Hate Speech or Humour?
2017
On the morning of Wednesday 7th January 2015, at 11:30AM local time, two armed men burst into the meeting room at the headquarters of a French magazine and opened fire. Ten minutes later, twelve people had lost their lives. The magazine was Charlie Hebdo, a weekly, satirical publication that had previously courted controversy due to its “long and proud tradition of being offensive and outrageous” (Taylor, 2013), and specifically for its decision to – on multiple occasions – print contentious and inflammatory cartoons that depicted the Prophet Muhammad. In the days immediately following the attack, the killings were widely condemned, and quickly framed as both “an unacceptable assault on freedom of expression” (Penketh and Branigan, 2015) and a challenge to the freedom of the press. Mainstream mass media was flooded with global affirmations and assertions that terror would never win, and much of the Western world took to the streets in protest; pens and pencils held aloft in a universal symbol of freedom and defiance. “Je suis Charlie” emerged as one of the biggest worldwide slogans of solidarity and support in history; printed on placards, pasted around Paris and trended on Twitter.
After the initial outcry in response to the “brutal and inhumane attack” (European Commission, 2015) had died down, opposing viewpoints that had been stifled by the mainstream press coverage began to emerge. Although the depravity of the killings was never questioned, some commentators postulated that Charlie Hebdo’s actions - in satirising and mocking the Prophet Muhammad - constituted hate speech, not humour. The argument had been made before; in 2007 criminal proceedings were brought against Charlie Hebdo (specifically its then-editor Philippe Val) by multiple Muslim organisations under French hate speech laws, after the magazine chose to reprint controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad from Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, alongside additional cartoons of its own. Val stood accused of making “public insults against a group of people because they belong to a religion”, but was found not guilty after the Paris court ruled that the cartoons “did not attack Muslims, but fundamentalists” (Fouché, 2007). The discussion was vehemently reignited in the wake of the 2015 attack: humour, or hate speech?
Satire itself isn’t specifically a form of humour; it’s technically a genre of literature in which “human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision . . . caricature, or other methods, sometimes with an intent to inspire social reform.” (Elliott, 2017). Robert C. Elliott, a notable Satire theorist pragmatically described it as a “notoriously . . . slippery term” (1960, p.89). It offers the ability to underline a serious issue with humour and frame it in an accessible, easily digestible manner. Charlie Hebdo routinely employs satire through the means of caricatures and cartoons to expose the shortcomings and follies in the figures and facets of current society. Satire can be an invaluable resource in times of civil or political unrest and uncertainty; publications have seen their sales rise following the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit referendum (Jewell, 2017), and Saturday Night Live, a topical American sketch show, has “found a new satirical urgency” (Cesca, 2017) – and the best ratings it’s seen for 22 years (Littleton, 2017) – since the onset of the 2016 presidential race. Speaking to The Guardian, Ian Hislop – editor of Private Eye, a similar satirical publication – declared the current climate a “golden time” for satire, before correcting himself; “Peter Cook, who used to own Private Eye, would say, well the really golden time of satire was Berlin in the 30s and it didn’t go so well after that.” (Khomami, 2017). The implication of his words is dark, but he makes an interesting point, and, despite the subsequent events that he’s referring to, satire is undoubtedly an important tool in making intimidating figures risible, and thereby providing hope that they’re beatable. However, its very nature leaves it open to ambiguity; there is a degree of onus on the viewer to correctly interpret or perceive the creators’ intended message, and therefore it could be argued that satire as a medium carries an element of inherent risk.
In examining the argument at hand, it’s important to note – and continually remain mindful – that the specific brand of humour Charlie Hebdo employs is not, and will never be, to everyone’s taste. It’s a particular form of satire and black humour, designed to be divisive and to deride. The question is not whether the humour was funny; that debate is too reliant on personal interpretation to objectively deliberate. The crux of the issue is whether that humour was in fact – or could be construed as - hate speech, and even then there’s undoubtedly margin for personal interpretation. What the legal system defines as free speech could be perceived as hate speech by an individual, and vice versa. It’s a complex and multifaceted issue, framed by compelling arguments from both sides.
