This is the second part of what was originally a three-part essay. Part One can be found here.
I think next week there should be a European media week of solidarity. Every major newspaper, broadcaster and platform should re-publish a selection of the title covers of Charlie Hebdo - as Slate magazine has already done - carefully explaining why we're doing this: We wouldn't usually do this, but we are doing it show that violent intimidation does not pay. That the assassins' veto will not prevail. I think that without that solidarity, fear will have won and the assassins' veto will have won.
~ Timothy Garton-Ash
Islamism's attack on democracy and liberalism operates in two ways. The first is to menace and terrorise. The second - more insidious and dangerous - is to undermine from within. The latter serves to compromise our ability to resist the former. A combination of the two explains why, in the UK - unlike in France and Germany - very few papers were prepared to re-publish Charlie Hebdo's back-catalogue of Muhammad cartoons.
But it is important, I think, to distinguish between those who resisted the urgings of Garton-Ash, Index on Censorship, and others because they were afraid, from those who have been persuaded - violence or no violence - to see things from the fanatics' point of view.
In a series of tweets posted in the immediate aftermath of the murders [here, here, here, here, here, here, and here], Stephen Pollard, the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, was admirably frank about his hesitancy:
This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the vast majority of the opinion and commentary that has appeared in the Guardian's pages since 9/11. In the debates around terrorism and multiculturalism, the paper has been a consistently wretched defender of universalism and secularism, and a reliable platform for Islamists and their miserable apologists to advance a narrative of Muslim victimhood that excoriates Israel and insists on the total culpability of the West.
Two days later, true to its editor's promise that it would not compromise on this line, the Swiss Ikwanist Tariq Ramadan appeared in the Guardian to lecture us as follows:
But it is important, I think, to distinguish between those who resisted the urgings of Garton-Ash, Index on Censorship, and others because they were afraid, from those who have been persuaded - violence or no violence - to see things from the fanatics' point of view.
In a series of tweets posted in the immediate aftermath of the murders [here, here, here, here, here, here, and here], Stephen Pollard, the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, was admirably frank about his hesitancy:
Easy to attack papers for not showing cartoons. But here's my editor's dilemma. Every principle I hold tells me to print them. But what right do I have to risk the lives of my staff to make a point? Because this isn't a mere debate about principles. As today showed, this is about lives. These people are butchers.
No, Charlie Hebdo didn't provoke anyone. It published cartoons.
Get real, folks. A Jewish newspaper like mine that published such cartoons would be at the front of the queue for Islamists to murder. None of my points mean we shouldn't or wouldn't publish. I'm simply explaining it's a dilemma and not a simple issue of principle.
Thing is, every argument people are making to me about why we must print cartoons is not just valid but vital. But so are those not to print.Timothy Garton-Ash's impassioned plea was made at a Guardian-sponsored event held the evening after the Paris massacre. The event's moderator, the Guardian's Giles Fraser, invited his editor, Alan Rusbridger to respond. Compare his reasoning with that of Pollard:
Well, we talked about this a lot this morning because there was a kind of twitter feeding-frenzy last night I think to provoke people to print more and more offensive material. We did print 4 or 5 of the images from Charlie Hebdo, last night and this morning and that wasn't enough for some people. Some people were tweeting me saying, "Yes, but you haven't chosen the really offensive one" and then they wanted to choose a still more offensive one. And there are some very offensive ones that the Guardian would never in the normal run of events publish.
It was a replaying of the debate over the Danish cartoons. I didn't want to republish some of the Danish cartoons because the Guardian is the Guardian and the Danish newspaper [Jyllands Posten] is the Danish newspaper and Charlie Hebdo is [Charlie Hebdo]. We completely defend Charlie Hebdo's ethos and values and the right to offend in the way that they did. But it felt to me as though there was a sort of tokenism in demanding that the Guardian should change, and I take [panelist] Sunny [Hundal]'s point here, and I think the thing that is important is that we don't change as a result.
If they want us to change, and they want us to be more inflammatory, and to contribute to the hardening of attitudes in society, then I think one of the things the Guardian could do is not change, and that it should continue to apply its normal editorial values about what it should publish. And that we will carry on publishing [panelists and Guardian cartoonists] Steve [Bell] and Martin [Rowson]. And that was the decision we reached collectively as a paper this morning.
The aphorism often misattributed to Voltaire holds that "I disagree with what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it." Usually these noble words are employed in defence of free speech. But in the wake of the Paris atrocities, they were most often heard falling from the lips of those who wished to put as much distance between themselves and Charlie Hebdo as possible, without forfeiting their right to be considered defenders of liberty.
What Rusbridger did not make clear was that the offensive images to which he referred were Charlie Hebdo's representations of Muhammad, and that it was a refusal to publish these pictures in particular that Rusbridger and his staff felt constituted a defence of their paper's values. He went on to point out that re-publication was by no means the only way of expressing solidarity, and that the Guardian Media Group had contributed £100,000 to Charlie Hebdo to help ensure that it was able to continue publication.
This was undeniably an act of meaningful and generous solidarity and one which would have a practical bearing on the magazine's ability to survive. It is also a change of subject. The images of Muhammad were not incidental to the deaths of nine journalists but the explicit reason given for their execution. The right to draw and print such pictures in a free society is precisely what is - or what ought to be - at issue.
