.
But I’d like to redeem my right to freedom of expression for
a moment here, if I am still allowed to have it, given the fact that I am a
Muslim and as the current popular notion goes all we do is oppress freedom in
every form and kill in the name of religion. That being said, I refuse to take
lessons of what Muslims in the world should do from someone like Murdoch or the
36,000 people who favorited his “Jihadist Cancer” tweet, that implies “Muslims
must be held responsible for the attack.”
There has been much commentary and opinions over what
happened in Paris last week. An article in The New Yorker talks about why
killing of 12 people associated with Charlie Hebdo is more disturbing than
killing of hundreds of children in Peshawar. The New Yorker article and many
other columnists have pointed out that the attack in Paris was an attack on
freedom of speech and expression, which is why it was more shocking than mass killing
of innocent children.
Does freedom of speech and expression hold no boundaries and
restrictions? Does it not acknowledge that being offensive might be abusing the
right to freedom? Finding something offensive might as well be subjective. What
is offensive to you might not be offensive to Charlie Hebdo. Yet, the
Australian Fashion Magazine owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp was asked to
apologize for its intern advertisement displaying model in lingerie, because it
was seen as demeaning and sexist by a feminist journalist Suzzane Carbone. Or
was it just “offensive” to some set of people who are allowed to be offended?
Whatever happened to Murdorch’s fashion magazine team’s freedom of expression
and speech there!
In no way do I mean to justify the action of killing as
retaliation or reaction to be being offended. The murderers who committed the merciless
killings might claim that they did it for Islam or to protect Islam. They say
they follow the word of Allah. Yes, there are verses in Quran that talk of war
and warfare that were prevalent in war like situation. What these people forget
or chose to ignore is that along with Quran as a guide book to live your life
by, Allah also gave you brains to use them. He also asked you to question and
introspect. He blessed you with a sense of judgement to understand the
difference between right and wrong. And killing people willy-nilly in the name
of religion is wrong, by all means.
I do not stand with these people who claim to protect their
religion by cherry picking verses from Quran, taking them out of context and
ignoring the message at the beginning of every chapter of the same Quran that
points out saying, God is merciful and generous.
The Gallup organization conducted one of largest ever
opinion polls of some 50,000 people in over 35 predominantly Muslim countries after
the attacks of 9/11 where an overwhelming majority of 93 percent of Muslims
condemned the attacks. And of the 7 percent that had a different opinion cited
political and not religious reasons to not condemn the attack.
It is miserable that a religion followed by 1.8 billion
people in the world is in question about its principles because of a handful of
jihadists who are committing murders under the pretext of Islam solely to
incite a civil war by making the world hate Muslims. It’s ironic as pointed out
in a debate that was held at Oxford University about Islam being a religion of
peace that what the Islamic radicals and Islamophobics actually have in common
is the belief that Islam asks to kill in the name of God.
As a practicing Muslim I do not go about carrying bombs in
my jacket blowing people up. I read Quran in the language I understand and
question it when in doubt. I go out with friends who accept my teetotalism,
sometimes even make fun of it, while I laugh holding back their hair when they
puke after they have had too much of drinks. I, my parents, my sisters, my
seven year old nephew, my eighty year old grandmother are all devout Muslims
and just as human as our forty three year old maid who is a practicing,
vegetarian Hindu and lives with us under a common roof.
To me, and to the millions of people who practice Islam in
the world, it is a religion for spiritual fulfillment and a way of life. And
being just as much disgusted with the killings in Paris as any non-Muslim is,
we as Muslims are also frustrated with the hypocrisy surrounding the incident
that says, either you are Charlie or you are a freedom-resisting, conservative,
radical Muslim.
Freedom of expression was also threatened when a woman
wearing veil was asked to leave the Paris Opera House just as much as it was
violated when Chinese Muslims were banned from fasting in month of Ramadan.
Why in the name of heaven would you want to snub a spiritual
person by curbing his right to practice his spirituality? And we talk of
freedom of speech that was murdered at Charlie Hebdo. Have we forgotten Maurice
Sinet who was sacked from Charlie Hebdo after he wrote a column that “incited
racial hatred” against Jews and he said he would “cut his own balls off” rather
than apologizing for what he wrote? Well, I have a firmer moral compass than
Charlie.
As much as I condemn
the attack that happened in Paris, grieve over the death of children in
Peshawar and feel sorry for abortions attacks on clinics in U.S, New Zealand
and Australia, I feel equally sad about the hypocrisy built up around the
incident. I am bothered with the reaction of people that expect me to apologize
for the religion I follow and take insults on it with a pinch of salt, because
I’d be termed as a petty minded or even worse, a violence supporting Muslim if I
cannot laugh at the satire of Charlie.
Sorry, but I have nothing to apologize for and I’d rather
not be Charlie.
