Anwar Ibrahim correctly chided France’s Macron on 'Freedom of Expression'

MM Online:

Muslim world needs no lecture from you about free speech, Anwar tells France’s Macron

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said that in arguing for secularism, French president Emmanuel Macron had resorted to demonising and dehumanising Islam rather than engage in discussion, pointing out the dangers of such sweeping misrepresentations lead to a cycle of violence. — Picture by Yusof Mat Isa

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 27 — Freedom of speech is an essential value of Islam and the Muslim world does not need any more lectures about its significance, least of all from those who suffer from Islamophobia, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said today.

The Malaysian Opposition leader is the latest Muslim leader to censure French president Emmanuel Macron for his October 2 speech claiming Islam in crisis worldwide while defending France’s secularism and push for the removal of religious influences from education and its public sector.

“Monsieur Macron needs to be aware that freedom of speech is an essential value of Islam,” Anwar said in a strongly-worded statement.

French president Emmanuel Macron 

He said Macron’s defence of “laïcité” — French for secularism — by claiming that Islam is in crisis globally is “offensive” and “unreasonable” because it tars an entire religion and its followers for the “evils” committed by a minority.

He said that in arguing for secularism, Macron had resorted to demonising and dehumanising Islam rather than engage in discussion, pointing out the dangers of such sweeping misrepresentations lead to a cycle of violence.

“No society, ideology or religion is immune from spawning single minded brutality and plunging into barbarism.

“The Muslim World does not need lectures any more than it can tolerate libellous smears and Islamophobic rhetoric from the French President,” Anwar added.

He urged Macron to take responsibility for his “rabblerousing smears” against Islam, pointing to the October 6 killing of French teacher Samuel Paty after the latter showed some students in class caricatures of Prophet Muhammad published by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Anwar acknowledged that Macron is not alone in his skewed view of linking Islam to terrorism even as he said Muslims worldwide too need “to recover and reconnect with a higher vision of Islam”.

However, he said making slurs “does nothing to advance open debate, mutual understanding and common cause against the evil of terrorism”.

The secularism and Islam debate in France has deepened tensions domestically. International relations with some Muslim countries have also been affected.

France recalled its ambassador to Turkey after Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested Macron undergo “mental checks” for his thoughts about Islam and its followers.

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kt notes:

It was horrifying that in modern times, in a Western country, a teacher was decapitated for his teachings, no matter how blasphemous that lesson might have been to Muslims. We condemn such barbarism.

French teacher Samuel Paty showed some students in his class the notorious caricatures of Prophet Muhammad, previously published by a Norwegian magazine, then the Danish newspapers Jyllands-Posten in 2005, and eventually the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Samuel Paty 

The reason for the lesson was the European much-treasured 'Freedom of Expression', and in a secular nation like France, or Denmark, etc, nothing was considered taboo or sacrosanct, or so the Europeans claim, which was/is a load of bullshit, hypocritical bullshit at that.

While that hypocrisy doesn't merit decapitating someone, it's sad that on one hand the European bullshit about 'Freedom of Expression' has provocatively incited moronic hotheads to commit a despicable crime, but on the other, some Europeans (and Yanks and Aussies) think showing provocative and abusive caricatures in public of a personality held sacred by another religion is okay.

We need to ask why Carlie Hebdo which prides itself as a courageous take-no-prisoner media in its satirical nose-thumbing at all and sundry was/is in fact such a bloody hypocrite, not daring to criticise or annoy Jewish-Israeli interests, but aiming its big guns at mainly Islamic sensitivities. [I have read of an anti-Arab American-Jewish interests in its activities]. The double standards is amazingly breathtaking.

Yes, why was/is Charlie Hebdo so adamant about being provocative against Muslims, and in that process, encourage Europeans like Samuel Paty to follow likewise, but acts like a mewing pussy when it comes to Jewish matters (not that I want it to abuse the Jews)?

Years ago, Charlie Hebdo's director, the (late) Stephane Charbonnier, pompously claimed that his magazine was not really fuelling the (angry Muslim) fire but rather using its 'freedom of expression' to comment on the news in a satirical way. I just despise such liberal (mis)use of the term 'Freedom of Expression' by hypocrites.

