Has Charlie Hebdo made us racist?
In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo tragedy, millions took to
the internet to share and spread the publication's controversial content. They
did so with the honourable intent of defending free speech, but has the
dissemination of this content had a side effect of normalising bigoted imagery
and ideas? And what does this mean for Australia and its relationship with its
Muslim citizens?
These were the questions that troubled me in the days following the horrific mass shooting at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo publication in France. It started when I logged into my Facebook account to be confronted with images like these:
Okay, so this was the kind of material that motivated the attack on Hebdo as well as a previous attack [link]. It made sense that the material was going to be everywhere.
Then there were these:
and then these:
Now, you might wonder about the kind of friends I'm keeping in my Facebook news feed. It's actually a diverse selection of people, mostly Australians, from people living in rural small towns, to inner city hipsters, to Young Liberal members, to perpetual backpackers. I've done a lot of travelling and a lot of socialising.
Sure, there were a few people I expected this material from. Their posting didn't warrant surprise or comment, they were always posting this kinda stuff and the Hebdo tragedy was just fuel on their fire.
What did surprise me was that I saw this material posted across the board: young and old, intellectuals and anti-intellectuals, conservatives and progressives all saying #JeSuisCharlie.
So I asked them: Why?
The answer was unanimous: free speech. All agreed that in order to defend free speech it was essential that we start posting offensive material to our social media accounts. It was the only way.
Really?
How did posting the pictures protect free speech? No one could tell me. Seemed everyone was posting and no one knew why. That old clicktivism.
I didn't like what I was seeing and I didn't want to join in. I have friends and colleagues of Middle Eastern heritage, some of them Muslim, and I didn't want to have them turn on their computers to see me posting caricatures of them, their family, their heritage, their beliefs. It's just not what I'm about, not even in the name of free speech.
This is the crux of my problem with the spreading of Hebdo and similar images.
France is a long way from Australia. So is the Middle East. We like and share without a thought for how this might effect our local communities here in Australia.
Australia already has a long history of racially fuelled attacks and of alienating and condemning Australian Muslims. Despite Muslims being Australian since the 1800s there have been many public debates about whether they have any place in Australian society.
So we have a well documented volatile history of vilifying people based on race or creed. It's not unreasonable to expect there will be further alienation and hostility towards Australian Muslims as such imagery and rhetoric become increasingly normalised.
The circulation and subsequent endorsement of such imagery helps sustain this environment that says it's okay to attack Muslims.
During the Sydney Siege the hashtag #illridewithyou spread like wildfire. Because the siege perpetrator was Muslim we immediately knew that a backlash of anti-Muslim rhetoric was due. Australian Muslims were once again in danger of being attacked in public. So we took to social media to show that there were millions of Australians that understood that one person's actions did not represent an entire creed, or race, or gender, or sexuality.
Somehow we have forgotten that with the Charlie Hebdo incident. Perhaps it's because the events seem so far away. Perhaps it's because by posting #JeSuisCharlie we feel a part of a larger, global movement. We forget our own neighbourhood when caught up in the fast-paced horizon-less world of the online.
But back on the ground in Australia it's just a bunch of news feeds full of vilifying rhetoric. We are thinking of the faceless Muslims of the Middle East when posting but it is being seen by our friends and family, work colleagues and neighbours.
The knock-on effect is that our young Muslim citizens, growing up in a country that quite vocally dislikes them, become alienated then radicalised and head overseas to join extremist groups. And then those extremist groups commit atrocities, people respond with bigoted material, and we all dance round and round and round.
One interesting retort I received for my viewpoint was that the images above do not in fact represent Muslim or Middle Eastern people, only Islam. And that it's okay to attack Islam because it's an ideology; no one is getting hurt.
I disagree. What I see in those pictures is not a cartoon representation of Islam.
For starters, 62% of the world's Muslim population live in Southern Asia. We in Australia know this best as our close neighbour Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of any country. Yet these are not images of South Asian people. They are Middle Eastern.
More than that, the men are all hook-nosed and hairy, the women often a nondescript lump with eyes. Take another look. The images better represent a racial stereotype of people from the Middle East than the face of Islam. We all know the damage that can be done when people are dehumanised in this way.
Whether the cartoons are racist or merely bigoted is a whole other discussion. There have been many good articles on the satire vs bigotry debate. If you have read anything enlightening on this topic, please post in the comments below and share a link. I'd love to read more about this.
Whatever label you want to place on these cartoons, one thing is clear: Charlie Hebdo is a jerk. The publication is intentionally provocative sometimes for no other reason than for the sake of provocation. If they were a tweep they would be a proud and unashamed troll.
