No Toleration for Violence

One week after brutal assault on Charlie Hebdo, Japanese media is hesitating in supporting the satirical weekly newspaper. Some newspapers refrained from publishing the latest caricature of Charlie Hebdo, which described weeping Muhammad raising a card with “Je Suis Charlie,” while the others decided to insert it in their pages. In this country with pacifist constitution, violence has no toleration at all. As living on freedom of speech, a media organization showing slight toleration toward terrorism is deadly wrong.

With the news reporting Charlie Hebdo’s defiance to run the caricature, Tokyo Shimbun was the first newspaper that immediately covered the drawing distributed from foreign media in its evening edition on Tuesday. Nikkei and Sankei followed Tokyo in the morning edition of Wednesday. They commented what the caricature meant: meaning of “Tout Est Pardonné” or taboo for Islamic people to draw picture of Muhammad.

Three major newspapers, Asahi, Yomiuri and Mainich, avoided publishing the picture. Asahi raised a headline of “Satire or Insult,” which reported the comment of caricaturist of Charlie Hebdo and various responses from the world, including New York Times that was skeptical on editing policy of Charlie Hebdo. Yomiuri and Mainichi simply did not publish it, with many articles that denounced violation against freedom of speech.

It is important for the Japanese in understanding the issue to realize that their country was once devastated by unprecedented violence, or atomic bomb, seventy years ago. Even when there is a great cause to retaliate unreasonable offense, like Pearl Harbor Attack, it is immoral to kill innocent people with weapons of mass destruction. War is not the answer especially for the Japanese. The Japanese must not tolerate Islamic terrorists who used violence to persuade the opposite.

Having experienced huge amount of losses in the war, the Japanese came to think that life is the most precious value in their society, even greater than religious or ideological cause. In hijack incident by Marxist activists in Dhaka in 1977, then Prime Minister, Takeo Fukuda, accepted request of hijackers to give money and release of their colleagues from jail with a comment, “One life is heavier than the earth.” Although it may be a rhetoric to quote an example of giving in terrorists, paying highest respect to human lives is the basic standard of post-war Japanese society.

In those perspectives, the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo has no reason to be tolerated by the Japanese. After relying on violence, the terrorists lost all causes to criticize the satirical newspaper. It is apparently wrong to equate terrorists with other Islamic people. But, it is Islamic communities that need to clearly separate themselves from terrorists before the Western nations forcibly do that. Terrorists had given Charlie Hebdo every reason to protest.