By Kartik Lokhande The
terror attack on French satirical newspaper ‘Charlie Hebdo’ has once
again pushed to the centre-stage the debate over freedom of press
vis-a-vis intolerance. The incident has evoked a wide range of
expressions from extreme liberals, selective liberals,
liberal-yet-cautious, angered, radicals and mere observers.
Interestingly, the tone of almost every one of these sections, except
for radicals that are more inclined towards terrorists, is that no art
should ever be ‘countered’ with killings. And, here, the purpose of
perpetrators of the attack on ‘Charlie Hebdo’ stands defeated.
In
fact, the killings have evoked such sharp reactions from across the
world that those wielding the gun to silence the media are under an
unprecedented torrent of criticism and condemnation. Even the
cartoonists from countries like Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine have
condemned Islamic terrorists (belonging to Yemeni arm of Al Qaeda,
according to reports of Al Jazeera) who killed ‘Charlie Hebdo’ team
members.
The attempt of radical Islamists to
silence the ‘hostile’ media, stands failed as more and more media has
come up with ‘offending’ expressions about them. Still, the
terror-mongers have not stopped and this could be seen from arson at a
German newspaper ‘Hamburger Morgenpost’ on Sunday. As a result of
violent response to cartoons or expression in any other form in media,
people in several countries have taken to streets not only to express
solidarity with the media but also to express anger against the radical
Islamists. In France, as is likely in some other countries
that have been facing Islamic terrorism, there have been attacks on
non-extremist Muslims as ‘retaliation’ to the extremist Muslims’ violent
acts. This is an indication of deepening faultlines between religions
of the world. And, at the root of all this is intolerance in the name of
religion. This intolerance could be found anywhere right from Islamic
and Christian countries to democracies like India. However, as has been
the case, the criticism and questioning has never gone down well in
Islamic countries. Almost always, there have been violent reactions.
‘Fatwas’
issued against Salman Rushdie for writing ‘Satanic Verses’ or Taslima
Nasreen for writing ‘Lajja’ are just a couple of examples. Both the
authors are still facing threats to their lives. ‘Charlie Hebdo’ had its
office fire-bombed before the latest terrorist attack. There has been a
spate of killings of journalists by terror outfits in countries like
Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Nigeria. Of
course, intolerance of religious hardliners is not only restricted to a
particular religion or a country. Still, violent reactions to the extent
of killing the dissenters on religious issues are not this frequent in
other religions or countries. There are voices of dissent, angry
reactions, mocking, counter-expressions, and even vandalisation of
office premises; but, killings of writers, journalists, cartoonists are
very rare in other countries. Of course, no one can and should justify
the acts of vandalisation etc, for these also are varieties of
intolerance. Much of this intolerance towards media freedom vis-a-vis
religious sentiments could be attributed to the attempts of the radicals
to keep the non-extremist brethren away from open and pluralistic
set-up of democracies.
As those not open to the
idea of freedom of press/speech/expression could not understand this,
they resorted to killings of cartoonists in the latest case. And, they
are getting a befitting reply from across the world through an
overwhelmingly increased ‘hostile’ content on social media, mobile phone
applications, television channels, various print publications etc.
‘Charlie Hebdo’ had a circulation size of around 60,000 only and that
too was restricted to a country. But, since the incident, through the
‘Je Suis Charlie’ campaign, much of ‘Charlie Hebdo’ content has spread
throughout the world and shared by countless millions.
And, this is the defeat of the gun. But,
this defeat also may have its price -- the world will not be the same
again. Hence, it is the responsibility of all the countries also to take
steps to stop deepening of ‘religious faultlines’.
(Published in 'The Hitavada' on editorial page, January 12, 2015)
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