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| Translate: Still no terrorist attacks in France - Wait, we have until the end of January to send our best wishes. |
Clash of civilisation.
Yes. They have expected that long time ago. Which side are you now?
Are you a charlie hebdo or are you not?
But then, what is the basis of your stance?
What is the issue now? I see that though it involves muslims and Islam, the main issue involved is the freedom of speech.. Does the freedom of speech exist? Do we really need freedom of speech and why? Why in the world then we have to limit the freedom of speech? What is the line drawn to illustrate the limit? Does the limit of freedom of speech varies according to customs and localities?
There are so many questions involved.
Limitation to freedom of speech exist. Accept it people. Otherwise terrorists would have the no limitation to call and campaign for terrorisms. There would be no law on misrepresentation, defamation and there would be no regulation as to not lying. Since anybody and everybody may make any statement, regardless of its false or true value.
So, the limitation exist and it is the question of what degree. For muslims, the degree may be different compared to non-muslims. A person who is religious would have different moral ground to a person who has no faith in God.
Article 19 of Universal Declaration of Human Right
Having to refer to that, I my self may not agree to the definition used and my country may have laws that defined the freedom of speech and its limitation, in accordance to the peculiarity of locals and its custom.
MORALITY
Up to this point, it seems that it is a question of moral. How we define what is moral and what is not. It is said from the clarification of Article 19, that limitation is permitted and one of them is to protect moral.
It can be said that at the moment or this article 19 was drafted, the drafters were still have some degree of faith in morality. Just imagine, if the drafters were the cartoonists from Charlie Hebdo, the drafting of Article 19 may come out saying like this “.. the freedom of speech is absolute. Any person or any body may say anything that of his interest without limitation imposed by any other person or organisation or state.”
I see that the cartoonists of the said magazine opined that the freedom of speech is unlimited. Some group of people or any party that has the authority at least in France, do believe that freedom of speech is unlimited. That explain why this reaction to the Paris attack by terrorists are using the expression “I am Charlie”. You are a Charlie Hebdo because you think that Carlie Hebdo publication of the satire was right. Or it was just ok if you do not believe in morality.
They want to assert this as a way of expressing themselves against the act of terrorism that murdered the cartoonists and some others in France. If we are being truthful to our selves, there are ways to express disapproval towards terrorism rather than to claim oneself as Charlie Hebdo.
Why? First, the publication of the satire itself was wrongful in the first place, even to the parameters set by internationally drafted Article 19 itself as it surpassed the limit of morality.
If you can throw obscenities to your parents and to your teachers in school, without being called immoral then you are living in a locality that accept the void of morality. Although the concept of morality is fading though the globe, we are yet to find a state or country that has embrace a notion that is immorality is the practice.
Adversarial to morality
Since you cannot eliminate in total the concept of morality, what you can do is to adopt its adversary, the immorality. There cannot exist moral without the knowing of immoral and vice versa.
May I call that state or country that adopt immorality as satanic state or satanic country? I do have my freedom of speech up this extent though.
Charlie Hedbo is the catalyst of immorality in that sense. It propagates hatred, defamation, lies, racism, obscenities, disrespectfulness and the lists of immorality continues. It messed up with other people’s concept of morality, infringing the boundary of other people though not be seen physical.
The perspective is like this. To define human right limitation, such right cannot be exercise by one to the extent of infringement of rights of others. But what defines other people rights. That is subjective. This issue is the key point that may clearly describe the source of the problem that we are facing today.
If you can respect your boss and behave accordingly to his or her expectation.
If you can respect your parent and behave accordingly to his or their expectation.
If you can respect your teacher and behave accordingly to his or her expectation.
Your boss, parents and teacher are common examples to which the concept of moral can be applied. There examples are objectified, they are not mere concepts in minds, you can see them live with your eyes.
Then the problem is related to things or being that you cannot grasp by the seeing of eyes, captured by imaginations or be sensed by the five senses or even the 6th.
GOD.
The concept.
Yes. My concept here is Islamic, but bear in mind it is also shared to a significance extent with those of Jews and some Christians, especially the early Christian teachings.
Unlike Christian teaching (the mainstream nowdays), God in Islam cannot be objectified or in other words to be put into form. That is also means to be put into images of any kinds. Even the slightest. While the God as you all know, the name is Allah is the source of magnificence, beauty and perfection.
Other than The God is the creation. The creation is dependent of all its attributes that defined it to existence upon God Himself. As there is no other creator.
