Tehmina Kazi - Why Charlie Hebdo Was Right to Address the Brussels Attacks
Once again, satirical
French magazine Charlie Hebdo has received significant opprobrium –
much of it unjustified — for its recent
editorial on the Brussels attacks. Posing the question “How did we end up
here?” the editorial was a paean to secularism. It bemoaned the average French
citizen’s inability to challenge religious fundamentalism in their day-to-day
lives, an inability attributed to fear and political correctness. It described
the Brussels attacks as “merely the visible part of a very large iceberg
indeed,” the invisible part being widespread hesitance to ask hard questions
about Islamic apologism, veiling, a refusal to sell ham sandwiches in a bakery,
or why so many young terrorists go through a phase of being ostensibly
irreligious. One would hope the publication would be lauded for asking serious
questions about fundamentalism, free speech and the place of religion in
society. Generally speaking, this has not been the case.
Brookings Institute
fellow Shadi Hamid tweeted that the editorial was “remarkably
bigoted.” On Facebook, Teju Cole, a Nigerian-American writer, drew comparisons with the treatment of Jews in Europe in the
1930s: “It’s hard not to recall the vicious development of ‘the Jewish
question’ in Europe and the horrifying persecution it resulted in.” At the
Guardian, Nesrine Malik wrote that “the editorial gives credence
and sanction to the view that there is no such thing as an innocent Muslim.”
All of these
interpretations are wrong. For while the examples themselves (Tariq
Ramadan, veiled woman, baker, young delinquents on their way to the airport)
are clumsy and not particularly appropriate, the questions they elicit are
pertinent. Far from saying that all Muslims are potential terrorists, the
editorial is asking whether conservative and supremacist strains of Islam have
exerted undue influence in the public sphere.
Take the young
delinquent character, who has “never looked at the Quran in his life, he knows
little of the history of religion, of colonialism, nor a great deal about the
proud country of his Maghreb forefathers.” His religious illiteracy belies the
fact that he is likely to be living a double life, and views conservative religion
as a means of redemption for his ever-accumulating “sins.” (The academic Mia
Bloom has conducted research on religion and redemption, and how this plays out
with jihadi
brides from the UK).
If he had bothered to
look at his recent history, he would see that headscarves and face-veils were
very rare among women of Maghrebian descent in France and Belgium, until the
1990s. An analogy can be drawn with people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent
in the UK. Until the 2000s, schoolgirls from these communities were better
known for wearing trousers, rather than trousers AND headscarves. It was only
when religious identity politics reared its head – as highlighted in the Women Against
Fundamentalism (WAF) book — that “British Asians” became
“British Muslims,” and garments like the headscarf and jilbāb became not only a
matter of individual choice, but a stick with which to beat schools for a
supposed lack of accommodation (the Shabina Begum litigation is a case in point). As WAF
member Pragna Patel wrote in an essay for Feminist Legal Studies in
2008,
The problem with the
state accommodation of religious fundamentalism and even moderate religious
leaderships is that it has undermined the political and social forces in our
communities that have struggled against racism, poverty and gender
discrimination.
Hisham Aidi elaborated
on the problems with letting French Islamist groups deliver state services in
his chapter for The
Bloomsbury Reader on Islam in the West:
Ni
Putes Ni Soumises aims to mobilise youths against ghettoes and for
equality, but also to counter the Islamist organisations such as the powerful
Union of Islamic organisations, which delivers services in the cités in
exchange for veiling.
The bearded baker with
a prayer-bruise presents us with a more difficult conundrum. It could be argued
that there is nothing wrong with withdrawing ham sandwiches from sale at a
much-loved bakery, if it comes under new management. Sarah Brown at Harry’s Place remarked that such a
baker wouldn’t “forbid” people from eating pork any more than a vegetarian
restaurant does. However this practice simply ties in with a wider trend of
religious business-people and shop workers refusing to sell or handle items
that go against their personal religious beliefs. (Instances like the Asher’s Bakery case in Northern Ireland, or the British
Marks & Spencer workers who refused to handle alcohol, come to mind).
It is
worth noting that there is no clear obligation on an employer, at least in
Britain, to allow people not to serve a product they disagree
with. Employers are obliged to
consider reasonable manifestations
of religious and non-religious beliefs in the workplace, but these must be
subjected to a proportionality test.
Certain commentators
have argued that these actions — whether from the baker or the veiled
woman — are ultimately a matter of personal choice. And they are right, up to a
point. But this is only part of the story. Once these actions generate a
critical mass, for example more European Muslim women wearing hijab than not,
or more religious business-people refusing to sell or handle items for purely
religious reasons, this has a dramatic impact on other people’s rights
(including their secular co-religionists).
Women in Muslim
communities who choose not to wear headscarves end up being shamed for their
choices, and some religious business-people end up discriminating against other
groups with protected characteristics (as per equalities legislation), such as
LGBT people. It gets harder and harder to challenge such practices, or their
underlying ideologies, without someone calling you an Islamophobe, or a native
informant. Kenan Malik recognises this in his book, From Fatwa to Jihad, where he states
that organised ethno-religious interest groups have led to a culture of
grievance which renders “secular and progressive arguments less sayable”.
Charlie Hebdo is
suggesting that once individuals change their ways as a product of fear, they
go down the road of sanctioning demands which impinge on other people’s rights.
While such accommodations do not cause violent extremism (the
conveyor belt theory of terrorism is the ultimate strawman) they do provide the
mood music for hate and extremism to flourish. The best way to beat it is not
to ban religious symbols it is to encourage free and open discussion on
religion, openly challenge fundamentalist interpretations of it, and insist
that equality and human rights law should take precedence in “religion vs
state” dilemmas. Then, and only then, will secularism not be in retreat.
Tehmina Kazi is Director of Media at British Muslims for
Secular Democracy, a registered charity which aims to raise awareness of the
benefits of living in a secular democracy
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