Is terror a threat to literature?

There is one virtue often displayed by the Catholic Church; tolerance to critical literature. This has also become a hall-mark response by all Christians to the literature that assail the authenticity of Christian faith. All literature that have scathingly attacked Christian faith have always been received with calmness laced up with intellectual response.

But not violence. Only to have the same literature silenced to oblivion through the power of time. We are aware of the books like Berber Thiering’s Christ the Man, David Yallop’s In God’s Name, Dan Brown’s Da vinci Code and Jewarlal Nehru’s Glimpses of History, how they demeaned Christianity and how they gradually simmered into dark corners of the world memory.

In contrast, literary experience of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic verses; share some contextual similarities with this week’s attack upon the satirical Parisian magazine, Charlie Hebdo, which left ten staff and two police officers dead. An act of nothing other than intellectual intolerance. Charlie Hebdo means Charlie weekly. It is not strange to controversy.

The magazine began in 1960 as Hara-Kiri with a slogan “mean and nasty” . This slogan was taken directly as a sentence from the reader’s complaint letter. The magazine was temporarily banned by the French government in the early 60s. A decade later it was banned again for mocking the death of former French President Charles de Gaulle. Five of its cartoonists were executed during this time.

The magazine has a special passion for mocking religion. Particularly, Christianity and Islam. Its cartoons have shown nuns masturbating and popes wearing condoms. It has portrayed the Prophet Muhammad in pornographic poses and saw fit to refer to Muslims as jerks.

During the last Christmas festival they created an edition featuring a cartoon of the Virgin Mary; legs wide open, giving birth to Jesus. The editor, Stephane Charbonnier, who was also killed in the attack, once stated that his magazine would continue its style until Islam and Christianity is just as banal as Catholicism.

But the opposing contention is that, even if there is law that protects the media and individual’s freedom to create artworks, unfortunately it comes with the responsibility of some consideration for others.

Emotional and spiritual piques are real and might be felt more hurtfully than the pain of mayhem. It is a point to be grasped by secular writers and secular creative workers. This can help to put the world into a more peaceful position. If only leaderships of religious communities can also learn to be intellectually tolerant to the literature that go against their piety.