I have to admit, sadly, that I'm not really surprised to see that in the days following the immediate aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack, when the world loudly proclaimed, "Je Suis Charlie!" in solidarity with the victims and in support of free speech and a free press, that more and more articles have been appearing in which the authors explain why they are actually not Charlie, in which they accuse the magazine's writers and cartoonists of being a bunch of uncultivated frat boys whose only reason for being is to offend anyone and everyone. "I'm all for free speech! No buts!...But...", and then go on to wax eloquently about how they aren't for free speech at all. In one such article (actually a post on facebook) someone accused Charlie Hebdo of being "racist", and compared them to the Westboro Baptist Church, which is an absurd and ignorant accusation by someone who clearly has no knowledge of the magazine, its politics, or the issue that led ultimately to the violent murders of several members of its staff, including three cartoonists, as revenge over some imagined "offense" on behalf of their beloved prophet Muhammad.
In fact, the Westboro Baptist Church is precisely the sort of institution that Charlie Hebdo would mock in their cartoons. They proudly consider themselves "left wing and strongly anti-racist", so if anyone takes issue with cartoons they consider to be "racist", there's perhaps a discussion worth having with the Charlie Hebdo staff themselves. The ones who are still alive, that is.
As for the Muhammad cartoons, they were created in the first place as a show of solidarity with the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which was basically thrown under the bus by the vast majority of the western left, politicians, and media, for publishing the original 12 Muhammad cartoons in 2005. The point of publishing those cartoons in 2005 was to find out how deep the culture of self-censorship had become entrenched in the minds of the Danish public in the years since the fatwa was placed on Salman Rushdie after writing 'The Satanic Verses'.
The specific incident leading to the Jyllands-Posten experiment was that a Danish childrens' book writer had written a lovely story aimed at promoting harmony between native Danish children and those from the newer Muslim community, but he was having an impossible time finding anyone to illustrate the book, due to the fear of reprisals from Muslim extremists. This prompted Jyllands-Posten to make a call to cartoonists to draw a cartoon showing the prophet Muhammad "as they saw him". 12 cartoonists submitted drawings, while around 30 did not.
Very little controversy erupted when they originally published the 12 cartoons. It was essentially a non-issue. One reason it was a non-issue was because many Muslims, in fact, do not subscribe to the idea that it's "forbidden" to draw the prophet Muhammad. The prohibition is a Sunni prohibition, based on certain hadith which Sunni Muslims subscribe to. Many Muslims consider the Quran itself to be the only authoritative source, not the hadith. Many also believe that the prohibition only applies to Muslims, and not to non-Muslim Danish, Swedish, or French cartoonists. Furthermore, the reason the prohibition exists in the first place is because of the fear of idolatry. Muhammad, though not an ordinary man, was still just a man. The emphasis is supposed to be on Allah, not on Muhammad, and the concern in portraying images of Muhammad was that he might become an object of worship, which is a big no-no, as that worship is supposed to be reserved for Allah only. Clearly, the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were not trying to present Muhammad as a sacred figure to be worshipped alongside of Allah. Their cartoons, those that were mocking in nature (which not all were) were intended to mock Islamic fundamentalists, not to elevate Muhammad to the same level as God himself. And Muhammad, it is said, was very forgiving toward people who disagreed with or mocked him in real life. So in fact, it's the Islamists who took out vengeance on Muhammad's behalf who were elevating Muhammad to some reverential status, an icon, an idol not to be mocked. Further still, and perhaps most importantly, many Muslims fled to the west from repressive Islamic theocracies, and are quite happy to live in countries that celebrate free speech and are governed by secular law, rather than living under sharia.
In fact many Muslims have been fighting the same battle against theocrats for the rights to live free from the tyranny of religious persecution as people in the west are fighting today. They do not agree with fundamentalist clerics, and do not appreciate the fact that those clerics claim to speak for all Muslims, or that western politicians and media conglomerates and people in general seem to think that these clerics DO in fact speak for all Muslims. But we in the west, for whatever reason, seem to think that if we need to know what Muslims think, we should ask a "scholar" in a robe and a beard - someone who looks like a "real", "authentic" Muslim, so they run to the head imam of some Saudi funded Wahhabi mosque, or to a spokesman from CAIR or the Muslim Brotherhood, and what he says becomes the de-facto position of every single Muslim, even though in reality they only speak for themselves and their like-minded peers, who do NOT represent the views or opinions of all Muslims, or even the majority of Muslims.
But back to the cartoons. A small group of outraged clerics organized demonstrations outside of the Jyllands-Posten offices, but nobody came because nobody cared. So they went to the Middle East and tried to create some outrage there, but again, failed because people just weren't that upset about it. They worked very hard for four long months trying to rile up the Muslim world and finally succeeded, but only after including 3 fake Mohammad cartoons that were far more offensive than any of the ones which had appeared in Jyllands-Posten, and which they most likely created themselves thereby violating the very same blasphemy law they were accusing the Danish cartoonists of violating. But at last they managed to create the outrage they'd hoped for, which resulted in riots and embassy burnings and at least 250 deaths throughout the Muslim world. Mission accomplished.
Meanwhile, the leaders of the West collectively, shamefully, and shamelessly apologized on behalf of, and without permission from, the rest of us, to the entire Muslim world for causing offense, and while offering up half-hearted but insincere lip service about supporting free expression, condemned Jyllands-Posten and the cartoonists, and anyone who dared to republish the cartoons in solidarity, for being "insensitive" and "offensive" and "irresponsible", and more or less accused them of being to blame for all of the murder and mayhem and death and destruction happening throughout the Muslim world.
And the reason Charlie Hebdo continued, and continue, to publish cartoons which mock Islamic fundamentalists was/is in defiance of self-styled fundamentalist clerics and imams saying "no you can't". Charlie Hebdo said, "yes we can!". Even after their offices were firebombed, they refused to give in to the demands under threat of violent retribution from Islamo-fascists, and if anything, stepped up their vicious campaign of humour and satire. It was very much a free speech and free press issue, one of core secular liberal democratic values vs. oppressive theocratic ones, and not just some juvenile attempt to be as offensive as possible. When asked why they didn't cave in to the demands of religious thugs, knowing that they were putting their lives at risk by refusing to make Charlie Hebdo's editorial decisions sharia compliant, Stephane Charbonnier now famously replied, "it might sound a little pompous to say so, but I'd rather die standing than live on my knees".
And that he did.
So spare me all of the guilt-ridden, appeasing, apologizing, collaborating, white liberal musings about Charlie Hebdo being "racist" or "provocative" or "offensive" or "insensitive" or "Islamophobic". These accusations are as untrue as they are irrelevant. If you do not unequivocally support Charlie Hebdo, then not only are you taking a stand against core principles of western liberal secular democracy such as the right to free expression and a free press, you are taking a stand against the countless Muslims fighting their own battles against the theocrats who claim to speak for them.
(As an aside, one of the prime instigators in whipping up a frenzy in the Muslim world against the Danish newspaper has since had a change of heart, and now admits that he was wrong, and that it was perfectly OK for them to print the Muhammad cartoons. Isn't that a happy ending?)
