France Terror Attack: There Is No Reason To Claim That Islam Has Some Fundamental Defect
By N.C. Asthana
31/OCT/2020
Two recent
murderous attacks in France including the attack at a church in Nice and the
murder of a teacher in a north-west suburb of Paris, have deservedly been met
with worldwide condemnation.
A man holds a placard during
a protest against the publication of a cartoon of Prophet Mohammad in France
and French President Emmanuel Macron's comments, in Istanbul, Turkey October
30, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Murad Sezer
-----
However, as
expected, #NiceTerrorAttack and #FranceTerrorAttack are trending on Twitter and
there has been a flurry of posts, memes and cartoons blaming and deriding Islam
per se for this. These incidents have provided a fortuitous opportunity to the
usual suspects in India to launch their tirade against Muslims and Islam with
renewed vigour. I do not intend to write a thesis on any religion in this
article, but it can be easily proved to all but the diehard bigoted that murder
does not have sanction in any religion.
All Murders Are Equally Condemnable
All murders
are condemnable; however, from a strictly moral point of view, a murder in the
name of religion cannot be more condemnable than murders in the name of say,
sexual lust, monetary gain, or even nationalism.
A murder
committed in the pursuit of sexual desire does not condemn sexual desire per
se. As we know, had it not been for sexual desire, the human race would not
have been able to propagate itself. A murder committed to acquire wealth does
not denounce acquisition of wealth. Had people not been acquiring wealth, the
human society could not have had the comfortable existence it has today.
Nationalism may be a laudable thing, but murder committed in the name of
nationalism is bad and could have disastrous consequences. The murder of
Archduke Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist was one of the precipitating
factors for the devastating World War I.
A Religion Cannot Be Held Responsible For The
Acts Of Its Adherents
Similarly,
even if a person deludes himself into believing that he would earn religious
merit by murdering people of other religions, that fact does not qualify his
religion for summary denunciation. A crime of any description remains the
criminals’ individual responsibility. Even if a crime is committed in the name
of religion by a group large enough to be called an army or a nation, it cannot
implicate the religion.
Therefore,
from the crimes committed by individuals, there is no reason to claim that
Islam has some ‘fundamental defect’ in it and blame Islam. Nobody has the
authority to be the sole representative of a religion.
Strictly
speaking, therefore, it was impolitic on the part of the French President
Macron to speak of Islam being a religion, which is experiencing a crisis
today, all over the world, citing tensions between fundamentalism, proper
religious projects and politicians. As Macron had begun his speech by
reasserting that the French principle of secularity guaranteed the freedom to
worship, rejecting the ‘trap’ laid by extremists, which would seek to
‘stigmatise all Muslims’, it was clear that he did not mean to denounce Islam
per se.
However, he
overlooked the fact that common Muslim believers, politicians, Muslim religious
organisations and Muslim extremists are all separate entities, which are not
dependent upon each other, and their common factor, that is, Islam, could not
be held responsible for their independent actions.
Moreover,
since there are schisms and divisions in almost all religions, the fallacy
inherent in his argument can be easily discerned. By an extension of his
argument, all religions could be said to be experiencing a crisis. We cannot
possibly think of religions, which are perfectly homogeneous with every single
adherent following exactly the same line.
There is no
such universally recognised body of Islam, which has the authority to approve
or disapprove of something related to religion and order actions accordingly.
Pakistan has criticised French President Emmanuel Macron for ‘encouraging
Islamophobia’. Besides condemning Charlie Hebdo, a French weekly magazine, the
Turkish President Erdogan said that Macron needed ‘mental checks’ over his
attitude towards Islam.
They are
entitled to their criticism, but only in their respective capacities as
representatives of their respective nations as political entities. They cannot
subsume the authority of being universally accepted champions of Islam and thus
speak for Islam per se. Former Malaysian
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed had no authority to speak for all the Muslims
of the word when, in his 12th tweet out of the series of 13 tweets, he
threatened, “Muslims have a right to be
angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past.”
He could
speak only for himself, not for the 1.8 billion Muslims of the world.
One can
mock anything, but cannot prevent others from reacting
The
criminals in these and similar incidents, at their personal level, might have
felt aggrieved at what they perceived as insult to their religion.
