Casey Peel
cap008@marietta.edu
Getting free pizza, free soda, and an interest in discussing recent news resulted in a packed room on Wednesday, Jan. 21 on the third floor of Thomas Hall. In light of the recent Charlie Hebdo shooting that occurred on Jan. 7 in Paris, France this past month, students and faculty came together in another Pizza and Politics event to discuss the issue at hand: what reasons or events led to the shooting that occurred at Charlie Hebdo? Dr. Ena Vulor, professor of French language and literature, along with professors Michael Morgan and Mike Tager of the political science department provided insight into the story that ultimately led to the Charlie Hebdo attack.
Shortly before lunch time on Jan. 7, 2015, two masked gunmen in Paris entered the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine where they opened fire on a weekly editors’ meeting, killing 12 people. Witnesses reported having heard the attackers screaming, “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad!” and “God is Great” in Arabic during the shooting, which pointed to Islamist extremists as being perpetrators behind the event. This idea was ultimately proven when the Yemeni faction of Al-Qaeda.
Why France? France has the largest Muslim population of all other countries in Europe. However, recent historical events show that being a Muslim in France is not an easy task. From 1989 – 2003, at least 200 girls were expelled from school for wearing scarves on their heads in France, a phenomenon known as Les Affairs De Foulard (the scarf cases). In February of 2004, France banned the wearing of the veil in any public place. Even just four years ago in 2011, France banned the wearing of the niqab and burqa (both worn by women to cover the entire body) in any public place. These measures taken by the French authorities that deeply affected the ability of France’s Muslim minority to freely take part in their religious observances.
So why Charlie Hebdo of all publications? In short, Charlie Hebdo had periodically been publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad considered to be very offensive to the religion of Islam. (However, Charlie Hebdo has also published material that has included characters from other religions, as well.) One would think that there would be laws in place to prohibit material that is considering highly offensive to certain groups, and there is. In France, there is a ban on hate speech, which Charlie Hebdo has actually violated at least 48 times in the past 22 years. This, however, has not stopped Charlie Hebdo’s right to freely express themselves, regardless of the various consequences that they could face.
“If I was a Muslim living in France, particularly a Muslim woman, I would feel oppressed,” Matthew Johnson, a PSEO student at Marietta, said. “To be told that I couldn’t freely express my own religion would be difficult. It is hard to have people tell you that you can’t be who you want to be.”
Many Muslims took the actions of French authorities as an attack on Islam. However, only a few people were part of a group that decided that Charlie Hebdo should be shown that their actions are not to be tolerated in a brutal attack resulted in the murder of 12 people.
Many people are divided over whether Charlie Hebdo wrongly punished for freely expressing themselves, or whether they were being provocative. Daley Buckwell, junior political science/international leadership studies double major, thinks Charlie Hebdo did cross a line.
“In a society that is oppressive to Muslims, Charlie Hebdo essentially perpetuated the bastardization of the Muslim religion,” she said.
Buckwell went on to say that, although there is reason to understand why the attacks happened, the attacks themselves are not justifiable.
Ultimately, the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack and the events that led up to it leave us with a very important question: at what point do we do we draw the line between exercising free speech and being destructive?
