Tariq Ramadan: ‘Double standard of freedom of expression’

suspect spoke viaa phone to journalists – http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/01/09/nr-sot-pleitgen-audio-gunman-speaks-during-paris-siege.cnn?sr=fb010915gunmanreporter430pVODPhoto

Thanks for bringing up the bigger picture. We can’t just be done with our responsibility only by condemning the vicious act but need to to acknowledge the fact and responsibility that comes along with it.

Tariq, I have left a lengthly comment in response to your Guardian article on Charlie Hebdo and I see in this video, you are again referring to the Sine affaire (i.e. the sacking of a long-standing journalist at Charlie Hebdo). I re-iterate my concerns with how you present this particular incident, the debate you had with Charb and the alleged response you got (if there is any transcript of exactly what the response was to your question you posed at the debate to Charb I would love to read it, as he is no longer around to answer). I would be grateful for a response or indeed a rectification of the facts.

Dear Tariq, I feel compelled to comment on this piece (the Guardian piece), as in my view, you contrast certain moral dilemma’s wrongly which greatly undermines the overall message of what you are saying. I have lived for ten years in France and many years in St Denis, a religious and cultural melting-pot ‘par excellence’.

1. You pitch the events in Paris and the emotional reaction to it against the fact that there are many more people dying in Syria and Iraq every day making the point that lives matter, no matter where people live on this planet. Of course at a universal level, this is very true, and thanks for once more pointing it out to me.
However, I personally, am upset in particular about this case, because of the fact that more than anything else, our European culture of freedom has been attacked. To take out people who draw offensive pictures because they don’t chime with your world-views – c’est la connerie totale, and no defense of this position is possible in my view. It is precisely because I want people all over the world to have the same freedoms and level of tolerance as I enjoy, that this case merits my attention perhaps more than any other human tragedy reported this week or the next. It is because the Charlie Hebdo people were seen as legitimate targets by their assailants, as ‘combatants’ that I am particularly riled – and so I am sure you are, as people with these kinds of crazy views would equally quite happily violently disagree with your position or for that matter, anyone (those not for us are against us).

2. The more dangerous link you appear to make is where you refer to the Sine case where a long-standing writer and cartoonist, Sine, was sacked by Charlie H some years ago. First of all, I find it deplorable you leave in the air the exact response from Charb on this particular question from you in the debate. Charb did not sack Sine, it was the previous editor that did that. Charb is no longer around to give us a personal response to the question you raise her.
Also, when Sine was taken to court for racial abuse about this case, he won. Perhaps you don’t agree with the verdict, but this was France, and I am sure you are not suggesting that French judiciary is totally corrupt. Secondly, you do not make it clear that Sine did not DRAW anything (on this occasion at least..) abusive for which he was sacked, it was his words and the fall-out from the hyper-sensitive Sarkozy family and their trigger-happy lawyers that led to his dismissal. All of this week we have been talking about cartoons and their impact, so let’s stick to that, shall we? To insinuate that Charlie Hebdo measures with different standards i.e. Muslims always get it in the neck from them, but when the jewish establishment cries foul, they give in, is simple wrong and dangerous, given that Sine had been working for Charlie H since 1981 and between 1981 and 2008 had been accused before of antisemitism and Charlie H had continued to support him all this time.

3. You then say that Charlie H has ‘been in trouble’ almost every 6 months. I presume you simply have looked at the number of legal cases brought against them and divided them by the number of years the publication has been in existence. Let me tell you that of all cases brought against them, 75% have been unsuccessful, including all cases brought by groups affiliated with Islam (from memory, please correct me if I am wrong). Of course Charlie H will get into trouble, that is its role, to be anti-establishment, to make us laugh, to make us angry, to then in quieter moments, to MAKE US THINK and make us happy we live in a country where all this is possible without repercussions on our personal safety and well-being.

In conclusion, you may not like the extreme atheist position CH takes and most people of faith feel equally unhappy and uncomfortable, but that’s the freedom France has decided on and the French people are entitled to, to bring in arguments to undermine that position which do not really have anything to do with that position, I feel is weak.

I for one, having lived in France, did not buy Charlie Hebdo regularly and when I did, hardly ever found everything funny, I felt uncomfortable from time to time, and so it should be. Long may it live in controversy, God knows we need it. Vive Charlie Hebdo.

Agreed there is a double standard when it comes to muslims and we have to counter it by discousre and reason and not stupidity but a few things do not give us a leg to stand on
– why do muslims continue to migrate to west and then complain about “immoral” west
– will KSA ever accept refugees or migrants
– why do we whine ,we need to act by education and tolerance
– we also have double standards we need to correct ourselves and then ask others to change
-Islamophobia is not racism as muslims are diffrent and not a single block in fact there is an aparthied amongst muslims backed by writings of scholras like Ibn taimiah

I am sad with a big ball in my throat to see that the value of the blood of an Arab and a Muslim has less value than blood of a Jew or a Christian. I am shocked to see today Sunday 11/01/15 the King of Jordan with his wife, & some princes of Golf are now in demonstration to celebrate people “supposedly for freedom of expression”. Why this same king of Jordan and the same Gulf princes forbid their own citizens to protest, and/or why this same king of Jordan and those princes have not protested to stop the blood of Arabs and Muslims victims sank by the Americans and the Zionist bombs. I’m shocked thousand of Palestinian killed during the bombing of Sionist terrorist state and no demonstration of kings or president or ministers, the Arabs leaders have sold their souls

I do not understand what he is getting at towards the end of the interview regarding the fact that one of the brothers forgot his ID card in the getaway car. What is the relevance of this detail to the topic being discussed?

Justice has become a distorted and misconstrued concept and ideology lost in a miasma of double standards and selectivity. An intellectual awakening – accompanied with acceptance, compassion, justice, respect and tolerance – is necessary to put an end to xenophobia and the inhumanity.

Jazāk Allāhu Khairan Dr Tariq