Courtney McGrailThe World of Books by the books editor
The recent events in Paris have led to an outpouring of generalised support for “freedom of speech”. Yet the sight of some very dubious world leaders parading themselves in support of a philosophical principal in which they have in reality a slight belief gives one pause for thought.
Freedom of expression does not always involve the expression of carefully thought out ideas or opinions couched in civilised language. It also covers satire – as in the case of Charlie Hebdo – which is brutal and violent.
I have to say that in the past glancing over Charlie Hebdo in the news kiosk left me little wiser. Like Phoenix or Private Eye, it was often written in allusive terms. One had to be a regular reader to fully understand it.
At Christmas time, however, the newspaper ran on its cover a cartoon of the Virgin Mary in her birth throes. One reader expressed her dismay at this, calling it irreverent. However, I argued with her that it was, in fact, making an important theological statement, if one thought about it, rather than reacted to it.
The cartoon was a reminder to us all that Jesus Christ was fully human, and that this means he was subject to all the indignities and pains and traumas of the human condition, all life’s squalor and dirt was familiar to him. That after all is what being human is often about.
Christians, and Catholics especially, tend to take an over pious view of Christ as man. But take such piety so far that it undermines Christ’s complete humanity, verges on what Rome would regard as heresy.
Now these aspects of human life and the manner in which tend of conceal the all too human frailties of the rich and powerful as been the object of satire in all ages from Aeschylus down to Russell Brand. Cruelty is often satire’s preferred mode.
In the same months that Charlie Hebdo offended some Muslims by reprinting its cartoons of Mohammed, another magazine, L’Histoire, in an article dealing with Moses as an historical figure, published an image of Moses in dialogue with the prophet.
The figure of Mohammed was show full figure and full face. There was no outcry over this, though one would have thought it just as offensive to some Muslims as anything in Charlie Hebdo.
The different in reaction? Well, it was in an intellectual magazine. But also, the image was from an Arab manuscript of the Koran in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris called The Book of the Ascension, dating from 1436, illustrating one of a number of tales of the intrusion of Moses into the history of Islam. The book was made in Herat in Afghanistan.
Though many pious Muslims believe it is wrong to represent the Prophet, nowhere in the Koran is this stated. Like so much that passes as the Islamic faith, it is not an ordinance of God but a rule of man.
Inspired
Christians ought to reflect too, that though in Western art God, Jesus and the saints are constantly represented, this is not accepted by all. The Iconoclasts of Byzantium, inspired perhaps by ideas that derived (like the Muslim rule) from Assyria, abhorred such images and destroyed them.
Later, many Protestants saw all images and statues as wicked; some still do. Only the other week, a statue of Manannan Mac Lir, the Celtic sea god, was destroyed at Limavady because it offended someone’s religious outlook. They replaced it by a rough cross.
Though God and Jesus were represented in medieval plays (e.g. Everyman) on the English stage, until a very recent date directors were forbidden to represent the figure of God on stage by the Lord Chamberlin who censored London dramas. In many films in the early days of Hollywood, Jesus was often represented merely as a shadow passing over a person.
So Western ideas about representing the holy have varied and have changed over time. Perhaps in time Muslim ideas may also clarify. But only through the discussion of what are the relations between man as an image maker and God as a creator. The answer must lie in philosophical discussion rather than in violent reaction.