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Paris to Jakarta, a war of religious dogma vs theology of freedom
âThe fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future,â wrote the late Samuel P
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'The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future,' wrote the late Samuel P. Huntington two decades ago when he introduced his renowned book The Clash of Civilizations.
The attack on French publication Charlie Hebdo was another brutal chapter in the growing clash of values and cultures that has marked our times.
Any attack on another human being is deplorable. But in this case, the magnitude is amplified and the repercussions graver because of the motives involved. It is one thing for a psychotic gunman to go on the rampage, completely another to kill premeditatedly out of political dogma.
Do not disregard the implications of this attack.
It is not the work of a misguided few who are angered by audacious journalists insulting their way of life.
Journalism by nature is irreverent to power. Yet Charlie Hebdo's editorial policy took it to extremes by exploiting the harshest irony and criticism as social commentary on all forms of institutionalized authority, be it the state, powerful individuals, cartels or religion.
It is a style of editorial lampooning that Indonesians may find outlandish, but one that has been popular in France since the days of the French revolution.
No one was safe from Charlie Hebdo's pen. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, has reportedly sued the publication more than a dozen times.
The most recent issue featured a debate on the existence of Jesus coupled with a New Year's greeting card purporting to be from Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi with the caption 'to your health'.
Whatever the magazine published may have been distasteful to some Muslims, but was certainly neither anti-Islamic nor an attack on Islam, but an assault on, in the words of Salman Rushdie, a 'deadly mutation in the heart of Islam'.
It is hard to comprehend the assailants as Muslims. Anyone can call himself or herself a Muslim. All one needs to do is to recite two short verses of the syahadat. Yet having the blood of 'infidels' on one's hands doesn't make you a better Muslim than another.
Despite their alleged dogma of faith, ultimately the perpetrators of this attack employed the secular means of violence and murder for their intent. It was an attack carried out by those who fear freedom and are affectionate to dogmatism.
At the heart of the issue is the emerging war on the dogma spreading across the world that seeks to suppress individualism, free thought and creativity. A belief which reprises archaic notions of feudal behavior in society regarding gender, family and status.
The exponents of this dogma's greatest enemies are those who would speak out, be it the press or individual critics.
It is no different from past times when colonialists, totalitarian regimes and despots ruled; it is always the writers, the poets, the artists and the thinkers who are the first targets.
When the Dutch colonial powers here issued in 1931 the Persbreidel Ordonnantie, which allowed authorities to shut down publications, a young Mohammad Hatta wrote a scathing commentary in various local publications noting that even during the reign of the foulest kings of ancient Indonesia, the right to dispute unfair decrees was always part of social consciousness.
It is a war that knows no borders and takes many forms. A war that most individuals, at least in Indonesia, would publically shirk, out of fear of embarrassment or societal pressure, which too often leads to rigid and short-sighted approaches to religious convention.
Those who go against it are ostracized or even worse. Then, slowly, people who have an opinion are either criminalized, tortured or condemned to death.
We can all still prove Huntington wrong. Culture is not inanimate. It evolves and adjusts according to the people who define their times.
Indonesia at present is defining how its future civilization will be shaped. We hope that it can be one that defers to difference, without the envisioned clash.
The word jihad (struggle) in present parlance connotes such negative perceptions. But the most beautiful words in Islam are arguably iqra (to read) and ijtihad (independent reasoning), which encourage every human to use common sense and aspire to inteligence.
Two words of which radicals in Paris and fundamentalists in Jakarta have surely no understanding.
