January 26, 2015 Enquiry Free thought and discourse A publication of the AHI Undergraduate Fellows Volume II | Issue XV secular society and an epidemic Charlie Hebdo of violent religious extremism in a Je suis Charlie Mike Adamo fanatically religious society. There’s Senior Editor not much that’s moderate, from our The tragic attack on the French Western perspective, about how Islam satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo is commonly practiced in Muslim earlier in January was, in effect, an countries. In Iraq, according to a 2013 attack on free expression in the West Pew Research study, more than half by a strain of Islam that is far too of all Muslims favor stoning as the common. Charlie Hebdo is well known punishment for adultery. In Palestine, for its irreverent satirical treatment of 40 percent of Muslims say that attacks almost every religion and ideology in against civilians in defense of Islam are the world. The publication had already often or sometimes justified. Over 90% endured a bombing in 2011 for printing of Muslims in Iraq, Tunisia, Morocco, cartoons of Muhammad. This time, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Afghanistan two terrorists stormed the newspaper’s believe that a woman must obey her office, killing nine editors, a building husband in all cases whatsoever. worker, and two police officers. The These aren’t marginal populations. We message was clear: you do not get to have our own religious radicals in the exercise free speech when it comes to United States, but you won’t find many Islam. Christians who want to make Leviticus Islamists have some common global law. ground here with the American left. The left is so hesitant to criticize terrible crime of offending someone. Neither will tolerate any criticism of Islam because leftists have proclaimed Last May, Mel Brooks lamented that Islam, and both have that totalitarian themselves the protectors of minorities Blazing Saddles couldn’t be made in impulse to control what other people in the West. They know little other the current politically correct culture. are allowed to say. than criticizing Western culture, Even more recently, Chris Rock said The left has got terrorism apologetics Western religion, and Western politics. he stopped doing stand-up at colleges down to a science by now. They’ve had That’s why I didn’t expect to see any because students were getting offended a lot of opportunities to practice it, marches at Hamilton College over at everything. We may be going the way considering the almost 25,000 Islamic the Charlie Hebdo shooting, or any of Europe, where in many countries terror attacks since September 11, emails from Nancy Thompson for that you can be thrown in jail for offending 2001. With each instance we see a matter. A lot of Hamilton students and someone under vaguely defined “hate common procedure. The left responds, administration are far more attuned to speech” laws. The irony of French didactically, that not all Muslims are fictional cases of racism than to real President Hollande’s participation in to blame, as if anyone raised the idea and repeated Islamic attacks. It’s much the Je Suis Charlie march is that, in the in the first place. Then come the self- more hip to act like an infinitely tolerant same week, his government was busy righteous articles about how we really cosmopolitan when the shootings and arresting dozens of people for “hate need to be most concerned with bombings seem so far away. speech.” “Islamophobia,” a word applied to any Obviously criticism of the West is This is a bad path to go down. If criticism of Islam. What’s left out of the extremely important. But the very fact we’re content with being at the mercy picture? The recurring terror attacks that we can do it is what sets us apart of whiners and offense-takers, then themselves. from the rest of the world. If we can’t maybe Islamism is right at home in the It’s becoming harder to ignore bring ourselves to condemn other West. Islam’s penchant for horrendous acts of cultures for attacking freedom of If, on the other hand, we value free violence, a tendency with no analogue speech, how can we protect against it in speech, we need to exercise it loudly in any other major religion. The West our own countries? and without limit. Make offensive jokes. has had its share of violent Christian American colleges have seen an Enjoy stereotypes and caricatures like extremists, with Anders Breivik epidemic of anti-free speech policies the ones in Charlie Hebdo. Dare to have foremost among them. But there’s a in recent years, and it reflects a popular a sense of humor, even if a lot of people difference between a violent religious culture where public personalities have are rattling the handcuffs and asking, extremist in an overwhelmingly to tread lightly in order to avoid the What are you laughing at? inspiring display of fraternité that sent a clear message: We The Right to Offend will not tolerate any assault on our right to open expression, which is the basis of a free society. Peter Alexander Bresnan | Guest Contributor While I wholeheartedly support the actions of these In the weeks following the attack on the offices of the protesters, I think that there has been a significant French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, an international misunderstanding as to what this fight is really about, what conversation about the importance of free speech began it really means to say “Je Suis Charlie.” In our fury and to simmer. On the Sunday after the attack, 1.5 million frustration over the savage killing of nine Charlie Hebdo staff Parisians, along with various world leaders, took to the members, and in our zealous attempt to stand up for free streets to express their solidarity with the magazine, uniting speech, we have forgotten that the conversation we need to underneath banners that read “Je Suis Charlie.” It was an have is not about free speech at all. It’s about tact. When it comes to humor, I am undeniably an extremist. But when you say “Je Suis Charlie,” you are not supporting I believe that there are no laws governing comedy, and that this latter, more successful kind of humor. You are supporting for a comedian or satirist nothing is off-limits. Without the the less successful kind. You are supporting the right of a ability to offend, comedy cannot exist. Does this mean that person to make jokes about terrorist attacks the day after a being offensive is the same as being funny? Of course not, terrorist attack. You are supporting the right of a comedian since every joke needs a context (this is why Stephen Colbert to tell a joke about Michael Brown in front of an audience of is funny, and Rush Limbaugh is anything but). To me, Ferguson natives. You are supporting the right of a magazine humor = offense + context. The nature of the offense could to publish a depiction of the Muslim prophet Mohammed be as small as an offense to expectation (“I certainly wasn’t that is expected (and perhaps intended) to offend 23% of the expecting that!”) or as large as an offense to human decency world’s total population. To stand up and declare “Je Suis (jokes about terrorist attacks, Bill Cosby, rape, etc.). But the Charlie” is to support tactlessness, bad jokes, offense without offense is there either way. context. This is what Charlie Hebdo specialized in, and what So it’s impossible to judge the quality of a joke based on nine members of its staff died for. how offensive or inoffensive it is. Instead, we have to judge it It’s easy to say you value free speech, since most of the time on the basis of its tactfulness. Is the joke appropriate given the free speech is synonymous with appropriate speech, tactful context (i.e. the time period, the audience, the social climate)? speech, and inoffensive speech. It’s more challenging—but For example, the week after the September 11th attacks, The even more important—to allow the kind of speech you New Yorker ran no cartoons; nothing would have been funny cannot condone: the bad jokes, the cruel cartoons, the anti- given the context of shock and horror that enveloped the Semitic jeremiads shouted by some idiot on a streetcorner. country. But the following week, they ran a cartoon depicting Because the reality is that free speech is not just comprised a forlorn man sitting at a bar, saying “I figure if I don’t have of the speech we like to hear. As a society that purports to that third Martini, then the terrorists win.” This second joke stand by free speech, we must allow all that is distasteful to was funny (and is still funny) because it came at a time when stand alongside what we consider appropriate. And while the offense and the context of American despair, a desperate we all have a right to fight against tactlessness with our own search for respite from fear, fell in line with one another. This words and actions, as many do, we cannot outlaw offense. is what makes it a good joke. Free speech means nothing without it. Islam and Violence Another example that attacks biggest impact on the structure of this the notion that religious texts and new superculture. The Islamic world Andrew Nachemson | Staff Writer teachings are indicative of the culture is not powerful enough to define the In the weeks following the Charlie that surrounds them is the presence of superculture, but is powerful enough Hebdo massacre, there were two Buddhist extremists in Myanmar.