Let's respect the thin line

Alia Tabassum

Come on, this is not satirical. If I draw my neighbour's cartoon as a pig, it won't be funny. On doing this my neighbour would break my teeth out and endanger my freedom of expression, these were the words of Mr. Shafiq.

Mr. Shafiq is a fairly liberal man. He is Muslim, but unlike many of them, he believes women should be given more rights in Islamic countries and they should be allowed to choose all sorts of career. 

Shafiq is a journalist in Spain and he seemed very upset on the killing of journalists and police officers in Spain. A night before he joined a protest in Rambla, Barcelona to show solidarity with the victims of the massacre in France. Shafiq clearly said we are here to condemn the killing not to protect anyone's aggravated acts.

While driving us to the Airport, Shafiq left rose many questions in our mind. What is freedom of speech, freedom of expressions and freedom of the press. These "Freedoms" are somewhere crossing the lines and hurting the large population.

Charlie Hebdo is the successor of the Hara-Kiri, which was banned for mocking the death of the French president. If ethics didn't allow a magazine to mock the representative of a small number of people, how does the freedom of expression allowed to hurt the feelings of 23 percent of the world population.   

Being an individual my countless wishes could be nonsense and harmful to others, but there is a check on our wishes from society, law, and most of all humanity. The law makes one stop at red, freedom may not like it. One may wish to be offensive to its neighbour, but there's no room for such acts in society. But here the double standard starts when one may be arrested to threaten other on Facebook, but it's freedom of expression to ridicule Noah, Jesus, Muhammad and Moses. Law for the freedom of expression works differently for Charlie Hebdo and Dieudonne.

Right or wrong, but Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and other religions or atheists are the realities of this world. Clashes between religions can turn into civilizations' clash and wars.

There is a very thin line between freedom of expression and hurting someone's feelings, and every Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh and Atheist should respect that line.    

The act of killing of journalists and police officials is condemnable. It was an act of brutality and a nightmare for the families of victims. At this time when different civilisations, traditions, religions and nations are living closer, it is the right time to prevent freedom of speech from turning into hate speech and freedom of the press into clashes between civilisations.