As the creation is not created by chance, it has a purpose. Inevitably, each creature has the needs towards the Creator the God as it exist with the will of the Creator only. Therefore creation itself is the platform to which the Creator manifest His attributes, mainly to manifest magnificence, beauty and perfection, the biggest encompassing exhaustive attributes.
Best of Creation
To manifest this attributes, the creation would have its benchmark. A creature who is bestowed the ability by the Creator to have knowledge and conduct or behaviour in consistence with the said manifestation. In Islam and for muslims, that Creature is Muhammad @ Mohamed (PBUH: Muslim are ordained to subsequently pray Please Be Upon Him after his name)
In other words Muhammad PBUH is the best of creation for muslims. Being the benchmark, he is the best creation, the best example of prophets of God thus a best of mankind. He is the best example of servant of God or the creator and the best example to follow by muslims. As to the Islamic faith the best example of man sent to be followed by humankind.
Root of the Problem?
I am not intending to go deeper into the Islamic creed as this is not for the teaching of such lesson. You may take a proper class for that to understand it regardless whether you are a muslim or not. What I am trying to do here is to highlight that this is the point where there is divided opinions, to which had created the root of the problem.
Okay, we see that the image (not literally but conceptual) or idea of what constitute Prophet Muhammad PBUH differs between muslims at large and those who conceptualize Muhammad PBUH in the other way around. Those who conceptualise him the other way around, would then not sharing the same idea that muslims have, in admire of him, which manifest the attributes of magnificence, beauty and perfection in category of creation.
Those who conceptualise him the other way around, would then imagining him to have contradictory image, may be said of not magnificence, ugliness and imperfection. These adversarial meaning would then breeds to countless other negative sub-meanings which defines someone who is not worthy such as unreasonable, unfair, dirty, foul, cruel, savage, bloodthirsty, mad, so on and so forth. All can be sum up in one word. EVIL.
EVIL IMAGE
So, in such a misperception of misconception, are 1.6 billions of muslim around the global are in support of evil? Am I as a muslim, to my conscious mind and of free will, support EVILness? Are the muslims are actually members of evil fraternity that is eventually would convert the whole world into some sort of evil ruling government.
If your answer is yes, whether you dare to say it openly or is just a conviction of your mind, then you are in the same school of thought as the Charlie Hebdo. You may claim yourself "I am Charlie Hebdo" as many others have claimed. You may be unaware that you have become the statistics or at least contribute to the phenomena of Islamaphobia.
But if your answer is no, then it seems that you have certain moral value that you have which have made you to take such position. There are many others that took such position and they are not even muslims.
Muslims regards Prophet Muhammad PBUH to the highest esteem. This is because he is the best of creation as clarified before this. Being the best of creation, he is the best of example. By mean of example is the example of good virtues. Being the Prophet of God, the speak and conduct of him shall in accordance with the truth and good virtues. As God himself through revelation ordain to do good virtues.
MISPERCEPTION
Why is this different perceptions on the Prophet. The simple answer is ignorance. Ignorance may be attributed to lack of true knowledge as well as misperceived by wrong information. In this case of Charlie Hedbo cartoonists, they misperceive the true image of the Prophet and pursue to make others misperceive him as well. It is an act of defamation.
In legal sense, an act of defamation may create a right of the defamed party to take action in court and get compensated. Think this, the muslims out of Islamic teaching, deem Prophet Muhammad PBUH as more worthy than themselves or whomsoever they love. Since in reality, God had created him as the perfect man who knows the reality attributes of magnificence, beauty and perfection of God himself.
But guess what happen when there are people who mock an image of the most respectable figure in the Islamic world.
Then, if this to be applied with the idea of human right today, this mockery constitute the infringement of others right. As the reaction, others who are in infringed of their right may take action for compensation. However to what extend that the action can be taken is subject to further discussion.
The Terrorist Mind
At the same time, the existence of the terrorists are real and a fact. Their reaction to the mockery is predictable. That is why the France authority had to provide securities from among the policemen for the Charlie Hebdo. Whether you can discuss with the terrorists is subjective. Since I am not the terrorists, I could not put words into the terrorists mouth.
However, it seems in the case of Charlie Hebdo, the terrorists chose to put the law in their hands.
I think we should solve the problem by trying to look for the root of the problem. What is the cause of the problem the first place.
By that, I began the problem solving adventure by saying I am not Charlie Hebdo. And I am not a terrorist too.
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