"What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God, rather than men, and that as a result he's certain he'll go to heaven if he cuts your throat?" - Voltaire

COMMENT Even amidst the slaughter of its journalists, the spirit of Charlie Hebdo managed to illustrate the absurdity of religious tyranny of the Islamic variety. One of the police officers butchered by an Islamist fascist was a Muslim.

“Fundamentalism isn't about religion, it's about power,” said Salman Rushdie and whether the said power is enforced through laws limiting free speech or the barrel of gun, the result is the same.

Western democracies are under siege. Those in power are not as fanatical as those seeking to undermine those values.

While some argue that Islam is under siege, I dismiss this idea as intellectually disingenuous. In ‘ Welcome to the religious jungle ’, I wrote: “What exactly is a ‘true’ Muslim, or ‘true’ Christian for that matter? Someone who believes that religion should not be politicised? Someone who believes that you should not mock another's religion? Someone who believes that religion should not intrude in the private lives of members in any given society? Someone who believes that there should be a separation of church/mosque and state?

“These are not ‘true’ religious values but rather true secular values or secular humanist values, if you like. It is pointless and disingenuous to attempt to define what a ‘true’ Muslim is, considering the fact that said values are in fact anathema to traditional Islamic thought and especially to non-Muslims, who project their own agendas as to the qualities that make a good or true Muslim.”

So-called moderate Muslims are outliers from a faith dominated by fanatical voices determined to link their every grievance to liberal Western values or geopolitical skullduggery.

Malaysia’s liberal values, which have rationally determined the power structures and values of society, have been slowly eroded by those in power and those seeking power as a means to maintain hegemony.

Every day here in Malaysia, we read statements by those champions of race and religion that Western values are anathema to a Muslim social order. It is vitally important that more moderate Muslims shake off their apathy or partisanship and speak out against those who wish to dominate the discourse with threats of violence.

Fear of reprisals

In ‘ No peace in religion ’, I wrote, “Instead of the ‘Religion of Peace’, I much prefer the honesty of someone like Malcolm X who said, ‘I am a Muslim, because it's a religion that teaches you an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It teaches you to respect everybody, and treat everybody right. But it also teaches you if someone steps on your toe, chop off their foot. And I carry my religious axe with me all the time.’

“Of course, as far as Islam, as is practised in this country, Muslims in control conveniently leave out the ‘teaches you to respect everybody, and treat everybody right’ aspect of Malcolm X's quote.”

Already there is talk of the limits of free speech in the Western context and those very ideals that Charlie Hebdo fought to maintain in its own sometimes crude way, are being challenged again.

Muslims in Europe fear that there would be reprisals of some sort and Western liberals cringe at the thought that these attacks give the political right more ammo to further their “agenda”.

Both are correct in their assumptions. If there is a shift in political ideology in the Western world, it would be because those values that it claims to cherish have been eroded to the point where non-partisan fidelity to them have been overcome by religious extremism but more importantly, by secular apathy.

As usual, the fallout would be most damaging to those who aspire to those values in countries gripped by tyranny, either religious or otherwise. Pernicious laws used to promote ‘tolerance’ would be justified because they supposedly promote public order and those who demand more freedom to speak out would be designated as deviants.

The attacks on Charlie Hebdo were meant to shock Western society but whom it should really shock is the worldwide Muslim community. Not in our names should be the only response by Muslims to this atrocity and any talk of the limits of free speech should not even enter into the discourse.

Unfortunately, the news cycle being what it is, this incident will soon be relegated to the back burner, just as the massacre in Peshawar was.

The Charlie Hebdo attack will be remembered and used by extremists to alienate marginal groups even further and the power elites in countries facing economic and social disparities would further tighten their grip on their societies, all in the guise of maintaining social order.

Postscript

Khairy Jamaluddin mocked calls to protect satire as free speech because some of it according to the Oxford-educated minister may be “even racist, xenophobic, bigoted satire”. Apparently an Oxford experience didn’t educate the youth and sports minister of the very definition of satire.

Of course when it comes to Muslim hate speech, anything goes in Malaysia where even someone like Ibrahim Ali gets away with threatening to burn bibles because in the words of the attorney-general, “This is not a sentiment or intention to cause religious disharmony, but this is defending the sanctity of Islam that is clearly defined in laws.".

One wonders what the response of the security apparatus in this country if something like Charlie Hebdo happened here.

After all, if like Khairy you hold an incident where Muslim extremists coerce a mother and her child, into breaching the security codes of a building and then proceed to slaughter innocent people including police officers in the same breath as illustrating offensive cartoons, then we really understand your religious beliefs or lack thereof.

S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy.