A handful of years ago, a new chancellor came to power in a European nation. His election followed a politically tumultuous time, and many people were excited about his promises of prosperity and justice in a country that had seen its fair share of conflict and economic problems. Two days following this election, a young nobleman took to the airwaves to share his opinion about this election, which was less than supportive of the new regime. His broadcast was cut off partway through, and he was not allowed to speak his piece. Later, as it became more and more obvious to him that this leader was bad for the people, he began to publish writings protesting him, and meet with groups of people who were of like mind. Frustrated with the lack of response, he left his home country for a while, but continued to see the plight of his people and eventually returned. Upon his return, he was not allowed to speak in public, because he was known to be spreading subversive messages by the government. He was a troublemaker. Finally, ten years after his first radio broadcast, the young dissident was arrested, though he continued to write and communicate with these underground groups in prison. Two years later, he was hanged.
If you know much about 20th
century church history, you probably realized that the young
dissident was none other than Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose tireless
efforts to create a strong church body to resist the Nazi regime
resulted in his death just days before the end of the Second World
War. If you’ve been following the news from France in recent days,
you have seen the debates about free speech/press and the many media
outlets which are trying very hard not to lay blame on Charlie Hebdo
while conceding that, yes, they probably did bear some responsibility
for this incident. Charlie Hebdo is known for publishing outrageous
religious and political satire, some of which takes a very offensive
tone particularly to Muslims (though they published things about a
variety of religions). This is seen as justification, by some, for
the actions of extremists. However, as one author put it, allowing
blame for this incident to be placed on the victims of this massacre
allows Sharia law to reign. In other words, being silenced by
terrorism, no matter how unpalatable you may find the content being
censored, sends the message that it’s okay to use violence to
silence voices you disagree with, the same way the Nazi party used
silence to create an apathetic nation that allowed millions of Jews
to be slaughtered.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the
fears some people have about this triggering Islamaphobia. Those
fears might be legitimate, especially given the hysteria that tends
to follow terrorist actions. But despite those fears, this issue is
not, in fact, about Islam. Muslims all around the world manage to
peacefully practice their religion in secular nations that would
never dream of allowing a minority group to impose their religious
beliefs on other people. These people practice a faith of love and
submission to God’s will, and most of them are wonderful, kind
people, like Lassana Bathily
who saved several people during the shooting spree by hiding people
in the freezer of the kosher market where he works. The religion
practiced by the alleged shooters is no more similar to true Islam
than the Westboro Baptist Church is to mainline Christianity. This is
a fact that has been pointed out quite vehemently in every story that
I have seen on the topic. Some people may be conflating Islam and
terrorism, but the vast majority of the world understands that there
is a difference between a fanatic and a faithful person.
This is not just a freedom of speech
issue, as it has been framed in the media. That is part of this, but
it’s a problem that is further reaching than just free speech. It’s
about freedom in general, and mostly it’s about justice. Regardless
of whether to agree with a message, protecting the right to say it
protects everybody who dares to speak out against injustice.
Countless people were taken away to be re-educated during the first
five decades of Communism in China and Russia. These were people who
dared speak out, maybe only to their immediate family members or
friends, and were found to be a threat to the power of the state. The
first abolitionists who spoke out against slavery spoke a message
very contrary to the powers that be, but they spoke it courageously
at sometimes great personal cost. Martin Luther King Jr. utilized
free speech and civil disobedience as a way to sway a public opinion
vastly different from his own, and despite being imprisoned for that
civil disobedience, he continued writing letters that turned out to
be quite influential. It is vital to the freedom of societies and to
those not in power that this right be defended. Living in the US or
other free nations has spoiled us: we have forgotten how dangerous it
is to be silenced.
The situation in France is different
from the United States; there are legitimate concerns about the rise
of extremist Islam. These people want to force others to live
according to Sharia law, to punish people who offend their religious
sensibilities. I find it surprising that the same people who defend
the right of Satanists to erect statues of the devil in public areas
as an ironic protest of the overreach of Christianity in the US
government are opposed to political satire that points to a very real
problem. This problem is bad not just for secular or Christian French
people, but also for the millions of peaceful Muslims who want to
live their lives without the imposition of extremism in their lives.
Justice doesn’t happen if laws from one religion are applied
unilaterally to everybody—we live under a common moral law rather
than a religious law for exactly this reason. This is a lesson we are
still learning in the United States, but we are trying very hard (as
witnessed by the recent wave of challenges to and victories over the
bans on same sex marriage around the country). Extremism is
responsible for the suffering of millions of people, from Hamas’
unwillingness to negotiate to Boko Haram’s kidnapping and sacking
of villages to Afghani and other middle eastern leaders that
persecute less extremist Muslims, Christians, and everybody in
between. Extremism is dangerous business in any religion, and it’s
irresponsible to frame this as an Islam issue when it is an extremism
issue. You can be sympathetic to our Muslim brothers and sisters and
still defend the right of twelve people not to be brutally murdered
for daring to differ in opinion.
Yes, we should pray for those who
committed these atrocious acts. Yes, we should understand that they,
like us, are flawed and broken humans misled into acts of violence by
their probably earnest desire to obey their religion to the letter.
Yes, we should most certainly recognize that Islam is on the whole a
peaceful religion filled with peace-loving people. But I believe our
call as Christians is to seek justice for all people and to call out
those who are threatening it. The staff at Charlie Hebdo had a grave
injustice committed against them, and the people of France face the
threat of injustice both from extremism and from the xenophobic
far-right groups gaining popularity in response to it. I cannot, in
good conscious, give anything but condemnation to the actions of
these people who chose to respond to words with murder.
I hesitated writing about this issue,
to be honest. I thought to myself “do I want to make this blog a
political platform?” and the answer to that question is... yes. I
don’t want this blog to be a place where I tell you what your
political beliefs should be, or who to vote for. However, in the same
way that Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s work in forming the confessing
church and resisting Nazi rule could not be separated from his
theology, so are we people who must live in a political world based
on our beliefs. But if I preach that I stand for justice and peace
and yet stay silent in the face of what I see as injustice, I am a
hypocrite. Maybe you have a different view on what is just and what
is not. That’s okay. If you’re reading this, you’re probably
lucky enough to live in a country where you are free to disagree with
what I write here without threat of bodily harm or political
repercussions, and who am I to argue with that? But I hope that you
will consider that the freedom to “speak truth in love”
(Ephesians 4:15) is the freedom to enact justice, sometimes
subversively, sometimes outrageously, sometimes even offensively, and
that it is a right we as Christians ought to take very, very
seriously, lest we forget the cost of our freedom, both political and
Christian.