I’d rather not be Charlie

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.