PEN awards: Why Charlie Hebdo's Prophet held a mirror to radical Islam

The good people at Charlie Hebdo continue to make headlines even when they don't wish to. The latest controversy involves the inaugural PEN/Toni and James C Goodale Freedom Of Expression Courage Award that was bestowed on the French satirical magazine last month. Six novelists - Francine Prose, Teju Cole, Michael Ondaatje, Peter Carey, Rachel Kushner and Taiye Selasi - have refused to participate in the award ceremony, citing differences with the awards committee over choosing Charlie Hebdo for the prize.

Katha Pollitt of The Nation spoke to Francine Prose about her stand: "Charlie Hebdo's work is not important. It's not interesting…It's a racist publication. Let's not beat about the bush." Other writers who have chosen to abstain from the awards ceremony have expressed similar views: that Charlie Hebdo is a whites-only magazine that has no business criticising Islam.

There are several problems with the writers' position. First, that Charlie Hebdo's work is not interesting is all the more reason that they be protected. Yes, it's a satirical magazine that has in the past gone overboard in its depictions. Their covers showcasing the Prophet Muhammad making one or other intonation constitute provocative acts for sure, given that pictorial representations of the Prophet are forbidden in Islam. For this, they have faced a history of troubles, but none so bloodcurdling as what happened this past January when nine of their staff members were gunned down by Islamic fundamentalists.

To call Charlie Hebdo racist is to overlook their history. As Pollitt points out in her Nation piece, French newspaper Le Monde analysed ten years of Charlie Hebdo covers and found far more material disparaging of Christianity than Islam. But even if that were not the case, Charlie Hebdo could still not be accused of racism. Islamic fundamentalism is a reality of our age. To say that terrorists are ordinary criminals and ought to be treated thus is to ignore the central question of their identity: that they derive their sustenance and virulence from religious ideology. When Charlie Hebdo draws a cover depicting Prophet Muhammad, the magazine is not attacking ordinary Muslims living their day-to-day lives in peace. Its target is the fundamentalist who thinks nothing of blowing people in the name of Islam or indeed killing those who disagree with him.

There is a genuine question at the heart of the Charlie Hebdo controversy: is freedom of expression absolute or are there limits to how much one can exercise it? I speak not of the possible consequences but of whether there are certain figures - religious, social or political - that ought to be beyond disrepute. When MF Hussain was attacked by outfits aligned to the Sangh Parivar for painting Hindu goddesses in the nude, the dominant emotion among Indian intellectuals was to plump for his freedom of expression. The fact that such depictions had hurt Hindu sentiment was considered beside the point. Freedom of speech, we were told, is too important an ideal to sacrifice on the altar of hurt sentiments.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, we are at sea articulating our viewpoint. Where should the boundary be drawn? When Aseem Trivedi drew a caricature of Parliament as a toilet, did he go too far? When a cartoon of Nehru employing the whip on Ambedkar made it to textbooks, had not a certain limit been breached? Who is to say that Ambedkar and Parliament are less deserving of protection than gods and goddesses? Yet, once we go down this slope, it can only end in chaos and repression.

While it is easy to draw parallels between fundamentalists of different colours, there is an essential difference brought forth by Charlie Hebdo's case. MF Hussain fled India fearing for his life. He was not murdered by armed Hindu goons in Delhi. Even right-wing intellectuals like Arun Shourie took issue with his hounding. For what it's worth, we do have a debate on his case, and nearly everyone agrees that while the paintings were needlessly provocative, he was a great artist who should have been allowed to stay on in India.

Such a debate is not possible in Charlie Hebdo's case. By killing the staff members of the magazine, fundamentalists reiterated the message that we have heard across the world on several occasions: Rushdie, 9/11, Xinjiang, Chechnya, Mumbai. That message is that fundamentalist Islam would not only brook no dissidence, but also eliminate dissenters. Rénald Luzier, the cartoonist whose picture of Prophet Muhammad adorned Charlie Hebdo's cover a week after the atrocity, has vowed never to draw the Prophet again. He says it "no longer interests" him.

The six writers who boycotted PEN's award ceremony, which took place in New York this week, speak from the heart. Yet, their criticism is not only tone-deaf they also comes across as rigid and patronising. Charlie Hebdo was not making great art, true, but by poking fun at one of the gravest dangers of our age, it was raising an issue with the sort of reckless courage that we should welcome more from among journalists. Pity the eminences do not see this.