An interview with the Tehran journalist Negar Mortazavi, commentator on Iran based in New York.
What’s your opinion about Charlie Hebdo issue?
Freedom is very tricky and whoever claims that it has to be absolute is detached from reality. I think freedom of expression and freedom of the press must be defined by law and they are defined by law in the West but I also think that we should consider the sensitivity of the society, all parts of society. Sensitivity should push writers, creators to not cross certain lines, I mean the sensitivity of certain portions of society. The reason for this is also very important: are you trying to make a point? Are you dealing with authority? Are you denouncing corruption? Or are you just offending for the sake of offending? All these are very important topics to be considered.
Is there a line that freedom of expression should not cross?
It is very difficult to draw a line, where do you start? I don’t live in France but if you live as a journalist, a cartoonist in a society and you don’t take into consideration the sensitivity of all portions of society I think it’s somehow irresponsible or insensitive. And I think Charlie Hebdo had crossed that line. It is a good publication, I have many colleagues who are fun of it because they ridicule authority, power, it’s a very political publication. But I think when it comes to the Muslim community in France it was, in my opinion, a little bit irresponsible mostly culturally when you are dealing with that part of society.
As an Iranian journalist, with Muslim background, which are your feelings about all this issue?
I’m not a religious person so I’m detached from that deep feeling of offense. I personally think that this idea of not drawing the Prophet, from a French perspective, is too much. I remember when Charbonnier said “I’m living under French law not Koranic law”. He was right. I think it’s too much to expect that from a country like France. I’m ok with the idea of drawing the Prophet. My main problem is with the cultural side, with how Charlie Hebdo was portraying Muslims and not just the Prophet because the Prophet is not here anymore but he’s sacred and important to Muslims, that is what I call sensitivity. Portraying the Prophet is in fact portraying French Muslims who are in the majority of cases marginalized, they belong to the poor section of the society. This is culturally insensitive.
Do you think that Charlie Hebdo was islamophobic?
No I don’t. The last cover with the Prophet crying wasn’t offensive at all. However in the past Charlie Hebdo published pornographic or sexual images of the Prophet and many pictures that had to do with nudity. These are things that for me are culturally insensitive in the Muslim world, in the Arab world, in the Middle East. When you combine all these things together of course many people can get offended. I’m not a religious person but when I see pornographic pictures like this I feel like we, as a nation, are being culturally offended. It is difficult to make a law saying what you can or cannot draw but I think that you should have the sensitivity that it’s not of course the sensitivity of a white, male, French-like person who doesn’t know anything about this other part of the society. As a journalist, not as an Iranian because I see myself first as a journalist and then as an Iranian, I identified with Charlie because no matter what they published, no matter how irresponsible and how insensitive, violence is not the response. If you don’t like what they say, you write about it, you draw, you protest, you take them to court. Violence in any way is wrong. Many Muslims, Arabs say “Je suis Charlie” without sharing their point of view but respecting the fact that they have the right to publish. Mostly we support their right to live. Anyone of us could be there and killed. In that sense I sympatize with them. But their content not all the time. Their political content is great but it is culturally insensitive.
During the rally in Paris, we saw also many chiefs of state who are the worst enemies of the press in their own countries. Don’t you find all this disturbing?
Yes it’s true that in Paris rally there were some leaders who are not big defenders of the freedom of speech and freedom of the press in their own country. But I still see positive sides of that. For example some of the most conservative and radical officials of state have condemned the violence. Khatami for example in Iran, Nasrallah from Hezbollah, these are very conservative and radical leaders but they have condemned the violence. One of them said: “This violence has caused more harm to Islam than any cartoon”. There is a value to that. The fact that Jordanians, Palestinians, Saudi came, yes somebody could say that this is just a show but to see Muslim head of states coming together in a unity against violence I think is very positive. I think other leaders or ambassadors of the Muslim world should have joined the rally, Iran for example but unfortunately they didn’t.
@marco_cesario
An interview with the Tehran journalist Negar Mortazavi, commentator on Iran based in New York.
