A cover proposal for Charlie Hebdo
We have so many troubles and so much grief. Every day, dozens or hundreds of people lose their lives in our region, which is located in the east of the West. We are so overcome with grief that we cannot exactly calculate the number of people who have died since last Wednesday.The children who were going to school, helpless people in hospitals and civilians have been slaughtered by terrorist organizations, secular dictators or occupation forces in Nigeria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and many other Asian and African countries.Muslims constitute the majority of the population in all of these countries, but they have another common characteristic – almost all of them are still under the occupation or had remained under the occupation of Western countries until recently.Due to years-long occupations, the economies and infrastructures of all these countries have collapsed. It is almost regarded as chance not to have a dead, injured or raped member in one's family in Palestine, Iraq and Syria. In such a time when violence and tears become routine, the Charlie Hebdo massacre took place in the heart of Paris, with 12 people barbarically killed.As I said in my introductory sentence, we have so much grief, but this does not lead us to selfishness to feel no sympathy for the sorrows of people in other regions, and we all felt sorry for this massacre as well.Along with more than 1 million people, the leaders of 50 countries, including Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, gathered in Paris to deplore the Charlie Hebdo killings.Considering all these developments, we inevitably ask the following questions: When will the body of a Syrian peddler be equal to that of a Parisian cartoonist? Why is the sensitivity displayed in the heart of tranquil Europe to honor 12 victims not shown for the 2,000 people who were massacred in Nigeria on the same day? Are those corpses that still lie on the ground in Nigeria not human beings, but flies? If not, why was even a single cameraman not deployed in Nigeria while all world televisions offered uninterrupted live broadcasts from Paris for five days? Is 2,000 smaller than 12?You may ask whether this is my problem or not. In other words, would you reiterate essentialist and orientalist discourse suggesting that Islam, which is the dominant religion in the region, contains violence and terror by its very nature?Let us follow the same logic. In Iraq alone around 1 million people have been killed over the last decade. Most of these deaths as well as rapes and torture were carried out by U.S. occupation forces.In this case, what would be your reaction if we explained this carnage and savagery with Christianity, which is the religion of the majority of soldiers in U.S. military?Unlike in the West, it is uncommon in our region to see psychotic murderers raid schools and kill students. Would you not stigmatize us as fascists without any hesitation if we adopted your rhetoric and said, "Every Christian child is a felon?"Or is this a discussion of civilization? Well, only until 50 to 60 years ago, you established crematoriums with artistic and philosophical infrastructure in the very heart of Europe, right?So, do not fool us. Violence is a spiral that will deepen as long as you insist on considering it an ontological cause that arises from religious and ethnic concerns rather than an effect. What if a hundred U.S. soldiers occupied Paris just as they occupy the Middle East? What if they subverted the city's economy and infrastructure? What if they tortured and killed people and raped women? On top of that, what would be the result if they justified this atrocity with your civilization and religion? If the big guns of Europe could not overcome tyrants with their official army, would they not respond to those tyrants with acts that are literally called terrorist acts, just as they did during the Nazi occupation?This method of reasoning is the only way to unearth the structural causes of terror that is the common problem of humanity. This problem cannot be solved by insolently despising ethos and traditions, which is the only haven for Middle Easterners who are isolated and suppressed by fascistic immigration laws in Europe and the U.S.I am sure there are many Europeans who share my thoughts. So here is the proposal for the first step. Let them prepare a cover for Charlie Hebdo that gives legitimacy to anti-Semitism and anti-Islamism with a reverse segregationist approach in Europe. Let the magazine satirize, for instance, the fact that the killing of 2,000 Nigerians was not even reported as news, despite the many days of great honoring held for the Charlie Hebdo victims on the same day.Would this proposal be rather a marginal demand, even for Charlie?
Last Update: January 15, 2015 01:40