Have you seen the infamous “Innocence of Muslims” trailer? What is your opinion about it?

I did. Are we supposed to consider it as a “film”? Or rather a pirate video with obscene and trash images that vehicles hatred and hostility towards Muslims and Islam? Who is the author, producer, who circulated it on the Youtube, by whom it is translated into Arabic … And on the other hand who are those criminal activists of Islam who attacked the Libyan consulate and killed the American ambassador? Is it an organized crime or an expression of mob rage? These are some questions that need to be answered to avoid simplistic conclusions.

As the film is not representative of the Western mind and the attitude towards Islam as a whole, the criminal acts in the Middle East cannot be attributed to all Muslims. But this confrontation feeds the hostility towards each other as it touches a nerve in the feelings of the majority; each side feels that their core values are under threat, whether it is freedom of expression or love for one’s Prophet.

However one has to avoid the political exploitation of these values. Muslims have to condemn the acts of violence that are committed in the name of Islam. They cannot continuously be on the defensive. They have to condemn the perpetrators of those acts of violence and intimidation. This will be decisive for the course of Arab spring and the role that Islam will play in the process of democratization.

On the other hand the Western intellectuals and publics need to become aware that the principle of freedom of expression could be used as a screen for attacking Islam. The rising islamophobia and right-wing populist movements in the West not only stigmatizes Muslims but also threatens European democracies. Each side needs such internal criticism for the sake of their own democracy.

More cartoons were published on Charlie Hebdo magazine. Is this freedom of expression or just provocation?

Charlie Hebdo was a cult satire magazine on the French public scene during the post-68 period. Today it is “has been” as French would say. It is no longer an anti-conformist voice but is part of the collective chorus in a mechanic defense of freedom of expression without an element of satiric surprise. It seems to be a more commercial move rather than a thought-provoking one.

Is there a sort of lack of responsibility in a magazine that publishes this kind of cartoons? Don’t you think that there is a sort of secular “fanaticism” when you want to show the world (and first of all the Arab world) that you can transform even religion into something ridiculous? Do we have to accept everything only because we are the West?

I do agree that there is a sort of secular fanaticism that replaced secular enlightenment. The radiance of the Western world in the past was due to its combination of freedom with scientific, intellectual and aesthetic creativity. The public sphere meant the freedom of thought and expression to ensure an ongoing democratic debate. In the present globalized public sphere, we lost the filters and mediators for rational reasoning, search for truth and aesthetic criteria. Freedom of expression has come to mean that one is entitled to burst out one’s visceral feelings, hatred and opinions without any reflexivity and creativity. This “direct”, “on-line”, crude democracy turns its back to enlightened publics, despising the power of the literate. The Western world and the Muslim world both need to be aware of these perverse forces of the globalized mode of democracy.

Why doesn’t the public opinion in Egypt or in other Arab countries raise authoritative voices to say that this film is something worthless and that one should relativize everything? I mean on TV, in newspapers and other mainstream media…

There were many of voices among Muslims who condemned both the video and the violent reactions. The Mufti of Egypt recalled the behavior of the Prophet who endured in silence insults and attacks of the impious against him as a role model to be followed by Muslims in the present. Cheikh Al-Qardawi, who is the president of international union for Muslim Scholars, condemned the film as a form of racism and insult against Muslims, but also called for calm by quoting Islamic precepts. Tariq Ramadan, globally well-known intellectual figure of Islam, invited Muslims to privilege intelligence and not to react even though they felt hurt. He advised an attitude of being above the current waves and defended a strategy of indifference towards such islamophobic acts. Dalil Boubakeur, president of the Great Mosque of Paris, invited French Muslims for self-control and not to react, being confident in God’s justice. Whereas Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan joined those who want to bring anti-Islam acts to the realm of international law and declared that he is planning to demand that the United Nations accept islamophobia as hate speech.

Therefore apart from violent reactions, we witness different voices among Muslims trying to cope with offensive representations of Islam in using legal measures or by means of strategies of avoidance.  All this shows the co-penetrations between the two worlds, the familiarization with each other’s sacred values, albeit in confrontation.