Four lessons we learnt from Charlie Hebdo killings

The attack on the Charlie Hebdo office, the killing of unarmed innocent and the ensuing hostage crisis has excited trenchant controversy in India. One one hand, Haji Yaqub Qureshi justified the attack and offered Rs 51 crore to the killers (which we assume he has) inviting a police case against him. Qazi Rashideen of Meerut responded with: “There is no place for terrorists in Islam.”

Mani Shankar Aiyar called the Charlie Hebdo attacks a “backlash” against the wanton attacks on Muslims. Sonia Gandhi is chastised for not correcting Aiyar. Bhanu Mehta has an inconclusive argument which counsels self-restraint, and “liberal democracies not fighting bad guys to the end of the earth”. Rushdie defends the cartoons as "satire". All government leaders of liberal democracies condemn the attack. Life will not be the same in France or Europe. At the end of the hostage crisis, the attackers have won martyrdom and huge publicity. Charlie Hebdo remains courageous to exercise its right of free speech to provoke at will.

Martyrs

How are we left at the end of this controversy, which is actually the beginning? First: there cannot be a right to kill. We live in a world where "right to kill" has curious recognitions in peace and war. The last century portrayed the worst killing machines of all time. The example of killing has been set by the US and others. Arms producers become merchants of death, making a world of public and private militias. There are no just wars, no just causes, just trigger happy states and groups. America’s Supreme Court’s ambiguity in the Heller and McDonald cases (2008-10) over gun sales is symptomatic. True moral indignation against killings has lost its edge somewhere to become temporary and inconsequential. West Asia has been pulverised by the US and by jihadi groups. Israel claims the right to kill at all or any cost. We need a movement against the culture of killing. More so, the innocent and children. Ironically, two non-involved persons killed in Paris were Muslims – Ahmed Mehrban and Mustapha Ourad. Nobody weeps, there is only outrage. All become heroes. There is need for a moral campaign against death merchants and guns. As technology advances, this becomes all the more important. Look at "mad" people in the US killing kids in schools, Khaps and terrorists killing in India, other groups elsewhere, "gun laws" encourage killing machines Hollywood movies glorify killing as action. We have become a world of "state" and "civil" terrorism, accepting (under-transient protest), killing as a way of life. The 21st century sports "state’ and "private killings" with weapons of increasing sophistication.

The second issue relates to free speech. Let us be clear. Although gun-killing is what an Oxford philosopher would call a "speech-act", there is no way that killing is an exercise in free speech at all. No matter how provocative the free speech of others or actions of the state is, there is no right to kill as a "speech act", even if you feel retaliation justified. Cartoons and satire are a part of free speech. I believe in near absolute speech but there are limits to it in terms of its consequences. Consider Justice Holmes’ example of a person shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre. Consequences matter.

Consequences

Who should limit the consequences when there is an anticipated or existing clear and present danger? Life today has all the fragility of a tinder box. Who will effect restraint? The speech maker? Society’s demonstrations? The jihadi or the terrorist? Or the state?

India has strong laws to prevent free speech against public order, obscenity defamation, and affecting group sentiments, including religious believers. (On the latter (Section 153(a) (provoking enmity) Section 295A (outraging or insulting religious beliefs)).

The problem with Indian laws, as interpreted by the government and the courts, is the total lack of balance in punishments.

For example, Satanic Verses, Laine on Shivaji, Doniger on Hinduism, Sahmat’s Ramayana exhibition — the list in endless, and is decided by vote bank politics. This mindless use of state power undermines confidence in state censorship. The silence of our politicians in the conversion controversies was deafening.

Self-censorship

This takes us to self-censorship. The Danish and French cartoons went well over the top. The motive was to ridicule Islam until it became “as banal as Catholicism”. Or it was just perverse fun. In Islam, no pictorial representation of the Prophet has been permitted for 15 centuries. And now we have malevolent cartoons in what appears as a cartoon jihad against Islam? This does not absolve killing as counter-jihad. I have seen ridiculous Danish cartoons which, like the French, depict the Prophet as weird and that too — as an animal. No! No! No! No! No!

Third: how do you react to perverse speech? Certainly not by violence? Bhagat Singh notwithstanding, Gandhi’s answer was clear: (i) speech for speech and (ii) non-violent protests. The state, too, must permit this. The state must allow non-violent protests, which it often clamps perversely.

Fourth: the Paris and Mumbai attacks were carried out by people prepared to die for martyrdom and publicity. Those of the faith must tell them that this route to be a martyr is not condonable. Evidently, India had information on Mumbai way earlier but ignored it.

We have lost all moral sense of self-restraint and non-violence treating "death" perfunctorily. God help us. We are losing our capacity to help ourselves. Free speech is being debased.