Hypocrites be exposed: Why I am glad I never was Charlie

Those who changed their profile pictures on Facebook, went to candlelight vigils and held placards proclaiming "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie") must see the newest batch of cartoons from the magazine that prides itself on its right to offend. The latest offerings from these pens dipped in vitriol and insensitivity mock the human tragedy that is unspooling from the Levant and threatening to swamp the shores of Europe with its flotsam-jetsam of human debris.

Sample these: A boy, face down in the water, his hands stiffly by his side - evidently mimicking the photograph of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi that has haunted millions across the world – occupies the foreground of the frame. Above the drowned toddler, emblazoned in large letters is "Si pres du but..." ("So close to his goal"). And on the top right hand corner is a Mcdonald’s sign (a "promo") advertising a kids’ menu: "2 menus enfant pour le prix d’un" ("Two kids' menus for the price of one"). With little Aylan dead, there is one refugee less in Europe, one child less to eat the McDonald’s kids’ Happy Meal. What is more, having washed ashore Turkey, the gateway to Europe, poor Aylan was so close to his "goal". That is what the new Charlie Hebdo cartoons clearly try to portray.

Another cartoon shows a boy (presumably dead since his scrawny feet are sticking grotesquely out of the water and his head out of sight somewhere in the lapping waters) and a Christ-like figure dressed in a long garment bearing a crown of thorns upon his head and holding his hands wide as he walks on the water. A box bearing the legend "Les Chretiens marchent sur les eaux" ("Christians walk on water") points to the Christ-like figure, and another points to the drowned boy saying: "Les enfants Musalman coulent" ("Muslim children sink"). And so that there is no room for doubt, the cartoon bears this heading on top: "La preuve que l’Europe est Chretienne" ("The proof that Europe is Christian"). The threat of Christian Europe being swamped by Muslim migrants is spelt out in no uncertain terms.

In January this year, when 11 French cartoonists were gunned down in Paris in an attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, one could be unequivocal in one’s condemnation of the terrorists. In the face of the cold-blooded slaughter of the cartoonists, one had to quell one’s misgivings about the right to dissent which is the other side of freedom of expression. One could, at best, withhold solidarity with those who proclaimed "Je suis Charlie" – at the risk of being considered rigid, humourless and untrustworthy (all of which was compounded if one were a Muslim).

One could grit one’s teeth at the sheer banality and vapidity of the so-called "humour" and urge others to do the same before turning the page, as it were, and moving on. One could even drum up some semblance of rationality in the face of the gleeful irreverence that the cartoonists evidently displayed in caricaturing the Prophet of Islam. Since 12 French citizens had been gunned down by terrorists, one did all this. The only thing one withheld was the solidarity that was being demanded from those who chanted "Je suis Charlie".

Also read: Charlie Hebdo mocks drowned Syrian kid. Twitter is not amused

But now, six months later, when bawdiness has given way to imbecility, dissent to puerility and irresponsibility to outright insensitivity, the time has come to indeed take offence and to say in no uncertain terms that the death of a little boy and the tragedy of millions being displaced from their homes by monsters parading as guardians of true Islam cannot be the subject of levity.

Humour, no matter how puerile, cannot be a shield for xenophobia and a magazine that claims to be a pro-Left, anti-religion bastion must be seen for what it is. At a time when millions across the world and leaders of Ireland, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Turkey and others are seeing Aylan’s picture as a shocking testament of a human catastrophe, the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo can no longer hide behind the fig leaf of satire. The time has come to ask some questions.

First of all, isn’t there a line between causing offence and being outright barbaric and aren’t the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo crossing that line once too often? And are we not showing a misplaced solidarity in our eagerness to support freedom of speech without any thought to respect for human life, which is at the heart of any freedom? Would the French cartoonists display similar insensitivity to a dead boy from their own country?

Would a white Anglo-Saxon boy, drowned tragically young, occasion similar "controversial takes" on consumerism and religion? Would the French cartoonists display anything close to this sort of insensitivity and ghoulish humour for victims of other mass tragedies, most notably the holocaust? Would Charlie Hebdo be similarly blithe about a child victim of the Auschwitz or Treblinka? Is there no end to this puerile form of ridiculing the "other"? And finally, is this what the saviours of freedom of speech, the many "Je suis Charlie" who had sprung up almost overnight six months ago, signed up for?