Of all the reaction I have heard and read to the Charlie Hebdo murders, by far the most eloquent was French Muslim woman in a vox pops on Radio 4’s Today programme on 10 January who was a nearby resident – and reportedly sometime shopper – of the Jewish supermarket. “France discovers that it has a monster inside it … a monster that has been grown inside it,” she said. She ended by pleading: “Now we have opened our eyes, we have to open our hearts – and this will help because with open eyes you can open your heart”.
Next to those lucid and constructive words The Tablet’s leader (10 January) was leaden and confrontational. In using binary language, on the one hand of “far-right factions” and “populist anti-Islamic movement[s]” and, on the other hand, “moderate opinion”, it seemed to set battle lines in which any view that expresses concern about the cultural Islamic origination of these terrible acts is tantamount to “transgressing basic human values”. So where does that place this French Muslim resident?
There are so many complexities and nuances in this situation, it is bordering on the mendacious to boil it down to such a black-and-white choice. In attempting to characterise the growing number of incidents linked to disaffected and radicalised young Muslims across Europe as only so many “lone wolves”, it begs the question of how many lone wolves eventually make a pack. Horrifying reports of the rise in violent anti-Semitic activity in France alone in these past few years – according to the Daily Telegraph almost all of them carried out by Muslims – render it harder to maintain the case that the perpetrators can be truly separated from the broader community in which they live.
The French Muslim’s woman’s plea must be heard. Without pointing the finger at anyone she spoke the truth: wherever and however this “monster” has grown, we must all open our eyes to the reality and only then can we open our hearts. Until the vast changes taking place in Europe’s cultural and religious landscape are seen for how they are experienced in everyday life, and until the fundamental challenges to the continuity of Europe’s openness and tolerance are recognised for the worry being caused to so many ordinary people across the continent, simplistic moderate-versus-extremist rhetoric will act to alienate, polarise and drive people towards the latter.
The many grass-roots acts of everyday neighbourly kindness and help I observe in my culturally and ethnically mixed suburb of London themselves speak loudly – but it must be possible to maintain this generosity whilst being able to raise, in truth and love, broader and nuanced concerns about how Europe is changing, lest passive but pervasive suspicion be allowed to poison relations terminally.
Stephen Balogh, Ealing, west London
The horrifying murder of journalists and cartoonists in Paris appears to have been hijacked by many politicians whose adherence to democracy is not altogether clear. Charlie Hebdo was a scurrilous journal that has been strengthened by these events. It is quite likely to blow its new status and finance as buyers melt away. But I am worried by the notion that free speech should be unrestrained even by self-control or a sense of respect for the cherished beliefs of others.
I was brought up by my Catholic mother, supported by a Protestant father in the 1930s. In those days she was reticent to advertise her religion, while I was never so. We were attacked by Protestant ministers of all denominations and often treated as outcasts. During the War this tension was relaxed but it emerged again until the late 1960s. In Australia, where my wife and I took our children for a short time, Catholics were called “micks”. On return to work in England my changes of promotion were damaged the Freemasonry around me. But I’m a stubborn old man and remain defiant. Now, it appears that all practising Christians are regarded as oddballs but I am well used to that. A degree of persecution can strengthen one’s faith.
John Steggles, Bury St Edmunds
We all are feeling the horror and grief caused by the murder of so many brilliant journalists and artists. But it might be worthwhile examining the word “freedom”. Almost no one believes in absolute freedom, either for the press or the individual. I am not free to steal your goods, the press is not free to publish child pornography, or Hitlerite anti-Semitism.
So where does freedom begin and end?
A Muslim was interviewed on the BBC news, and he said he loved the Prophet Mohammed more than his wife and children, and hated to see his image desecrated. This was received with great reservations on the part of the interviewer. Yet I reflected at the time that this attitude was exactly how we are supposed to love Christ.
We Christians have seen Christ's image despised and made fun of by stage shows and films, and we are expected to smile tolerantly and accept it all. We often feel hurt and humiliated when our sacred images are trampled on, but we make things worse by any protest. We have to be silent, as Christ was silent.
The Muslim religion was founded 700 years later than Christianity. 500 years ago anyone in the Christian world who blasphemed or interpreted the Gospel message differently from one set of Christians was killed by another set. They were beheaded, warred against, and burned at the stake.
In the interest of fraternity, should we not ask why the feelings of our Muslim brothers should be so trampled on? And why it should be considered a right to do this?
Brigid Marlin, Berkhamsted, Herts
To deliberately insult the beloved founders of the various religions – God, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and so on – can be, for some, profoundly and dangerously provocative, should surely therefore, be avoided. All the world's religions have leaders - popes, archbishops, imams, rabbis. Criticise them, by all means. Why doesn’t the press concentrate its witty, clever, astute and sometimes cruel, but very necessary commentaries/cartoons, on them? They can air positive, negative, all sorts of attitudes and opinions, that we need to read, look at, listen to, and which we must respect, even if we can't agree with them. This must happen if we are ever to live peacefully together. This, to me, is true freedom of speech.
Kate Flynn, Upton Wirral
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