Stéphane Charbonnier 

In January 2015, after Islamists attacked Charlie Hebdo's office in France (and killed its director Stephane Charbonnier), its editor responded to the French ministerial rebuke: "We do caricatures of everyone, and above all every week, and when we do it with the Prophet, it's called provocation."

'We do caricatures of everyone ...'??? Eff-ing Kerbau!

Oh, that thick-skinned double standard hypocritical claim again, again and yet again by those European bullshitting press.

I then wrote: Okay then, can anyone in Charlie Hebdo please explain why it sacked its former cartoonist Siné (real name Maurice Sinet) in 2008 for his cartoon-article on the marriage of Jean Sakorzy, the son of France former president, to Jessica Sebaoun-Darty, a Jewish heiress, after a (obviously) Jewish journalist described Sinet's comments as anti-Semitic.

For more see my post Charlie Hebdo - further Western hypocrisy.

Yes, unfortunately for both Sinet and the French ‘liberté d'expression’, Jessica Sebaoun-Darty was not only a heiress but a Jewish heiress. Sinet’s cheeky words galvanized a journalist to accuse the comment as anti-Semitic. Now, whether Sinet was referring to the heiress' wealth or Jewish heritage was not known but regardless, please tell me, how was it anti-Semitic?

Nonetheless, trust politicians to jump on the bandwagon, where then mayor of Paris and French Minister for Culture immediately seized upon Sinet’s cartoon-article as an anti-Semitic insult.

That was an European salutary lesson that no one must ever question or criticise or even, as in Sinet's case, make a cheeky remark about a Jew regardless of the veracity of the issue (unless it's complimentary or respectful). And examples of those who ignored or were oblivious of this European 'sacred cow' were Prince Harry, David Irving and Ken Livingstone - maybe another time I'll do their stories.

But please, compare Sinet's comment on that marriage to the deliberate vile and abusive insult to Prophet Muhammad by way of the magazine’s cartoons.

The editor of Charlie Hebdo, Phillippe Val, the man who made the highly controversial and inflammatory decision to then re-publish a Danish newspaper's cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed in the name of co-called ‘freedom of the press’ (loud, maniacal laughter but with a feeling of awful nausea) and whose article in 2000 calling Palestinians "non-civilised" resulted in journalist Mona Chollet being sacked after she had protested against that racist abuse, agreed that Sinet’s remark about young Sakorzy was offensive and anti-Semitic and warned the journalist-cartoonist to write a letter of apology or be fired.

well, you can see where his sympathies lie with
recall - he was an editor at Charlie Hebdo

he also called Palestinians "non-civilised" and
he sacked journalist Mona Chollet after she protested against that racist abuse

Naturally Sinet refused, as his rights under the French much cherished ‘liberté d'expression’. He asserted his rights with some rather flamboyant flowery flaming words, as a cartoonist would, that he would rather "cut his own balls off". He was promptly fired by Charlie Hebdo, the so-called paragon of freedom of expression.

Though Sinet successfully sued the publisher and won a 90,000 euro court judgment for wrongful job termination, I need to ask: Was Sinet’s sacking for standing by his cartoon-article the ideals that Charlie Hebdo fought to maintain?

Incidentally, Sinet was also threatened by the Jewish Defence League (JDL), which posted on its website "20 centimetres of stainless steel in the gut, that should teach the bastard to stop and think". The JDL had been considered by the FBI as the second most active terrorist group.

Thus Charlie Hebdo's publishing "sin" was not so much in its claimed pompous right to exercise the European's so-called bull about "freedom of expression" if even in an unnecessary provocative manner, but in its double standard hypocrisy in sacking its former cartoonist Maurice Sinet for a mere seemingly innocuous comment about the wedding, where Sinet said of the young bridegroom: "He'll go a long way in life, this lad!"

"Freedom of expression"? As we Malaysians would say: Podah!

Now, couldn't Teacher (late) Samuel Paty teach that, showing how Charlie Hebdo's director the (late) Stephane Charbonnier abused the 'Freedom of Expression' of its cartoonist Siné (Maurice Sinet) by sacking him when he refused then to publish an apology to the (obviously powerful) bridal couple, or how David Irving was jailed in Austria for merely questioning the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust, etc etc. Why must Monsieur Paty used the fabricated disrespectful caricatures of a religious prophet?

There are many more examples of European hypocrisy and double standards on this issue. I thus support Anwar Ibrahim's chiding of Macron, the French President.