Open Letter: On Blasphemy, Islamophobia, and the True Enemies of Free Expression Read Free Page B

reality to your way of thinking, you’ll have a hard time convincing anyone that there is such a thing as a communist “race.” Likewise, there is no such thing as the Islamic “race.” Communism, as a school of thought, is now in the minority in France, regularly attacked or at the very least mercilessly derided by all faithful champions of the triumphant capitalist model. There are not (alas) a billion-plus communists in the world; the Communist Party is not (alas) the second-largest in France; there are (alas) more mosques than Communist Party federations; and no communist who interacts with customers at work is allowed to sport a big fat yellow hammer and sickle on his red T-shirt.
    While, unlike the existence of God, it is difficult to deny the existence of Marx, Lenin, or Georges Marchais, 3 it is neither blasphemous, racist, nor communistophobic to cast doubt on the validity of their writings or their speech. In France, a religion is nothing more than a collection of texts, traditions, and customs that it is perfectly legitimate to criticize. Sticking a clown nose on Marx is no more offensive or scandalous than popping the same schnoz on Muhammad.
    God is big enough to take care of himself
    Frankly, if God exists and is as powerful as his minions claim, we infidels, unbelievers, layfolk, atheists, antitheists, free thinkers, and apostates are in deep shit. We are irremediably damned to the fires of hell.
    Which raises the question: Why do believers resort to human justice to punish us when divine justice would do the trick, far more severely than any judge? Exactly who is this God character, who is said to be all-powerful yet needs to hire lawyers to take us to court? Isn’t he miffed when someone he had always considered to be a true follower turns to the legal system rather than to prayer? Why would the faithful risk making God look ridiculous by losing a trial on Earth when he is certain to win every trial in heaven? I don’t want to quarrel with anyone, but from the believer’s perspective, isn’t it blasphemy to ask jurists who may themselves be nonbelievers to condemn other nonbelievers in the name of God? Isn’t being the lead lawyer on God’s defense team just another way of committing the sin of pride? Does God—the creator of the world, this swaggering broad-shouldered guy who toys with our planet the way a driver stopped at a red light toys with his boogers—really need some ambulance chaser to uphold his honor?
    By taking blasphemers to court, our minority pressure groups prove only one thing: they don’t believe in God.
    Or else they are in favor of convicting people twice for the same crime, which is particularly mean-spirited and perverse. They want us to be found guilty and sentenced here in France, and a second time Up There. Or should I say Down There, since it is commonly understood that hell is in the basement and paradise, upstairs.
      
    Believers who want to put a handful of blasphemers through hell on Earth are counterfeiters. How could even the most talented disciple hope to rival God by patching together a pale imitation of the official hell, where the skin of supplicants grows back every time it is flayed? Disneyland would sue anyone who dared to open a park modeled on the original without authorization. It’s astonishing that God, who is reputed to be even more of a stickler for the rules than the Disney heirs, does not severely punish those do-it-yourself believers who try to profit from an earthly theme park to which they don’t own the rights.
    3 Georges Marchais (1920–1997), General Secretary of the French Communist Party from 1972 to 1994

Elitism, condescension, and infantilization
    Journalists promoting Islamophobia
    The term “Islamophobia” could never have achieved such wild popularity without the—mostly idiotic—complicity of the media. Why were they so eager to co-opt Islamophobia? First out of laziness, then for the novelty of it, and lastly out of