Comics Legend Art Spiegelman & Scholar Tariq Ramadan on Charlie Hebdo & the Power Dynamic of Satire

Mr. Ramadan,
You are obviously very emotional about this whole hebdo affair. You keep on talking about responsibility, but you fail to understand that part of the western background is that we fought many years ago for the right to be irreverent and blasphemous and disrespectful. If muslims want to live in the west, they have to understand and expect that their prophet will be disrespected at time. If you understand that, your first loyalty will be to the process, not to your wounded feelings. There is no middle ground here or qualification. Freedom of speech absolutely includes the right to blaspheme.
If you disagree with that then you need to say publicly that you want to see blasphemy laws and campaign for them.
Respect the law man .

Michael Fairney

The promulgation of freedom of speech/expression article has become a guise to (selectively) disrespect specific cultures, races and/or religious creeds, crossing red lines beyond the pejorative scope.

Mr Ramadan is factually wrong and his agenda is strange at a time like this. Charlie Hebdo never made a racist cartoon. Charlie was fighting racism, always defending the underdog against figures of authority. In fact it defended Islam at least once before, in its own way, and again this week, after the massacre, by portraying Prophet Muhammad crying at the horrors committed in his name. If they criticized Islam as a religion, along with other ideologies and dogmas, they never criticized Muslims as a community, nor Arabs. They criticized fanatics of all religions, and all religious dogmas themselves. They also often criticized Israel for killing innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Finally, they fired Siné because he, on the other hand, made a racist comment, and Charlie Hebdo never tolerated racism in its pages, be it against Arabs, Jews or non-whites. And about the cartoonists being “cowards”, well… Their killers just proved who was brave and who was a coward.

Thank you Mr Ramadan for reminding everyone that targeting mostly muslim people, by relating the acts of some extremists to the vast majority of peaceful believers is not only a coward act but also playing the game of populism and discrimination.

Mister Fairney, I think that you would be very emotional if only you could see the big picture and how muslim people and countries are suffering, especially since 2001.

Moreover, I don’t think that Charlie Hebdo critised Israel and its criminal policied towards the Palestinian People that much… Maybe you could give us a reason for this…?

Joe Yagchi