‘Je suis Charlie?’, eh? You’re under arrest…

It’s a strange day, when so many people express horror at the murder of 10 journalists in Paris last Wednesday… in a country where the same journalists would almost certainly have been arrested – possibly even imprisoned – over the exact same issue.

OK, I put in ‘almost certainly’ and ‘possibly’ there, because that’s what the law says, and the police consistently argue that they have no option but to ‘investigate all crimes and take action where necessary’. Whether they would have actually arrested the staff of Charlie Hebdo for consistent violation of Article 163 (b) of Malta’s Criminal Code, however, is another question. So, too, is what might have happened as a result.

In any case, here it is: the article of law that makes common criminals of the same people we (rightly) laud as heroes and martyrs to the cause of freedom of expression. 

“Whosoever by words, gestures, written matter, whether printed or not, or pictures or by some other visible means, publicly vilifies the Roman Catholic Apostolic Religion which is the religion of Malta… shall, on conviction, be liable to imprisonment for a term from one to six months.”

In case you think I’m using this as a pretext to knock the Roman Catholic Apostolic Religion, the next paragraph reads: “Whosoever commits any of the acts referred to in the last preceding article against ANY CULT TOLERATED BY LAW, shall, on conviction, be liable to imprisonment for a term from one to three months.”

Last I looked, Islam qualifies as a ‘cult tolerated by law’ in Malta. So the local authorities would be legally compelled to make arrests over every single edition of Charlie Hebdo to ever poke satirical fun – often very provocatively – at religions, including both Catholicism and Islam (not to mention Judaism, etc). 

If the ‘Je Suis Charlie’ mantra were to be taken literally, we’d all be either in court or in jail by now. But no matter: it’s not meant to be taken literally. Otherwise, we’d all be dead. 

As things turned out, the consequences for those journalists – and two policeman, and the victims of any future spin-off attacks – were slightly more serious than a three-month sojourn in Kordin’s Division One.

Apart from the cost in human life, last Wednesday’s attack has also turned up the pressure valve insofar as fears of an ‘inevitable’ clash of cultures are concerned. Perhaps it’s my perception, but I detect a moment of intense historical significance occurring right now: as though much of our future peace of mind hinges on how we collectively react to this single incident today. 

In a sense I am reminded of a solitary scene in Spike Lee’s 1992 movie ‘Malcolm X’ – also set against the backdrop of a pivotal, touch-and-go historical moment – where the eponymous US black civil rights activist, played by Denzel Washington, suddenly finds himself face to face with a young, white female university student. 

“Is there anything white people like myself, who sympathise with your cause, can do to help?” she asks (I paraphrase from memory). 

“No,” he answers without any hesitation whatsoever; then turns on his heels and walks away.

That scene has always disconcerted me slightly. At face value, his reply may just have been a brutally honest acknowledgement of the futility of any single individual “doing anything” in such complex circumstances. 

On another level, he could have just been telling her: “This is not your fight. We don’t need your help. Now run along and hand in that assignment…”

But as the entire film is ultimately an exploration of racism and its effects on people, the likeliest interpretation is far more worrying. There was “nothing” that girl, or anyone like her, could possibly have done, because – being white – she was herself viewed as part of the problem. Not by all black people at the time, certainly (Martin Luther King would most likely have given a different answer); but by at least one faction of “the other side”. 

The implications are sinister, and extend far beyond the individual prejudices explored in this film. It matters not how you think or what you feel: the colour of your skin (in this case – it could be religion or political affiliation in any other) automatically casts you in the role of adversary… and there’s nothing you can do to change it.

That, at any rate, is the mental image I came away with: and a powerful, disturbing image it was too. At a stroke, the sentiment expressed by Malcolm X automatically nullifies the best of intentions, and reduces individuals to a state of abject powerlessness in the face of something they feel strongly about. 

Even worse, it projects the image that prejudice, of any kind, is itself a force which engulfs even those who resist it, or are immune to it on an individual level. The most tolerant and benign can find themselves in the firing line even of those with whom they identify, or seek to help. And waving a white flag won’t make any difference.

