Can anyone help me understand the difference between
cartoons mocking Mohammad and use of the name “Redskins” for an American
football team?
I’m not writing to excuse the assault on Charlie Hebdo, and
I don’t mean to trivialize its consequences or implications by comparing it
with the ongoing uproar over the name of Washington DC’s team. I’m just trying to get my mind around how
editorialists and other opinion makers can more or less simultaneously insist
that we beneficiaries of Western Civilization stand in solidarity with the
Charlie Hebdo staff (peace be upon them), and not
with Dan Snyder, owner of the Redskins.
Are/were not both exercising the right of free speech, freed
expression? Have not both been assaulted
(albeit in very different ways) by people who believe that they have the right
not to be offended?
Does the difference lie in the nature of the assault? Native Americans and others in the U.S. have
used legal action and appeals to public opinion; the attackers of Charlie Hebdo
used bullets and (earlier) firebombs.
That’s a valid distinction, surely, but does it justify us in ramping up
editorial mockery of Islam – as is surely implied by the call for us all to “be
Charlie," and not rationalize backing Snyder? If somebody took out the Washington team's
owner tomorrow, should we all start chanting “RedSKINS, RedSKINS?”
Or does the difference lie in the perceived basis for the
offence? Radical Islamists like those
who attacked Charlie Hebdo apparently believe that they are acting on behalf of
God/Allah himself when they do their dirty deeds, while Native Americans who
object to the Redskins sobriquet base their objections on centuries of
genocidal oppression. Maybe that's a
valid distinction, but it strikes me as a rather slippery one. In an interesting coincidence, Muslims have
been experiencing oppression by western colonial powers since about the same
time Native Americans began to feel it – ca. 1492 AD. And God/Allah is notoriously mum about
his/her desires (except to some fundamentalist Christian mullahs, with whom he
[definitely HE] apparently chats routinely), while history is by definition in
the past. The basis for rage among
Islamists and some Native Americans in the present seems to come down simply to
the fact that they are offended by what they view as disrespect for their
spiritual/cultural beliefs.
So where do we draw the line? Under what circumstances do we line up in
support of free expression, and when do we support its suppression, whether
through self-censorship or the acts of government? I don’t deny that there are lines to be
drawn; I self-censor myself all the time, and I imagine that so does anyone
else who writes for public consumption.
But I worry about it, and I worry about populations and media that rally
to slogans without thinking through their implications. I’d be grateful for enlightenment.
