Bullets
and bombs can never silence the voices of laughter and friendship.
By
As a political cartoonist who happens to be both American and
Muslim, I often find myself at the intersection of media curiosity: Muslim,
with all the stereotypical notions attached to that, but also a freedom-loving
artist and a humorist.
I’m not just the butt of jokes, but a purveyor of them — a
non-violent wielder of the pen, which I maintain is funnier than the sword.
I’m no stranger to controversy and censorship, and I’ve received
my fair share of death threats over the years. So I’ve had ample opportunity to
mull the thorny question of freedom of expression versus responsibility.
Was Charlie
Hebdo, the satirical publication whose staffers were murdered by Islamic
extremists in Paris, always the fairest and most responsible newspaper in the
world? Of course not. I confess to have often cringed at its apparent double-standard when it comes to skewering Muslims and
Jews.
But does anyone — ever — deserve to be harassed, hounded, or
murdered for expressing an opinion, however egregious it may be perceived by
some?
Personally, I will always remember January 7 as a day of infamy,
a catastrophe delivering layer upon layer of misery.
As a human being, I feel disgust over the murder of 12 innocent
people.
As an artist, I feel a profound sense of grief over the loss of
four fellow cartoonists — including the great Cabu (also known as Jean Cabut), who
inspired me as a young man to become a cartoonist.
And as a member of the worldwide Muslim community, I’m plagued
with a nagging sense of shame and fear of the inevitable backlash that will
follow in an already Islamophobic Europe, where most of my family still
resides.
I worry that the unspeakable acts of a few will drown out the
sincere protestations of the many that this kind of horror doesn’t speak in our
name.
Former French justice minister Robert Badinter — no particular
friend of the Muslim community — has warned his fellow citizens not to fall
into the extremist trap of letting barbaric violence divide French society, of which nearly 10
percent is Muslim. Buttensions are running high.
Yet beyond the social polarization — manifested by both
senseless Islamist violence and the cheap Islamophobia of opportunistic
politicians and media — lies a more interesting and nuanced reality: signs of
hope and progress.
Long before this attack, French people were showing what it
means to coexist in a multi-ethnic and pluralistic society.
Among the many good works he will be remembered for, cartoonist Georges Wolinski — who was among the cartoonists
assassinated in cold blood in the name of wounded religious pride — once came
to the rescue of Menouar Merabtene, the Algerian cartoonist best known as Slim, a
close friend of mine who was fleeing from persecution in his native country.
Throughout the 1990s, a bloody civil war raged between Islamist
militants and the autocratic Algerian government. Many artists and
intellectuals opposed to the Islamist agenda were systematically assassinated
in that conflict.
Out of simple human solidarity, Wolinski — a Jewish cartoonist
from France — spontaneously intervened to secure a job for the beleaguered
Muslim-Algerian Slim at the Paris newspaper L’Humanité.
Similarly, thousands of French people are mourning and praising
slain Muslim police officer Ahmed Merabet. He died pursuing men suspected
of perpetrating the Charlie
Hebdo massacre.
Like the stories of North African Muslims standing in solidarity
with their Jewish brethren against the Vichy government’s hunt for North
African Jews during World War II, these simple stories tend to get lost in the
din of terrorist mayhem.
But in the end, bullets and bombs can never silence the voices
of laughter and friendship.
Khalil Bendib is OtherWords’
editorial cartoonist, an artist, and the author or co-author of
several books, including the widely translated graphic novel Zahra’s Paradise. He was born in Paris as a refugee of Algeria’s war
of independence and grew up in Morocco and Algeria. He lives in Berkeley,
California. OtherWords.org
