West’s fight for absolute freedom of expression took another dent on Wednesday morning when a group of pro-Syrian government hackers took control of the French newspaper Le Monde to tweet the unthinkable, I am not Charlie to counter the rhetoric of I am Charlie having just recently moved into fashion with the attack on the French newspaper publishing blasphemous content against Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H).
This group which supports the embattled government of Bashar Al Assad and styles itself as the Syrian revolutionary Army has previously too been involved in hacking Western media outlets accounts with the most famous one being of The Associated Press’s Twitter stream, resulting in a false tweet saying President Barack Obama had been injured after two blasts at the White House.
Though common sense dictates that respect precedes freedom yet the so-called civilized western world seems to have drawn upon a policy of its own. One which defies common sense yet follows its own decadent manner. Unfortunately for the Muslim’s, this particular policy has made them a direct target of western mockery.
While for the Jews, hate speech does fall into the category of crime, when it comes to Muslims who are equally infuriated when it comes to abusing their religion, perhaps the law chooses to bend in the so-called free world.
For months the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo had been publishing abusive material related to Islam and the Holy Prophet {P.B.U.H} despite being aware of the Muslim sentiments relating to their religion. Finally, when a group of religious zealots did take the matter into their own hands, the world joined in solidarity regardless of where the provocation came from.
Though such an attack certainly needs to be condemned yet the perpetual provocation from the west against Muslim’s too needs to stop for the Muslims have a limit of toleration and a newspaper which regularly mocks the sentiments of almost two billion inhabitants of this planet should know better and behave in a more mature
Nevertheless Charlie Hebdo it seems has decided to hang on to its stance of mocking the Islamic faith and Muslims’ sentiments and now for one the Muslim world needs to find a new and more civilized approach to counter this.
