KOK’S TALES: So much for freedom of expression

25 Jan, 2015 - 00:01 0 Views
KOK’S TALES: So much for freedom of expression Charlie Hebdo magazine

The Sunday Mail

For those readers who missed Part 3 of “Stolen Fruits” last week, go to <http://www.sundaymail.co.zw////?p=23134>
Charlie Hebdo magazine

Charlie Hebdo magazine

AS a journalist on the staff of the Zimbabwe Sun, I wonder what Adam would have thought of this whole Charlie Hebdo business. I can imagine him saying: “Comrade, if you tease a tigress, can you complain if she eats you?”

Adam was a Christian, but he held Islam in high regard. There were a number of reasons for this. One of them was a changing experience he had on his flight to Paris, the time his editor sent him there on assignment.

In the seat next to him on the long flight was a Muslim woman in a niqab (pronounced‘nikaab’). The niqab covers the face except for the eyes and it is worn with a hijab, which covers the entire body and head.

For Adam, this was an incredible experience. He knew about the niqab, but he had never been near anyone who wore it.

In fact, it made him shudder and he did his best to avoid it. What a waste, said this lover of female beauty, to cover all those assets up in dreary black cloth! And now here he was, forced to sit next to one, all the way to Paris. He cursed his misfortune. He wished he could change seats.

Adam knew enough about Islam to be aware that devout Muslims don’t consume alcohol. He also knew that a man must not touch a woman who is not related to him — even to shake her hand. And here was the “Love Doctor”, sitting next to someone who could have been — if he had been able to see her — a very beautiful woman. But would he ever know? He had nothing to judge her beauty by — except her eyes. Even her hands were covered in delicate little black laced gloves.

He could see from her stylish gown, the exquisite little gloves and the petite little pointed black shoes that she was fashion-conscious.

It was driving him mad. She was a woman. Her every movement, her vibrations, you might say, the smell of her — everything was woman. Like a beautiful woman, too, her hijab, gloves and shoes showed that she was conscious of her looks — what! How can you be conscious of your looks if you hide them behind a veil?

But he knew she was. And her eyes! They were like two pools of amber water with a shaft of sunlight shining through — light and dark at the same time, deep and inviting but set in an outfit that warned “noli mi tangere” (do not touch!).

Adam, being the man he was, had to crack the mystery. If she is a woman, he thought, why would she be different from the rest? For him it was a challenge, a stimulant to desire. He started up a conversation. At first she was rather distant, but she soon began to enjoy their talk.

He could hear her laughter behind the veil and see the sparkle in her eyes. He was sure he could win her — as he had won Nunu, the pretty little girl he sat next to in the coach to Johannesburg.

Adam found out that his companion’s name was Nilofer, which, she explained, meant “wild mountain rose” in Arabic. There was one moment when the wild mountain rose, rose to go to the toilet and for a moment Adam could see the shapely woman’s body inside her hijab. It was so much more exciting than the sight of breasts, thighs and backsides held out on a platter for all to see. I must get her, thought Adam.

Well, the flight to Paris from Johannesburg is a long journey. They talked and talked. They discovered they both felt deeply on the Palestine issue. Adam then got on to telling her about his people, the Griquas, and their history. It turned out that she too was a South African — from Cape Town. She told him her story, how in response to the terrorisation of Muslims by the US regime and the West in general, she like many other young Muslims had come to see their faith and their lifestyle under threat and she had opted to wear the niqab as a demonstration of the pride and love she cherished for her religion.

A Danish cartoonist had the previous year provoked an outcry and mass violence and demonstrations all over the world by producing the very first cartoon of Mohammed, in this case, carrying a bomb in his turban. They discussed that. The Muslim girl from Cape Town and the Griqua ex-freedom fighter living in Harare expressed their shock that such a thing had been done in the name of human rights.

They talked and talked and eventually they slept. Adam had not touched a drop. He had not touched the woman in the seat next to him. But a strange thing had happened. He became so involved in their talk that he forgot that she was a woman. He no longer felt that obsession about getting her into bed.

In fact, he became embarrassed and ashamed at his earlier thoughts. Somehow, maybe for the first time in his life, he had been able to talk to a woman as just another human being — without seeing her as an object of sexual desire.

When they got to Heathrow, Adam and Nilofer, parted affectionately, like two people who respected each other, would never see each other again but treasured the time they had had together. Adam shook his head in disbelief.

How could such a thing have happened?

Somehow it only added to the respect and affection Adam had for Muslims and their beliefs.

The story of Adam’s visit to Paris and his encounter with the lady in the veil is not quite over. While he was in France, Adam found out that the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, had followed up on the Danish cartoon with, among other things, a cartoon of the Prophet eating pork — in the full knowledge that between 5 percent and 10 percent of the French population are shocked at any drawing or other depiction of the Prophet and that for them eating pork is har?m — taboo.

Charlie Hebdo, like the Danish cartoonist, does not seem to mind what the Muslims in France and all over the world feel about it. They say it is freedom of expression. They believe it is their right to insult whomsoever they like!

Then one day, wanting to catch up on the news, Adam bought a copy of an English newspaper. In the newspaper he saw something he thought was very relevant to the Charlie Hebdo affair. He wished he had been able to send Nilofer a copy. It was a very small article — not more than a paragraph. He showed me the cutting when he got back from Paris. It was about how some company in the UK had advertised a product with a picture of Jesus Christ winking. The article was saying that there had been objections from the general public to the advertisement and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of Great Britain had ordered the company to withdraw it. The company had complied.

“So much for freedom of expression,” Adam had said to himself as he cut it out. “What they really mean is freedom to say what they like about others and everything others consider sacred, but don’t you dare touch theirs!”

Now, I can only imagine how shocked and incensed Adam would be, if he were still alive, at the behaviour of the West over the recent killings in Paris. Had it happened when he was alive and had he known that the reaction of the magazine to the killings was to make money out of the whole episode and take its disrespect of Islam to an even higher level by printing 5 million copies of a new edition, devoted entirely to cartoons of the Prophet, he would no doubt have written a very scathing article for his newspaper, the Zimbabwe Sun — which his editor, the lugubrious Cincinnati Ngulube, would have cautiously filed away.

As it happened, when Adam got back from Paris, he told his wife, Rudo, about the cartoons and showed her the cutting. She was furious that anyone could commercialise her religion like that and put a picture of Jesus Christ winking in an advertisement. Disappointingly, Rudo didn’t seem to care all that much about the cartoons featuring Mohammed. But wasn’t she just behaving like so many of us who think the things we believe in are sacred and do not care very much if the things that other people believe in are dragged through the mud?

Rudo is a devout Catholic. The other day Pope Francis, commenting on the Charlie Hebdo affair, supported freedom of expression but said it must have limits. He called for respect for religions. This was enough for Rudo and she began to see that Adam, her long dead husband, had had a point. Better late than never — no pun intended.

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