The statement was published in English on 29.10.2020 on the website of our partner organization Humanists UK and was translated into German by us in a slightly revised version.
Yesterday morning in France, three civilians were murdered – stabbed and beheaded – by an Islamic extremist. It was a shocking and despicable act, but not an isolated one.
It has only been a fortnight since teacher Samuel Paty was murdered for explaining freedom of expression and the attacks on Charlie Hebdo to his class. France then reacted as a human rights-loving republic should. It defended the right to freedom of expression, including the publication of material that could cause offense.
It is abhorrent that yesterday’s murders were portrayed as retaliation for the defense of free speech and secular education, and it seems that this is a situation that is getting out of hand. In this case, we must remember that there is only one side at fault here. Freedom of speech and belief are not crimes. But murder definitely is.
Feelings of offense can never justify violence, any more than they can justify censorship. Attempts to draw any moral equivalence between drawing cartoons or defending artistic freedom on the one hand and violent murder and beheading on the other are abhorrent.
Such attempts are also disingenuous in many cases. The heads of government in Turkey and Pakistan have thrown their full diplomatic weight behind France and the murderers by calling on the Republic to take action against “Islamophobia”, by which they do not mean discrimination and prejudice, but the violation of religious feelings, which is not a crime.
This is an old chestnut. At the United Nations, Pakistan has repeatedly tried to submit applications for global blasphemy laws using these very terms – humanists have emphatically rejected them. The Pakistani government is using murder and violence to beat the same drum as always. But this time, pushing its censorious reasoning at the international level constitutes a blame game against the victims. There should be no “but” after the statement “We do not support murder”.
In any case, we have no reason to trust those who say that laws against insulting religions will stop the violence. Countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Bangladesh are home to this kind of violence all year round. Any vigilantes who target humanists, Christians, Ahmadis or other minorities are given legitimacy and security of impunity by blasphemy laws, knowing that enough people believe violence is an acceptable response to those who offend them.
The path to banning “insults” is a path to even greater bloodshed and misery. It is accompanied by the erosion of our freedom to speak truth to power and a reduction in the color and diversity of human culture and life.
What remains? Blood on the sidewalks, destroyed families. Lives that have been thrown off course and lives that will never be the same again.
The true cost of murdering people is often forgotten when events take on national and international significance. But it is the victims of these attacks that I would like to bring to the forefront of our minds. Their lives. Their humanity. Their hopes, potential and dreams.
Tragedies like today remind us how small, short and fragile life is. Life is short. That is why ending it by murder is the most terrible crime of all. What can we do in this short life but do our best to enjoy the time we have and cherish it, but how can we do that? We as humanists must take action to make life better for others, including the future generations we hope will live in freedom and peace. Taking action for this better future is the best answer for those who are only concerned with death and have nothing to offer but the silence of fear and misery.
So what do we do when we are challenged by such inhumanity and barbarism – and increasingly by crazy attempts to justify it by others we love, respect or otherwise know?
Here we have to practice what we preach: answer with our words. With facts. With arguments. And then listen and respond again. In doing so, we are not aiming to score points – life is not a YouTube debate – but to change opinions and attitudes. Because something very important depends on it: the future of a liberal, freedom-loving world order.
We must all stand up for our most cherished rights: Freedom of thought, freedom of expression… the right to life itself. This means that we must all speak out against victim-blaming when it happens. This may mean arguing with friends who indulge in such false equivalencies. It may mean filing complaints when journalists take the lazy option of portraying “both sides” as guilty: mad murderers and leaders of semi-theocracies on the one hand, leaders, citizens and teachers of republics based on the rule of law and human rights on the other. This is how we can respond today and in the future to what happened today.
In solidarity
Andrew Copson
