November 2 marked the seventh anniversary of Theo van Gogh’s murder by a pious young Muslim on an Amsterdam street. One of the memorable aspects of that history-making slaughter was the largely despicable way in which the media in the Netherlands and around the world covered it.
Many of the accounts of van Gogh’s butchering, which was motivated by his short film, Submission, about the plight of women under Islam, hinted -- or even stated directly -- that van Gogh had been asking for it. He had gone too far. He had insulted Islam and offended Muslims. What, after all, asked one editorial after another, had he expected when he made Submission? He should haveknown what he was getting into. Freedom of expression was one thing, but giving needless offense to a billion and a half members of a religion? That was just plain over the line. Not sensible. Not prudent. Yes, van Gogh was -- in his own country, at least -- a famous contrarian, an iconoclast, accustomed to going after sacred cows across the political and cultural spectrum with all the gusto and irreverence he could muster. But to make a film that he had to know would outrage devout Muslims and put him in danger of being killed? Well, that was just stupid. Almost parenthetically, many of the editorialists acknowledged that there was no excuse for the murder. But their hearts weren’t in this rote qualification. They were out to condemn not the murderer, but the victim, who, in their eyes, has brought it all on himself.Cut to November 2, 2011. The Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly, are totally destroyed by a firebombing. The motive seems clear. The magazine’s newest issue, in response to the electoral victory of an Islamic party in the Tunisian elections, trains its mockery on Islam. There are cartoons, jokes, parody articles. The premise of the issue, dubbed Sharia Hebdo, is that its guest editor is the Prophet Muhammed himself. Like van Gogh, Charlie Hebdo practices equal-opportunity parody, and over the years has cracked its share of jokes at the expense of Christians, Jews, and pretty much everybody else. But also as in the case of van Gogh, it is apparently Charlie Hebdo‘s lack of reverence toward Islam that made it a target of violence.
And just as with van Gogh, the bombing of Charlie Hebdo‘s offices has brought out some of the most cowardly voices in the Western media, once again eager to blame the victim and to preach about the supposed “abuse” of free speech. No, not everyone in the media has taken this line. The major French papers that I’ve looked at online have stood shoulder to shoulder with their colleagues at Charlie Hebdo in the name of freedom of speech. But other European media have been conspicuously silent. And still others have fulfilled one’s lowest expectations. In the Guardian, Pierre Haski managed to blame the firebombing on the alleged fact that Muslims in France "feel discriminated against and unwelcome," noting that "Claude Guéant, President Sarkozy’s minister of interior and right-hand man, even called the growing Muslim population a ‘problem’ for France." "Problem," of course, is putting it very mildly, but it’s still not euphemistic enough, apparently, for the Guardianistas. Haski went on to "explain" that If many Muslims in France are, shall we say, a bit too enthusiastic about their religion, it is because that religion "has become a cultural identity, a refuge in a troubled society where they don’t feel accepted." Nor did Haski neglect to drag in the nonsensical contemporary cliché that Muslims, in Europe, are today’s Jews -- as if European Jews spent the 1930s murdering filmmakers and firebombing magazine offices. Read the rest on:
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