One of the most significant issues is centred on the fact that the Muslim community in France is largely marginalised; there is a “divisive atmosphere in France between the Muslim and non-Muslim populations” (Oprea, 2015). As early as August 2013, almost eighteen months before the Charlie Hebdo attack, it was noted that France was witnessing a new “climate of Islamophobia”, which including women being “physically attacked for wearing the headscarf” and “attacks to mosques” (Awan, 2013). In a climate of undeniably poor relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in France, the magazine’s choice to publically highlight - and potentially further perpetuate - the divide could be interpreted as, at the least, a severe oversight or error in judgment, and, at the worst, a form of hate speech. It may have been intended as humour, but the environment that it was being published in, and the damage it had the potential to do, should have been taken into consideration. Satire is typically employed as a form of social commentary that targets people or ideas that hold some form power - such as politicians or established legislation - but Charlie Hebdo used satire to single out and deride Islam, and – it could be argued (although, it must be noted, the courts disagreed) – by extension, Muslims themselves. The Muslim community is - and was at the time - notoriously underrepresented and underserved by the mainstream media, so they had no real platform to offer a rebuttal; all too often a minority position equals inherent deference. It should be noted that none of the team working at Charlie Hebdo at the time of the attack were Muslim themselves; the majority were white men. There is a debatable validity in questioning whether they even had the right to deride Islam simply because they happened to hold a position of relative power that enabled them to do so.
Citing the guise of satire does not automatically eliminate hate speech or render it forgivable, as evidenced in what is undoubtedly one of the darkest periods in modern European history: Nazi Germany. In its earliest form, satire was believed to be akin to a fatal curse against enemies and in Irish and Arabic cultures, poets had specific roles in wars; they would compose satirical works that supposedly harnessed deadly forces and unleash them upon their enemies (Elliott, 1960, p. 264). They believed that satire literally had the potential to kill. The Nazis recognised this possibility too and used satire as a device to unify public support for their regime. “Their satire primarily targeted enemies and critics: the people they began killing and banishing from the country once they took power.” (PLEA, 2014). There is absolutely no implication that Charlie Hebdo had any intention of inciting any degree of outright action against French Muslims through its use of satire. However, it does illustrate that claiming “it’s satire” is in no way a reasonable or accepted defence, and cannot be utilised to legitimise hate speech.
At the culmination of its 2007 lawsuit, Charlie Hebdo was found not guilty based on the courts’ ruling that the cartoons had attacked fundamentalists, not individuals. There was a key distinction made between attacking a religion as a whole, and attacking the individuals who practice that religion. Five years later, Charlie Hebdo journalist Laurent Léger further clarified that distinction: “[t]he aim is to laugh . . .[w]e want to laugh at the extremists — every extremist. They can be Muslim, Jewish, Catholic. Everyone can be religious, but extremist thoughts and acts we cannot accept.” (Greenhouse, 2012). This in itself seems like a fair point; extremism, in any application, is rarely a good thing. However, the circumstances and context are, of course, fundamentally important. In 2016, Mitt Romney tearfully warned that Donald Trump threatened to cause “trickle down racism” following Trump’s then nomination as the primary Republic candidate (Yuhas, 2016). This concept is transferrable and entirely applicable in France in relation to Charlie Hebdo; if someone – or, as in this case, a publication – in a position of power promotes, or is perceived to promote, a racist - or even simply divisive – attitude, it is undoubtedly going to “trickle-down” and be assimilated by the masses. There’s a risk that the behaviour will become normalised or permitted. Racism is pervasive and entrenched in modern day society, and there is alacrity in certain primarily right wing facets of the Western world to embrace and reiterate damaging stereotypes. The Daily Mail epitomises this concept through its repeated inclination to spin any potentially divisive story into an article that reads as close to racism as it is legally permitted to get. Therefore, although Charlie Hebdo may believe it was justified in only targeting the extremists, the trickle down effect of that decision – particularly if the publication fails or neglects to stress a strong distinction between Islam as a religion and Islamic extremists - could be highly damaging, especially when propagated in the secular climate of modern day France.
