Professor William Marx said that the temptation to start a symbolic war on Islam is increasing in the face of the attacks that strike France, and with his understanding that absolute resistance to intimidation is the initial natural reaction to every attack, he asked whether it is appropriate to express this by displaying pictures and drawings that mock religions in the public space As it happened in Toulouse and Montpellier ?!
Marx - a professor at Collège de France, said in an article for the French newspaper Le Monde - that this is the trap set by the terrorists for France, helped by an inherent French weakness related to the difficulty the Republic finds in giving a place to the religious phenomenon. , As if religions in and of themselves are a threat to civil peace.
The author responded to this difficulty for historical reasons that date back to before the revolution, the days of quarrels with the Galician Church, especially since the Church for the French is less sacred than the school, but France's European neighbors do not have such prejudices.
Educational sensitivity
Thus - Marx says - regional hotels in Toulouse and Montpellier displayed on their facades last October 21 Charlie Hebdo cartoons targeting Islam, in response to the assassination of teacher Samuel Patty, and some even want to display it in all schools.
According to the writer, the response came across the Mediterranean and the Bosphorus, with the demonstrators stepping on the French flag and calling for a boycott of France's products as an officially anti-Muslim country, although some of that was due to the manipulation by some leaders of the words made by the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron.
In this entire case - the writer says - we must preserve the mind, although it is understood that when a teacher is brutally murdered while performing his duty, public emotion will arise and the first reaction is to confirm absolute resistance against all kinds of intimidation and attempts to restrict freedom of expression. It may not be appropriate to display in the public space, but rather in official buildings, images that ridicule religions and are likely to shock believers.
The paradox - according to Marx - is that the teacher, Samuel Batey himself, contrary to what happened, took precautions before showing such pictures to his students, and called them not to look at them if they wanted, but how do you draw your attention to the cartoons when they are displayed in an official building?
The writer wonders.
In Pakistan, protesters against the abusive cartoons accuse France of being a terrorist country (European)
Offensive and aggressive
After the writer glorified the teacher and considered him an ideal educator, he said that the devotion to which we owe his memory requires a better understanding of the nature and function of the caricatures, as they are not neutral images, but rather comic and controversial weapons, and the art of caricature, like comedy and satire, can only be understood in The context of a society that shares its symbolism and ideological content. Otherwise, it will necessarily appear inappropriate, but rather offensive and aggressive.
Therefore, it is necessary - according to the writer - to preserve the places where caricatures can be launched without risking being misunderstood, such as newspapers and books that only those who want to read them can read them, and such as museums, galleries and libraries, and it would be inappropriate to display them in a yard open to all eyes and to institutionalize On it, as a caricature cannot be the banner of a national mob.
The author wondered, could France, which represents the crucible of liberation in the face of all powers and churches, remain faithful to the national traditions of liberal comedy, the traditions of Rabelais and Voltaire, if it refused to publish these caricatures without restrictions?
The writer saw that this understanding was wrong, because Voltaire did not agree with the general and official use of anti-religious cartoons, but rather his ideal goal was the peaceful coexistence of all religions, and between believers and non-believers while respecting one another in public places, as he said in the philosophical letters when He described England as a utopia in which Jews, "Mohammedans" (Muslims) and Christians treat each other as if they were of the same religion.
Muslims burn Danish flags after Denmark re-publishes the offensive cartoons (Reuters)
The spirit of reconciliation
The author cautioned that devotion to Voltaire's spirit and the spirit of Samuel Bate means implementing the spirit of interfaith harmony, and accepting the religious phenomenon as an integral part of culture in general, noting that a French teacher was punished in 2017 for presenting passages from the Bible to his students to work on them from a purely cultural perspective.
He emphasized that this national sensitivity towards religion represents an intellectual error and a political sin, because it views any sign of religious affiliation as anti-republican actions, especially since withholding the cultural and emotional dimension of religions exposes us to abuse and misunderstanding, which benefits the terrorists.
The author concluded that religions remain a foundational truth of the past and the present, and a future can only be built upon recognition of such a truth and the opening of a public space that is not offensive, peaceful and welcoming to all, because this is true secularism.