Now that the furor over the Charlie Hebdo massacre
has abated we can assess the political experience: the issues, ironies,
problems, and consequences, starting with the still unanswered questions about
the crime itself.
The attack by gunmen on the Paris offices of the
French magazine Charlie Hebdo was barbaric. Twelve people were mowed down with
assault weapons in cold blood. Police and witness reports conflicted. Witnesses
reported two gunmen; the police reported three. Two got away in a car and
initially no one knew where the third disappeared to. They didn't know much
about the crime at all, most of all who committed it, but of course the
assumption right off-the-bat was that it was Muslims since the magazine gained
notoriety from mockery and insults to Islam--as if Islamic theology mandates
mass murder when offended.
Chérif
and Saïd Kouachi, French citizens of Algerian descent, were
identified within hours, along with the 18-year-old brother-in-law of Chérif Kouachi, initially accused of driving the getaway
car. What's puzzling is where that accusation came from since videos of the
getaway do not appear to show a third person waiting in the car and when he
turned himself into police he was found to have a solid alibi.
The Kouachi brothers are either among France's
dumbest criminals or the story doesn't add up, starting with their leaving an
ID card in the abandoned getaway car and going on a crime spree involving
hijacking another car and robbing a petrol station. Why would well-trained
jihadists, as police claim they were, draw such attention to themselves when
they're on the lam? And then, when they holed up in a manufactory, they
allegedly did everything possible to draw police attention to themselves
(including leaving a hostage go free) before police laid a several hour siege
to the building and took both brothers out.
Although it doesn't appear to play much role in the
official narrative now, Amedy Coulibaly, who allegedly knew the Kouachi
brothers from jihadist circles, linked the story to antisemitism by going on a
shooting spree ending up with a shootout in a Jewish supermarket where he
killed four people and demanded the Kouachi brothers be freed. Coulibaly
apparently played no role in the Charlie Hebdo massacre but at the time his
murder of four Jewish shoppers was presented as even more damning evidence of
"Islamic terrorism." There are several inconsistancies and unanswered
questions here. Did Coulibaly become part of the narrative after they learned
the brother-in-law was not involved? Did they have to contrive another third
man? They also need to explain why French police violated all sorts of
search and seizure rights hunting for the suspects.
Skepticism about the official narrative is called for
but we aren't likely to learn the full truth about this incident and it's not
politically productive to fixate on it anymore than on 9/11 or other alleged
conspiracies because it dead-ends politically and has us wrapped up in debating
whether Mossad and French intelligence, or even the CIA were involved.
It's very possible, maybe even likely, they were involved but our political
work lies with figuring out how to respond to the problems this assault creates
for civil liberties, antiwar opposition and Palestinian solidarity, not in
second-guessing and speculating about the possibilities of a covert operation
when we cannot know that for certain.
Charlie Hebdo is described as a satirical and
iconoclastic weekly newspaper that comes out of a left-wing tradition and reportedly
offends all religions without prejudice or favoritism, from Catholicism to
Islam. Of course, the flaw of that defense is that Catholicism is not under
attack in France, while Islam is being targeted. You don't have to read French
to see the xenophobia and racism in the cartoons that pandered to the most
reactionary political forces in France. It wasn't so much satirical as
scurrilous hate-mongering. One nearly imbecilic and not at all flattering
defense of the cartoons is that they are quintessentially French satire rather
than racist as they appear to the rest of the world. Political cartoons by
their very nature exaggerate what they are skewering. But the civil rights and
feminist struggles of the 1960s and 1970s threw cartooning for a loop because
new sensitivities were required. Racist and misogynist caricatures were
recognized for what they were. Many cartoonists have let their consciousness
lag behind their art form which means a good share of caricature is unusable by
progressives if you want to post on political figures like Obama, Hillary
Clinton, or Netanyahu. Many cartoonists continue to mask social hatred behind
caricature and their work is too racist, misogynist, and anti-Semitic to use.
Cartooning is a very international art form and social hatred entirely
identifiable in much of it.
Art is not sacrosanct nor artists immune from social
responsibility. We would wish the cartoonists had found higher purpose for
their art than racism but they didn't. The distinction between satire or social
criticism and racist, hateful propaganda is striking, not subtle. And
definitely not distinguished between France and the rest of the world.
One media source offered the pompous justification
for racism in Charlie Hebdo that freedom of the press is "absolute"--which
is simply not true in any country. Freedom of the press, which is part of
freedom of speech, has all sorts of restrictions including on porn, defamation,
incitement, obscenity, copyright violations. In France, the Press Law of 1881
governing media has a rich political history with specific provisions
identifying hate speech and incitement to racism or violence as crimes. Other
European countries also have hate laws implemented in the wake of the
holocausts of WWII. Charlie Hebdo was prosecuted and acquitted in 2007 for
inciting social hatred against Muslims and firebombed in 2011. It's editor,
killed in the attack, was under police protection from numerous death threats.
