I want to clearly make one point—every human life is of equal value.
A human that claims America is not more valuable than a human that claims the Middle East, or Nigeria, or Pakistan or Yemen.
Or France.
I’m a Muslimah, and I have a nuclear and extended Muslim family, and I have Muslim friends in this country, and I have Muslim friends outside of this country, and I couldn’t name to you a single one of them who has not condemned the terrorist attacks in Paris. There is no elaborated explanation, clarification or footnote that can provide a plausible justification to these murders. All human life is equal. Period.
Yet, our history shows us that, as a global society, we are guilty of challenging this seemingly simple fact. Systems were set up all over the world advocating for social hierarchy, and those chapters have not ended. The global legacy of human on human degradation is still fresh and active.
I’m not looking for answers for the Charlie Hebdo murders. After all, I do not question why the KKK, Lord’s Resistance Army or anti-abortion groups commit murder under the name of Christianity. I mourn the Charlie Hebdo murders, but I don’t expect any logical answer to why those murders occurred. Yet, quite the opposite is expected of Muslims. Muslims are expected to have the answers. And they will give them to you. The Quranic chapters, the prophetic messages and the international condemnations made by Muslim leaders of all nationalities support every conversation we are having about Islam’s position on peace and violence. And turning to the facts, as well as to the heavy and disproportionate number of followers of these facts, will gladly answer any lingering doubt about the values and traditions extracted from these teachings.
So, no, I am not looking for answers within Islam that shed light on why Cherif and Said Kouachi committed these horrific murders. But when I first learned of the attacks, I introspectively searched for a way to mourn. I was lost in the media’s attempt to garner a collective solidarity. Watching personal testimonies, reading articles by peers and following the actions of presidents and prime ministers, I was compelled to join the international conversation.
And the Internet makes it easy to do so, as #jesuischarlie became a global sentiment. The hashtag is meant to unite supporters of free speech and freedom of expression, especially those supporting satirical news organizations like Charlie Hebdo. But what are we actually standing for? Charlie Hebdo is lauded as the secular country’s freedom of expression in practice. France is a flagship symbol of this freedom as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in Paris in 1948, and Article 19 recognizes everyone’s right to freedom of opinion and expression. However, this clearly has exceptions since Muslim women in France will face repercussions if they wear the hijab in schools. French nuns, however, face no backlash. We can’t assume a platform like freedom of expression until we ensure that all individuals have the right to safely and comfortably express their opinions and beliefs. Until then, hashtags like #jesuischarlie are false misnomers that simplify an overly complex issue.
Never mind that this expression comes at the expense of an already marginalized group. Though Muslims only make up 12 percent of the entire country, they comprise 60 to 70 percent of all inmates, which highlights the deep social divides that keep Muslim immigrants on the brink of society. Productive satire, I would argue, has an end goal of challenging powerful and naturalized systems at play. Considering the generalized attacks on Islam, I question the sincerity of Charlie Hebdo’s satirical motives. What is to gain when one feeds into the stereotypes of minority immigrant groups as barbaric and savage? When the only things we see about these groups are bodily distortions (Muslims with hook-noses), terrorism and sodomy (Muslims as naked or with weapons) and animal depictions (black French justice minister Christiane Taubira as a monkey), we internalize these tropes and reinforce the marginalization of the Muslim and black immigrant communities. Again, I am compelled to remind you that I condemn these attacks, make no excuse for them at even the most minuscule of levels and mourn for these lost lives. I condemn the attack, while also taking this opportunity to urge you to separate the right to live of the real humans behind Charlie Hebdo, whose lives should have never been lost, from the concept we’re explicitly hashtagging—unconditional free press to the suffering and further marginalization of the oppressed.
Shortly after #jesuischarlie erupted, supporters of Ahmed Merabet rallied behind #jesuisahmed. Ahmed was the 40-year old Muslim police officer who lost his life trying to protect Charlie Hebdo victims from the terrorists. Many championed behind this hashtag to shed light on the sacrifices Muslims have made for their country and to show that Muslims, too, die at the hand of terrorists. But what about all the other Ahmeds? What about the Ahmeds in Pakistan and Yemen that have been killed by drone attacks? You can blame the U.S. for that. What about the Ahmeds in Nigeria that have been killed by Boko Haram? What about the Ahmeds that have been killed by the conflict in the Central African Republic? When deaths of innocent Muslims enter our conversations, it’s usually about Muslims closer to home in our beloved west. As Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan stated, murders in Muslim majority countries mean just as much when Muslims are murdered at home. Our country continues to send drones that kill many innocents, and rather than mourning these deaths, we mirror the discourse our government imposes on us—“It’s collateral damage.”
The Internet is an intriguing, albeit messy, world, luring us in to place ourselves in the lives of the fallen. But we are none of these people. By standing behind labels, we are reducing multi-component and complex issues to black and white arguments. You can stand in solidarity with Charlie Hebdo’s right to speak and to live, but not in their influence in oppressing already oppressed groups and promoting deeply entrenched double standards. You can stand behind Ahmed’s bravery in protecting his country and its right, but you must also acknowledge the thousands of other Ahmeds doing the exact same thing.
We can condemn without endorsing, and we can mourn without using the deaths of one people to fight a different battle.
Leena El-Sadek is a Trinity senior. This is her first column of the semester.
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