This brings
us to the central ethical and legal theme of this article. If someone has a
right to mock or abuse others in the name of freedom of expression – be it
regarding their religion, culture, colour of skin, appearance, intellect,
bodies, dress, mothers, fathers, sisters, whatever – others have a right to
feel offended or provoked too. Now what they do in response is their problem.
If it is a crime, they will be punished according to the laws of the land where
the crime is committed.
Committing
a crime is not their right, but to get angry or feel offended is indeed their
right. In the name of freedom of expression, theoretically, one could ridicule
anything under the sun. However, as long as the target of ridicule is prepared
to face the legal consequences of his actions, he too has the freedom to do
whatever he wants.
Police
speak to Muslims protesting against Macron’s words at the French Consulate at
Kolkata. Photo: PTI
------
In India,
Section 295A IPC pertains to ‘deliberate and malicious acts, intended to
outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious
beliefs’. Section 153A IPC deals with ‘promoting enmity between different
groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc.,
and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony’.
It
necessarily follows that we admit that it is ‘natural’ for people to be hurt if
their religion is mocked.
There is a
fundamental conceptual flaw in such laws because, numerous judicial
pronouncements notwithstanding, religious feelings or sentiments are not
physical entities and hence there will be always be an element of subjectivity
in considering them. All offences against the human body, for example, involve
violating the bodily integrity or sovereignty of a person that is verifiable and
measurable in terms of injuries caused, etc. However, there is no scientific
concept of a corresponding mental integrity or sovereignty of a person.
Humans of
various races and regions and have been mocking ‘others’ in their jokes or
literature since ages. They have not led to murders. The reason is people
tolerate something whereas they get outraged over some other things. This is
purely subjective behaviour. It cannot be predicted that somebody would take
offence over that thing only and not over this thing.
By the same
argument, it cannot be legislated that people must not get their sentiments
hurt or must not get provoked unless a certain boundary is breached. What that
boundary ought to be, will always be disputable. Scientifically speaking, such
a boundary cannot be defined without invoking the hypothetical concept of a
‘reasonable man’ because the effect of words, pictures or any other form of
communication is different on different people. Unfortunately, being an
‘unreasonable man’ is not an offence. He could be punished for his acts, but
not for being unreasonable.
That Raises The Question, How Can Humans Live
Together Then?
My
contention is that understanding, tolerance and respect for others must be
mutually evolved. Until such time that humans evolve this understanding, such
crimes will continue to take place.
Some people
argued that Charlie Hebdo has had mocked Christianity too and that the Catholic
organisations had responded by suing them some 13 times, but not by murders.
Well, it was very kind of them but we cannot expect everyone to behave that
way. Not everybody is given to rushing to courts. We may punish people for
committing crimes, even shoot them as they did in France; however, we cannot
prevent them from getting provoked.
A little
introspection would show that all those who are condemning Islam in terms of
having some sort of fundamental defect in it because some Muslims committed a
crime in the name of religion, are likely to behave very differently if Charlie
Hebdo were to mock Hindu deities or Hindu religious symbols. There would be a
call to boycott French goods and there could be demonstrations outside Alliance
Françoise. Hotels and restaurants serving French fries might incur their wrath
and some zealous people could demand to return the Rafales also.
We may
recall how Hindus had reacted on such matters in the past, whether they
involved some allegedly obscene paintings of M.F. Hussain or some advertisement
by the hair stylist Jawed Habib stating ‘gods too visit JH Salon’, or designer
shoes carrying pictures of deities, etc.
Indians
must see to it that first, their laws like Sections 295A and 153A IPC admitting
the fact that religious feelings could be hurt are scrapped. As long as we keep
them, some crazy people will always find an excuse in them to feel outraged and
commit offences. By scrapping them, we will at least be able to take the
‘religious sting’ out of the offences.
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Dr. N.C. Asthana, a retired IPS officer, has
been DGP Kerala and a long-time ADG CRPF and BSF. Views are personal.
Original Headline: To Mock or Not to Mock
Religions, That Is the Question
Source: The Wire
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-west/france-terror-attack-there-no/d/123342
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