And that is okay.
Whether the cartoons are bigoted, or racist, or blasphemous...none of that is reason for censorship and it certainly is no reason for murder. We all agree that these cartoons had the right to be published (although perhaps not in Australia). The question is whether we as individuals should support and circulate them.
I think the cartoons are bad. I don't want them censored. But I do want people to think about the content they are spreading. Think about what you are putting your name to and what the consequences of sharing and normalising this content could mean for your fellow citizens.
It is not essential to endorse all content in order to protect free speech. We don't need to become the jerk in order to protect the rights of the jerk. For example, I'm cool with Alex Jones (and Alan for that matter) having a radio program. But that doesn't mean I must listen to him or promote his show.
As a great woman once said "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
This is the crux of my problem with the spreading of Hebdo and similar images.
France is a long way from Australia. So is the Middle East. We like and share without a thought for how this might effect our local communities here in Australia.
Australia already has a long history of racially fuelled attacks and of alienating and condemning Australian Muslims. Despite Muslims being Australian since the 1800s there have been many public debates about whether they have any place in Australian society.
So we have a well documented volatile history of vilifying people based on race or creed. It's not unreasonable to expect there will be further alienation and hostility towards Australian Muslims as such imagery and rhetoric become increasingly normalised.
The circulation and subsequent endorsement of such imagery helps sustain this environment that says it's okay to attack Muslims.
During the Sydney Siege the hashtag #illridewithyou spread like wildfire. Because the siege perpetrator was Muslim we immediately knew that a backlash of anti-Muslim rhetoric was due. Australian Muslims were once again in danger of being attacked in public. So we took to social media to show that there were millions of Australians that understood that one person's actions did not represent an entire creed, or race, or gender, or sexuality.
Somehow we have forgotten that with the Charlie Hebdo incident. Perhaps it's because the events seem so far away. Perhaps it's because by posting #JeSuisCharlie we feel a part of a larger, global movement. We forget our own neighbourhood when caught up in the fast-paced horizon-less world of the online.
But back on the ground in Australia it's just a bunch of news feeds full of vilifying rhetoric. We are thinking of the faceless Muslims of the Middle East when posting but it is being seen by our friends and family, work colleagues and neighbours.
The knock-on effect is that our young Muslim citizens, growing up in a country that quite vocally dislikes them, become alienated then radicalised and head overseas to join extremist groups. And then those extremist groups commit atrocities, people respond with bigoted material, and we all dance round and round and round.
One interesting retort I received for my viewpoint was that the images above do not in fact represent Muslim or Middle Eastern people, only Islam. And that it's okay to attack Islam because it's an ideology; no one is getting hurt.
I disagree. What I see in those pictures is not a cartoon representation of Islam.
For starters, 62% of the world's Muslim population live in Southern Asia. We in Australia know this best as our close neighbour Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of any country. Yet these are not images of South Asian people. They are Middle Eastern.
More than that, the men are all hook-nosed and hairy, the women often a nondescript lump with eyes. Take another look. The images better represent a racial stereotype of people from the Middle East than the face of Islam. We all know the damage that can be done when people are dehumanised in this way.
Whether the cartoons are racist or merely bigoted is a whole other discussion. There have been many good articles on the satire vs bigotry debate. If you have read anything enlightening on this topic, please post in the comments below and share a link. I'd love to read more about this.
Whatever label you want to place on these cartoons, one thing is clear: Charlie Hebdo is a jerk. The publication is intentionally provocative sometimes for no other reason than for the sake of provocation. If they were a tweep they would be a proud and unashamed troll.
And that is okay.
Whether the cartoons are bigoted, or racist, or blasphemous...none of that is reason for censorship and it certainly is no reason for murder. We all agree that these cartoons had the right to be published (although perhaps not in Australia). The question is whether we as individuals should support and circulate them.
I think the cartoons are bad. I don't want them censored. But I do want people to think about the content they are spreading. Think about what you are putting your name to and what the consequences of sharing and normalising this content could mean for your fellow citizens.
It is not essential to endorse all content in order to protect free speech. We don't need to become the jerk in order to protect the rights of the jerk. For example, I'm cool with Alex Jones (and Alan for that matter) having a radio program. But that doesn't mean I must listen to him or promote his show.
As a great woman once said "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
So how do we stand up for free speech? There are tonnes of thoughtful, poignant, and brilliant cartoons out there that don't resort to racial caricatures. Let's start thinking before we click, before we post. A little thought goes a long way.
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