Nuance and interpretation are significant factors in the debate, but are themselves open to personal perception due to their unquantifiable nature. A cartoon is only ever an image; even with the addition of a limited amount of text - as is often incorporated in Charlie Hebdo’s illustrations - there’s a considerable onus on the viewer to interpret it correctly. Without an accompanying explanation to substantiate it, the true intended meaning can only ever be inferred. It could be considered that to declare a cartoon as hate speech is to take subjective umbrage at the illustration. Charlie Hebdo’s editor, Stéphane Charbonnier, who was killed in the attack, appeared to take this view in a 2012 interview, stating that the images would only “shock those who will want to be shocked”. He elaborated that “when activists need a pretext to justify their violence, they will always find it.” (Terbush, 2015). His comments appeared to echo a similar sentiment expressed by Stephen Fry in 2005; that essentially, “I’m offended by…” means nothing. “It’s no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase.” (Smith, 2005). Both men seem to suggest that offence is the sole responsibility of the offended, which could be interpreted as a privileged, arrogant position to take; they could be seen to be suggesting a gratuitous “because we can” attitude. If that was a universally applicable approach, it could be hypothesised that the world would descend into anarchy; no one would be required to take responsibility for their actions. However, the medium that Charlie Hebdo exists in is relevant; it’s a magazine, not a billboard. There is a therefore a degree of conscious choice to be made in engaging with and digesting it; if it offends you, you are not forced to read it.
The morality of the situation is another highly relevant issue; as Medhi Hasan pointed out in an article he wrote less than two months after the attacks, “a right to offend [does not] automatically translate into a duty to offend” (Medhi, 2015). Just because the actions of Charlie Hebdo - in publishing the inflammatory cartoons - could be defended by law, it didn’t stand to reason that it needed to publish them. It knew that they were like to be divisive and had the potential to further reinforce the pre-existing “us and them” mentality between Muslims and non-Muslims in France, but it still chose – on multiple occasions –to publish them. The morality of that must be questioned.
Modern society appears to have developed a pronounced sensitivity to specific issues, yet total indifference to others. People are quick to claim political correctness, yet - in other circumstances – obtusely reluctant. It must be questioned whether this is an arbitrary attitude, or whether there is a tolerance for certain issues and not others. It’s hard to imagine Charlie Hebdo getting away with depicting the Twin Towers falling, or Jews being loaded on to trains, in any guise or circumstance that would be deemed acceptable and not lead to a public outcry. It’s also hard to imagine any publication attempting to do so in the first place, much less attempting to then – ultimately successfully - justify it. It could be postulated that Western society is ashamedly unconcerned with the plight of Muslims; there appears to be an unspoken double standard as to what is permissible and what’s not. If this is the case, why might it be so? Could it be due to the fact that Muslims are all too often inextricably associated with the extremists who have, in the name of Islam, carried out some of the most high profile terrorist attacks of the past two decades? Or is it perhaps because Muslims haven’t been universally persecuted in the Western world in the same way as, for example, the Jews were in the Holocaust? There is potentially an argument to be made that the Charlie Hebdo cartoons were but a small part of a larger picture that manifests as a vicious circle; Muslims are targeted by the media, which intensifies the social divide, which makes them more liable to be targeted - with increasingly little resistance - and so on.
In conclusion, satire can undoubtedly be a risky medium to employ; it offers multiple grey areas, even when regulated by guidelines and legislation. Fundamentally the attacks against the publication were depraved and reprehensible and should be exclusively condemned; no one deserved to lose their lives over satirical illustrations, but there are very compelling arguments that frame Charlie Hebdo’s actions as hate speech. I ultimately feel that that is too strong a word; I think intention is an important – although not the deciding - factor, and I do believe that Charlie Hebdo did not intend to directly purport hate speech. In fact, I feel that that Charlie Hebdo’s core principles were not only correct, but also imperative; religious extremism can be cancerous and deadly, but the publication overlooked - or ignored - the acute risk that, in attempting to target extremism, there is a danger of instead deepening a divide and unintentionally granting it a space in which it can grow and thrive. I think that the publication was recklessly gratuitous, took liberties, and pushed boundaries without the necessary sensitivity and awareness, and consequently contributed to the magnification of religious differences in the public consciousness, furthering the existing divisions and secularity.
The overwhelming evidence points to an absence of a definitive answer; different people will draw different conclusions. However, it is indubitably clear that, in our secular society, people in all aspects of life need to practice reverence for others; their cultures, their religions, their beliefs and their choices. In an age when identity politics have become click bait fodder, sensationalism sells, and the internet enables everyone and anyone to broadcast their opinion, it has never been more important to remain mindful of our moral duty as a collective species sharing the planet we call home. We cannot be complacent; the swinging pendulum is currently stuck on the side of white supremacy; to redress the balance and allow it to hang straight we must collectively repudiate hate speech and decry inequality and injustice. We must not be obsequious; we must learn to recognise hate speech when it is clear, and examine the evidence when it is not, and above all we must all learn to raise our voices on behalf of those who society systematically silences, until we reach such a time when they are able to speak for themselves.