I have been reminded of that sentiment countless times in the last few years. Humanitarian aid workers (or, for that matter, journalists) captured and beheaded by militant Islamist groups such as ISIS, for instance. From both perspectives the view is ghastly. The injustice of a murder most foul and undeserved; and then the blind, almost gleeful cry of “death to all those who not only oppose us, but who are in any way connected – no matter how arbitrarily – with our enemies”. 

In that scenario, no one can feel detached or uninvolved. There is no such thing as an ‘innocent bystander’: we all get drafted into the conflict of our day, sometimes without knowing or even suspecting it; and without (as Malcolm X so brutally reminds us) having any say in the matter.

Yet the girl’s question remains relevant, even if unanswered. What can anyone do, faced with any situation that is outside their own control… but which involves them deeply?

There are good reasons to ask it now. Since Wednesday there have been a number of retaliatory attacks on (sometimes very vaguely) Muslim targets in Paris and elsewhere. Anything from a Mosque to a kebab shop. In all likelihood, this may even have been the whole intention behind the Charlie Hebdo attack: in a country which is home to (est.) five million Muslims – most of whom are understood to be indifferent or unsympathetic towards extremism – precipitating open hostility against one’s own religion can be seen to serve a (very twisted) purpose. 

Either way, the Hebdo massacre has inevitably heightened Europe’s latent intercultural tension for another reason: it reminds us (once again) that there is undeniably a dimension to Islam that is incompatible with some of the things most Europeans feel very strongly about. And it is a dimension that evidently doesn’t consider itself bound by the social contracts that keep countries from falling apart. National laws and boundaries are suddenly alien concepts. This ideology comes complete with its own code of laws, and its actions are clearly driven by an impulse to impose that code on everyone else.

This dimension may not be representative of Islam as a whole, granted. But then again, for the purposes of the fanatical thug it doesn’t need to be, either. If an entire religion or only one man is holding the knife that’s about to slice off your head, it makes little difference to the immediate outcome. It might, however, make a small difference if the rest of the religion tried to stop the man with the knife… and for this reason alone, the last thing any rational person would want right now is for European Muslims who are outraged or angered by the terrorist attack, to be blamed for it. 

Obviously, for the same reason it is what every extremist who applauded the Hebdo murders is praying for as we speak. It’s a delicate line that has to be walked.

This places all people who are appalled by the massacre in roughly the same boat. Some of us may be horrified at the violence of the murders themselves, some outraged at the attempt to stifle a cherished principle… some might just be worried about being singled out for a retaliatory attack. All categories have cause to want – like that American student in 1963 – to “do something about it”. But what can you do? 

Oh, don’t look at me, I have no idea. On an individual level I don’t think there really is anything one can ‘do’… which is perhaps what Malcolm X meant all along anyway. Statements of solidarity and camaraderie help with morale, certainly; but are not in themselves actions. About the only thing that pops into my head as a possible answer is… perhaps we might want to revisit precisely what it is that we are defending here. 

Why is freedom of expression such a vitally important issue that people (10, in this case alone) are ready and willing to die for it? And from the opposite angle: why is it so necessary to stifle that freedom that others are ready and willing to commit murder to that end?

I feel I have to raise this question again because (as the above cited law indicates) not everyone here will agree that freedom of expression is an absolute value that must be protected at all costs. The local issues may not have been comparable in effect; but the sentiment of ‘I disagree, therefore you must be silent’ has often reared its head in this country of ours. 

To be fair, much has changed since The Last Temptation of Christ was banned even on video; but it is worth remembering that there are vast swathes of people in this country who likewise take offence when their religion is targeted by satire or criticism; people who argue (successfully, to date) that their religion deserves a special legal status that places it above and beyond all reproach. 

These people respond to the same instinctive impulse that propels Islamic outrage at insults to their prophet. Luckily for the rest of us, the local impulse has been shaped and conditioned by very different historical circumstances… otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this today. But let’s not forget that Malta is still a place where the victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre might face legal sanctions for the same ‘crime’. And that, at least, is something we do have some control over.

Things brings us no nearer to answering the ‘what to do’ question. But it does point in a few directions. An appropriate collective reaction to an attack on freedom of expression would surely be to bolster legislation on freedom of expression, and protect it from future attacks. To attune the instruments of our own laws so that they actually harmonise with the slogan we are now all so eager to chant.

‘Je suis Charlie’, remember…?