Suleiman Bakhit © Onnik James Krikorian 2014
The 7 January attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a controversial Paris satirical publication that has always had its detractors, including at times the French and U.S. governments, was both shocking and callous. Twelve people were initially killed in the carnage perpetrated by Islamic extremists while an increasingly polarised discourse in its aftermath runs the risk of provoking more as latent, inherent Islamophobia surfaces in Europe.
That’s not to say that the attack wasn’t cowardly or abhorrent. It was, but in what is fast becoming a single narrative embodying Charlie Hebdo as a bulwark against violent extremism, others doing more immediate work are being ignored. Moreover, what’s important and significant about these people is that they are Moslem. Arguably, their work is just as important, if not more so, and deserves acknowledgement and support.
There’s Abdullah-X, for example, a former radical who now uses animated cartoons posted online to prevent radicalisation among marginalised Muslim youth in the United Kingdom. Run on a shoestring budget, it gets some coverage, but not nearly enough at a time when Islam, radicalisation, and cartoons are firmly in the media spotlight.
In the cartoons, Abdullah-X is a disillusioned young British Muslim who explores the reasons behind British Muslims’ decisions to get involved in extremist activities abroad, but eventually decides that extremism is not the path for him.
In one video Abdullah asks, “You have to kill others to make your world purer. This is what you think Islam is? Are you for real?”, while another post questions those who justify “their own hate through Islam.”
In his first interview, the creator, who prefers to remain anonymous, told Sky News that he hoped the cartoons would dissuade young Muslims from getting involved in foreign jihads, as well as dispelling some of the “myths” and “prejudices” non-Muslims may have about Islam.
There’s also Suleiman Bakhit who’s doing some amazing work by providing Muslim kids with alternative role models in the hope that they too can be steered away from the path to radicalisation.
He decided to visit schools in the area to build community relations and explain to American children that most Muslims are not terrorists. When he was asked by a young boy if the Arab world had its own Superman and Batman, he realized the answer was no. He describes the moment as an epiphany. He taught himself how to draw and began creating stories and characters. Eventually, he moved back to Jordan and started his company.
Early on, he conducted focus groups with Jordanian children from different economic classes.
“I went there and asked the kids, ‘Who are your heroes?’ ” he said. “ ‘We don’t have any heroes, but we hear a lot about Bin Laden, about Zarqawi,’ ” he said they told him, referring to the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who led the group that evolved into the Islamic State. “I’m like, ‘What do you hear about them?’ The children replied, ‘That they defend us against the West because the West is out there to kill us.’ And this is the terrorist narrative and Propaganda 101.”
There was no mention of freedom of expression on that issue, even though the heroine spends most of her time not wearing it, and despite the same argument being frequently used to justify the depiction of Muslim and other faiths by Charlie Hebdo.
True, none of these examples can be described as satire, but then again, Charlie Hebdo was no “Four Lions’ either. That still relevant and informed take on locally grown foreign fighters by Chris Morris wasn’t afraid to target the establishment as well as jihadists, something Charlie Hebdo arguably did no longer. Moreover, these three individuals represent something that is more necessary than ever, especially after the Paris shootings.
Rather than ridicule fanaticism, they seek to counter and prevent radicalisation in order to prevent terrorist incidents in the future, something I witnessed firsthand in December at the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Expo organised by the Hedayah Centre and Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) in Abu Dhabi. Bakhit was there, as were the creators of Abdullah-X and Burka Avenger.
It also meant I got to sit in on quite a few private conversations between the man behind Abdullah-X, Ashraf al-Khaled — a man who humbled me with his vision of peace and coexistence despite Al Qaeda suicide bombing his wedding) — and Michael Haines, brother of aid worker David who was beheaded by the Islamic State in September. And it is that discourse that is sorely needed in the open today after Charlie Hebdo.
The attack on Charlie Hebdo was vile and disgusting and everyone is justified in their outrage. But before the far-right in Europe hijack the tragedy for their own political agenda, perhaps its time to also support and show solidarity with those using cartoons and other mediums to counter the narratives of extremists of all persuasions while avoiding falling into the trap of categorising all Moslems as somehow responsible for the attack.
