Mitch Diamantopoulos: Charlie Hebdo and the war on religious satire

Censorship of the sacred, from Life of Brian to fatwa and jihad

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      On January 7, religious extremists burst into the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, gunning down four cartoonists and a contributor for heresy. The world hung breathlessly on the events which followed.

      The problem, of course, is that the Qur’an forbids any portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad. The irreverent Charlie Hebdo had not spared the prophet from its wide cast of comic caricatures. The die had been cast.

      By drawing their prophet, the French heretics had offended fundamentalist Islam and sealed their fate. Shar’ia law was on the assailants’ side. It was righteous justice and a lesson to others who might insult Islam. In the gunfights which followed, the killers died as martyrs.

      From the perspective of their victims, how could they spare Islamic extremism? The French democratic republic had long fought the church, the monarchy, and later fascism to win the precious freedom to think, write, and draw freely. Charlie Hebdo was an icon of this proud Enlightenment tradition of ridiculing the ridiculous and deflating the powerful.

      Submitting to censorship would thus surrender satire, one of the great fonts of their freedom. Predictably, they instead followed in the footsteps of Voltaire who famously declared “the pen is mightier than the sword”. Intimidation did not still their pencils. True to their democratic faith, they too died as martyrs.

      These theocratic and democratic ideologies finally careened into the fateful bloodbath of January 7. This was a great tragedy of a divided humanity, superficially connected by our wired new world only to talk past each other at the speed of light.

      It was also a microcosm of the clash between the secular democratization of global society and the fundamentalist backlash against it. Much weighs in the balance of this contest, including the future of religious satire and free expression.

      “You’ll probably get away with crucifixion”

      The case for religious satire is firmly rooted in the French Enlightenment tradition. In the absurdist style of Monty Python, Charlie Hebdo’s lampooning of totalitarian Islam is clear to the western eye.

      Nevertheless, it is a courageous person who locks horns with the forces of religious fervour.

      For example, while John Cleese lives to crack wise to this day, Monty Python’s religious satire was also denounced as blasphemous when Life of Brian was released in 1979. The film tells the tale of mistaken identity that defines the life of Brian. He is born next door to, and on the same day as, Jesus. Others conclude he is the Messiah.

      Not everyone was amused by this brash premise. EMI Films withdrew financing, the BBC and ITV snubbed it, and bans were imposed in Norway, Ireland, and the U.K.

      A generation of corporate and cultural officialdom thus sent a clear message to those who might follow in the troupe’s silly footsteps: don’t mock Christianity.

      Of course, the satirists persisted and prevailed. We now laugh at such preposterous pandering. Few today would suggest the film should be burned, in deference to Christian sensitivities and the censors’ better judgement.

      The decline of deference to the church, signalled by the runaway success of Life of Brian, was not a trivial development.

      Popular questioning of religious dogma had been set in motion by the sixties cultural revolution. It reached its apogee in Python’s audacity, further shattering the church’s aura of infallibility. This new attitude helped open the door to serious investigations of child sexual abuse by clergy.

      Church dogma, on issues of divorce, abortion, sexual orientation, birth control, the ordination of women, and same sex marriage, all withered under the scrutiny of an uncowed populace.

      Satire had once again played its part in deflating the clergy’s authority, loosening social control and expanding popular freedoms.

      By contrast, Charlie Hebdo ventured into far more dangerously uncharted waters.

      These were profoundly more dangerous cultural politics than any quarrels their cross-Channel cousins at Monty Python might ever have had with the high priests of either the BBC or the Church of England.

      “See, not so bad once you’re up!”

      A more apt parallel might therefore be the storm unleashed by Salman Rushdie’s acclaimed 1989 novel The Satanic Verses. It reflected on his immigrant experience as a Muslim raised in India but relocated to Britain, and his ensuing sense of cultural displacement and alienation.

      However, his novel was also partially inspired by the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Consequently, it did not impress one particularly spiteful new literary critic. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Rushdie for mocking Islam, triggering a botched assassination attempt that August.

      Like the Python crew, Rushdie’s satire was criticized as blasphemy and an abuse of freedom of speech. Like Life of Brian, his book was similarly banned—from 12 countries with large Muslim populations. Elsewhere, cautious book-sellers withdrew it from their display cases.

