The dispute concerns freedom of expression. It is not the opinion of Muslims.

10/28/2020 Sweden, World



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This is the lead editor of the newspaper. Sydsvenskan’s attitude is independently liberal.

Protesters in Pakistan burn Macron’s portrait.Image: Fareed khan

The dispute continues between France and Turkey. Ankara is now threatening to act legally and diplomatically after the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published a cartoon of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

This clarifies what the fight is basically about.

It’s about freedom of speech, no matter how much Erdogan wants to portray it as some kind of schism around the vision of Islam.

Of course, French President Emmanuel Macron has long been critical of “Islamist separatism.” And after the murder of a teacher who showed cartoons of Muhammad to a school class for educational purposes, Macron, with good reason, further ruined the rhetoric: “Islamists want our future,” he said in condemnation of the extremist act.

Erdogan quickly took the statement out of context and presented it as contempt for Muslims.

“What about a head of state who treats millions of people of other faiths like this? First and foremost: take a psychic test,” Erdogan said in a televised speech this weekend.

This prompted France to withdraw its ambassador from Turkey. Furthermore, the EU Foreign Minister Josep Borell came out quickly and condemned the statement. For obvious reasons, because it involves much more than insults from one head of state to another. Macron stands as the representative of a secular and democratic Europe in a skirmish with Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian Turkey.
Ankara continues to try to ignite the conflict. It is presented as if the Muhammad cartoons were being used to intimidate Muslims under the pretext of freedom of expression. In the long term, this has led to calls for a boycott of French products in Middle Eastern countries. And in various places crowds have gathered for angry demonstrations against Emmanuel Macron. The French in the countries concerned are being asked for caution and there is also a clear risk of violence elsewhere. All of this happens as a result of Erdogan’s brazen attempts to shuffle the cards.
With Islam as the second largest religion, France is a Muslim country, Sweden’s Ambassador Etienne de Gonneville noted in Sunday’s Agenda. But Muslims must also be protected from Islamism, he continued. Especially because it threatens freedom of expression.

France has not changed its mind about Islam, Islamism or freedom of expression. Turkey, on the other hand, has.

When Charlie Hebdo, following the publication of the Muhammad cartoons, was the target of a terrorist attack in 2015, then-Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu went to France to demonstrate against the violence. When a teacher is assassinated just over five years later for showing the same cartoons to students, Ankara directs its accusations and insults at Paris.

In a way, it is symptomatic. In recent years, Erdogan has moved rapidly in an authoritarian direction with restrictions on democracy and freedom of expression.

Of course, last year, for the first time in four years, Turkey slipped from first place on the list of countries in the world that incarcerated the most journalists. But it was an equally revealing and grim explanation given by the Committee to Protect Journalists: Erdogan has shut down so many free media that there are few independent journalists left to lock up.

Of course, there are more background themes that contribute to the tone between Ankara and Paris. These include differences of opinion about the conflicts in Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh.

But when Recep Tayyip Erdogan claims to defend Muslims, he is in fact attacking democratic values. Because Emmanuel Macron has not spoken out against the religion of Islam, but for the right to freedom of expression.

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