They paid a heavy price for their interpretation of freedom of speech.
The pandering to reaction does not mitigate one iota
the outrage over the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Even if it expressed fanatical
Islamophobia, freedom of speech is an achievement of the French Revolution that
ended feudal rule and introduced popular democracy. If it is abridged in an
ill-conceived attempt to defend Islam, it will be abridged most of all for
those who oppose Islamophobia--because Islamophobia is the guiding ethos of
neoliberal politics & military policy today.
Those who want to change the world don't have to be
pacifists or sheep led to slaughter. Self-defense is a human right but
progressive movements do not use the death squad methods of terrorist states
like Israel, the US, Mexico, and so many other regimes because barbarism is
incompatible with social transformation. The way to shut down racist journals
is to create a movement--like the massive protests held in Paris and around the
world last summer in solidarity with Gaza. The way to oppose xenophobia is to
build solidarity with Afghans, Iraqis, the Black community in the US, the
disappeared in Mexico. The only way to defeat social hatred politically is to
out-mobilize its proponents.
The victims weren't yet buried nor the suspects
apprehended before the tsunami of backlash crescendoesd from a clamor about
"Liberté" and freedom of
speech and took a decidedly Islamophobic turn. How do you say in French 'not
everything that glitters is gold'? Sometimes it's just the sun reflected off
merde. Every crowd that gathers is not an expression of human solidarity nor
every "Je suis Charlie" sign a defense of civil liberties under
attack.
Perhaps it's fitting that what began as tragedy ended
up as farce in the official French tribute to Charlie Hebdo. After all, if
we've learned nothing else from this massacre, it is that you can play anything
for a laugh. Right? It was satire writ large to see Hollande, Merkel,
Netanyahu, and an entire entourage of war criminals lead off the political
rally in Paris for "Liberté".
But they adhere the right of terrorism entirely to themselves. It was
disturbing to see them lead a march for free speech when they send riot cops
with tear gas, grenades, water cannons, rubber bullets against unarmed
protesters in their own countries. Did the Russian foreign minister go back to
Putin and argue against repression? Will they stop incarcerating dissidents?
Will France stop banning Palestinian solidarity rallies? Did Eric Holder come
back and have a chat with Obama about pulling SWAT teams out of the Black
community? And will the US now rethink that surveillance system that monitors
our every email and FB post? It's not an accident Netanyahu was center stage in
this criminal line-up. Israel's murderous siege on Gaza discredited the Exodus
myth so carefully cultivated for 66 years and this jeopardizes neoliberal
capitalism's plans for the Middle East. This protest wasn't just street theater
and farce; it was an act of aggression against Muslims.
Thousands of protesters were going after Muslims
under the guise of "Liberté".
Islamophobia is the ethos of neoliberal capitalism used to justify massive
restrictions on civil liberties and scare-monger us into supporting unspeakable
crimes against humanity. Those who do not stand with Muslims against this
choose to stand with tyranny, war, colonialism. One hopes the millions tweeting
"Je suis Charlie" will be at the next antiwar protest chanting
"Je suis Afghani and "Je suis Iraqi." And that those tweeting
"Today we are all French" will remember Palestinians the next time
Israel goes on a murderous rampage and tweet "Today we are all
Palestinians."
Actually they can drop the facade on that free speech
stuff. The demand for free speech is something you direct at governments, not
two (or is it three?) dead gunmen. Reportedly, France is cracking down on
people who even make smart cracks about Charlie Hebo. They arrested a teenager
who did a satiric post about Charlie Hebdo on Facebook, accusing him of
defending terrorism. Is that uniquely French sarcasm too? Or just commonplace
political repression? What's not farcical is that attacks on Muslim businesses
and mosques in France have increased (60 since the shooting); that an
Islamophobic march in Germany attracted 20,000 thugs; and that Belgian police
had a shootout against what they called an Islamist terrorist cell. They took
them all out by claiming they were conspiring to commit acts of terror. Since
when do you summarily execute people on an allegation? Why didn't they arrest
them, interrogate them, prosecute them instead of killing them all? What about
that "Liberté"
free speech thing?
This Islamophobic stuff is going to crescendo and the
only way to respond to it is to build the antiwar movement & Palestinian
solidarity (which both involve Islamophobia). You can't talk people out of this
rubbish. You have to answer it with power--which if it doesn't persuade, does
silence the haters and intimidate the thugs.
You also can't stop this reactionary trend by
"speaking truth to power"--unless when you speak truth to power you
bring a million people with you. It can only be defeated by mobilizing the
power of human solidarity against social hatreds of every kind and standing
against their murderous wars. For those who think that too daunting and can't
be done, think again. Over a million people around the world stood with Gaza
last summer; the antiwar movement is weak now but in the past has mobilized
millions on a single day around the world. The world is changed not by those
who give up without a fight but by those who believe in the possibility of
social transformation. Is there any proof of that? Is there any proof it
doesn't? Is there any reason not to try?
[MARY SCULLY]
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