      Unlike the merely exasperated fate of the Pythons, the fatwa forced Rushdie into years of police protection. Book stores were fire-bombed, copies of the book were burned at rallies, his Japanese translator was killed and other collaborators in its publication were attacked and seriously injured. The bounty offered for Rushdie’s execution reached over $3 million.

      A biting chill on critical writing about Islam now swept the intelligentsia and the world’s publishing houses. A quarter-century later, it’s hard to imagine someone daring to write a book like The Satanic Verses.

      Consider the case of Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz. He found Rushdie’s book offensive. Nevertheless, he signed a petition arguing that “no blasphemy harms Islam and Muslims so much as the call for murdering a writer”. Mahfouz was later stabbed in the neck by fundamentalists.

      We will never know how many articles, books, plays, exhibits, and films never passed go with nervous writers, artists, and executives as a result of Rushdie’s very public and protracted persecution.

      We only know that this great silence left jihadism intellectually unchecked and politically emboldened to widen their culture war: rolling back education for girls, beheading journalists like James Foley and Steven Sotloff and targeting Danish and French cartoonists, to cite but a few examples.

      As jihadist propaganda became more aggressive, the chill of self-censorship further muted and wore down its critics.

      In 2010, Al Qaeda’s hit-list of figures who had “insulted Islam” was published. To no one’s surprise, the theologically incorrect novelist was still in the jihadists’ sights. The list would soon be expanded to include Charlie Hebdo’s Stéphane “Charb” Charbonnier.

      I think he said, “blessed are the cheese makers”

      After the January 7 attacks that took Charb’s life, a battle-weary but brave Rushdie was quick to defend Charlie Hebdo and denounce its assassins.

      “Satire has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity,” he told Time.

      “Religious totalitarianism,” on the other hand, he diagnosed as “a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam”.

      The fundamentalist faithful were unconvinced.

      With the release of Charlie Hebdo’s post-attack edition, featuring a tearful prophet on its cover, violent demonstrations broke out in Algeria, Pakistan, and Jordan. Five were killed and dozens injured at a protest in Niger, a former French colony. Churches were also attacked.

      And so the cycle begins again, with democratic free expression deeply chilled. The mutually reinforcing fundamentalisms of Islam’s fascist mullahs and jihadis, on the one hand, and the racist, right-wing residents of Islamophobia, on the other, have the megaphones now. They will further intensify the conflict. More blood will surely be spilled by this great twin retreat from pluralist democracy into reactionary tribalism.

      For now, the vast majority of humanity is left to cower, writing and drawing in the shadows and whispering in the crossfire.

      Comments

      3 Comments

      SPY vs SPY

      Jan 22, 2015 at 7:26pm

      All Religions are made up from - Historical Fact - Historical Fiction and Mythology.

      It seems that to "To Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you" only sinks into the Human Psyche - when you attach Hell, Limbo and Eternal Damnation to it.

      All Religious Fundamentalism and Orthodoxy is all about Dominance and Violence.

      In an intelligent Canada we would Define Religion as Beliefs and Faith - That Encourage and Inspire Followers to lead lives of Decency, Honesty and Respect for All Others.

      We should also have Criminal Laws that Prohibits Any Religious Group or Person - From Propagating Hate towards other Religious Beliefs.

      And I think that the Death Penalty SHOULD be brought back and applied to those who would advocate War and Murder in the name of RELIGION.

      By the way - Did you hear the one about The Pope - Three Chickens - a Penguin and a Nun???

      James Blatchford

      Jan 22, 2015 at 7:49pm

      Brilliant analysis. Long live satire.

      SPY vs SPY

      Jan 23, 2015 at 8:35am

      Religions since the beginning of all Religious Beliefs - are supported by two Principals

      Morality and Mythology

      People from anywhere on Earth who support and deeply believe in The Morality of their Religious Beliefs - can get along together.

      Folks who Cling to The Mythology of their Religion - Despise all other Religions and this leads to Orthodoxy, Intolerance, Racism and eventually War and Murder.

      Definition of Fundamentalism - They're NO FUN AND THEY'RE MENTAL!!!!!