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Charlie Hebdo attacks: Anti-Islam parties are now on the march across Europe
Religion should be able to cope with being satirised
The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo had no qualms about lampooning Islam. Why should it? In a free and liberally-inclined country like France it routinely took the mickey out of politicians and creeds whatever their source. But the editors knew they were running a risk by sending up Islam because militants will simply not accept that their religion be traduced in any way – and are prepared to kill or threaten to make their point.
Salman Rushdie discovered this more than 20 years ago after the publication of Satanic Verses brought a fatwa upon his head from Iran and forced him into hiding for years. Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard found out in 2005 when he was asked by his newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, to draw the prophet Muhammad "as you see him". The resulting cartoon was deemed blasphemous by hard-line Muslims around the world and provoked death threats. Ten Years ago, Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh, who made a controversial film about Islamic culture, was stabbed and shot dead in Amsterdam for insulting the Prophet.
Staff at Charlie Hebdo had already tasted this murderous backlash three years ago when their offices were firebombed when the magazine reprinted the Danish cartoons and named Mohammed editor-in-chief for a week’s edition. It also published a “halal” comic book on the life of the Prophet. To most Western sensibilities all of these publications were the warp and weft of what it means to live in a free country. Even if Christians or Jews object to their religions being satirised, they put up with it. But militant Islamists were not prepared to do so. Two gunmen in Paris have now exacted bloody vengeance in an act of violence that will send shock waves around Europe.
Anti-Islamist attitudes are beginning to move away from the far-Right extreme and more into the mainstream of popular discontent. In Germany since last October weekly marches have been held in a number of towns and cities staged by an organisation called Pegida which campaigns against what it sees as the "Islamisation" of Europe. Nearly 20,000 turned out to one rally in Dresden. The marches have been denounced by political parties and religious leaders across Germany but its supporters do not appear to be drawn from the usual neo-Nazi quarters.
In Holland, the PVV party led by Geert Wilders continues to attract substantial popular support even though its leader is facing trial for incitement to racial hatred. But it is in France, which has the largest Muslim population in Europe, where the tensions are greatest. Partly this is a legacy of its colonial past but also the result of its failure to integrate, despite the advancement of some Muslim politicians. Paris was the first city to experience the wave of Islamist attacks of the modern era when the Metro was bombed in 1995. Two years ago, the lone wolf terrorist Mohamed Merah killed two soldiers, a rabbi and three small children in a shooting spree in Toulouse.
The reaction has been both cultural and political. The French author Michel Houellebecq latest novel Submission looks ahead to a time when a Muslim runs France according to the laws of conservative Islam. It predicts that in 2022 France's mainstream Left and Right club together to back a Muslim candidate in a second round presidential run-off against Marine Le Pen. This may sound fanciful but the Front National is now the most powerful party in France, running 11 towns, and with two seats in the Senate, and top position in last year’s European Parliament elections.
President Francois Hollande went to the offices of Charlie Hebdo within hours of the atrocity; but he must have known that the task of confronting the Front National just got a whole lot harder.
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