It is clear now that all those - myself included - demanding the widespread re-publication of Charlie Hebdo's cartoons were making a tactical error. It was too prescriptive a demand and it allowed the discussion to get diverted away from the central issue of the taboo which Charlie Hebdo had repeatedly violated and into a separate - and frankly irrelevant - debate about whether the manner in which the taboo had been violated was something others ought to endorse.
If Charlie Hebdo's representations of Muhammad were not to Rusbridger's taste, but he nevertheless felt that the right to depict him was one worth defending, he could have simply commissioned his own. But Rusbridger gives every impression of agreeing with the assassins that satire of Islam's most revered figure is something we would all be better off without. He is consequently far more preoccupied by the need to resist those who would pressure him into re-publishing such images than he is by the threat to free expression posed by masked fascists.
Alan Rusbridger is not frightened. His reasoning doesn't put him in a position where he needs to be, which is probably why he wasted not one syllable on considerations of security or safety. But in 2012 his paper had illustrated an article about Andres Serrano's Piss Christ with a large and prominent photograph of the blasphemous exhibit. This artwork is far more objectionable than anything Charlie Hebdo ever produced, and yet it was - rightly - reproduced with nary a thought for the religious sensitivities of devout Christians. So, contrary to Rusbridger's protestations, the Guardian has already changed - it has made an exception for Islam, and it is an exception Rusbridger is determined to protect even as people are dying for disagreeing.
What Rusbridger did not make clear was that the offensive images to which he referred were Charlie Hebdo's representations of Muhammad, and that it was a refusal to publish these pictures in particular that Rusbridger and his staff felt constituted a defence of their paper's values. He went on to point out that re-publication was by no means the only way of expressing solidarity, and that the Guardian Media Group had contributed £100,000 to Charlie Hebdo to help ensure that it was able to continue publication.
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| Alan Rusbridger |
It is clear now that all those - myself included - demanding the widespread re-publication of Charlie Hebdo's cartoons were making a tactical error. It was too prescriptive a demand and it allowed the discussion to get diverted away from the central issue of the taboo which Charlie Hebdo had repeatedly violated and into a separate - and frankly irrelevant - debate about whether the manner in which the taboo had been violated was something others ought to endorse.
If Charlie Hebdo's representations of Muhammad were not to Rusbridger's taste, but he nevertheless felt that the right to depict him was one worth defending, he could have simply commissioned his own. But Rusbridger gives every impression of agreeing with the assassins that satire of Islam's most revered figure is something we would all be better off without. He is consequently far more preoccupied by the need to resist those who would pressure him into re-publishing such images than he is by the threat to free expression posed by masked fascists.
Alan Rusbridger is not frightened. His reasoning doesn't put him in a position where he needs to be, which is probably why he wasted not one syllable on considerations of security or safety. But in 2012 his paper had illustrated an article about Andres Serrano's Piss Christ with a large and prominent photograph of the blasphemous exhibit. This artwork is far more objectionable than anything Charlie Hebdo ever produced, and yet it was - rightly - reproduced with nary a thought for the religious sensitivities of devout Christians. So, contrary to Rusbridger's protestations, the Guardian has already changed - it has made an exception for Islam, and it is an exception Rusbridger is determined to protect even as people are dying for disagreeing.
This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the vast majority of the opinion and commentary that has appeared in the Guardian's pages since 9/11. In the debates around terrorism and multiculturalism, the paper has been a consistently wretched defender of universalism and secularism, and a reliable platform for Islamists and their miserable apologists to advance a narrative of Muslim victimhood that excoriates Israel and insists on the total culpability of the West.
Two days later, true to its editor's promise that it would not compromise on this line, the Swiss Ikwanist Tariq Ramadan appeared in the Guardian to lecture us as follows:
To have a sense of humour is fine, but to target an already stigmatised people in France is not really showing much courage . . . media organisations [are] intent on publishing the most offensive Charlie Hebdo cartoons, claiming that it would strike a blow for free speech. I support free speech, but I would urge them to desist, for what they plan to do is not courageous and will do nothing to afford people dignity. It will be another example of targeting all Muslims.
In the fraught quarrel over re-publication, any distinction that has put Stephen Pollard on the same side of the argument as Tariq Ramadan has been false. It is for precisely this reason that those who want to publish pictures of Muhammad but are afraid to do so must speak up, so that the proper distinctions may be made with greater clarity. Pollard understands the value of what Charlie Hebdo have been doing. Alan Rusbridger, hostage to a neurotic tolerance of even the most reactionary Islamic beliefs, does not.
Pollard may be afraid, but his reasoning is not the enemy of press freedom. The termites which have hollowed out the Guardian and Will Self's cranium have not yet been allowed to inflict anything like the same damage on the Jewish Chronicle.
The concluding part of this essay can be found here.
Pollard may be afraid, but his reasoning is not the enemy of press freedom. The termites which have hollowed out the Guardian and Will Self's cranium have not yet been allowed to inflict anything like the same damage on the Jewish Chronicle.
The concluding part of this essay can be found here.
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