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Amanpour

Grief and Defiance in Paris; Muslim Reaction to "Charlie Hebdo" Publication; Muslim Leader Condemns Paris Attack; Imagine a World

Aired January 16, 2015 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Grief and defiance in the face of terror as France buried its dead this week. Newsstands sold

out of the survivors' issue of "Charlie Hebdo," and we get two different views from the Muslim community.

What next after the Paris attacks?

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the special weekend edition of our program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

After a week where terrorists murdered 17 people in Paris, the magazine, "Charlie Hebdo," has resoundingly stood its ground, actually

printing 5 million copies of its new issue and declaring, quote, "All is forgiven," the cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad on the cover, shedding a

tear, saying, "Je suis Charlie."

It is already sold out in France and it is selling out rapidly around the world as well. The attack has raised so many questions. Many Jewish

people in France have begun to wonder if they're safe to stay after the attack on the kosher supermarket. I asked Prime Minister Manuel Valls

about that this week in Paris.

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MANUEL VALLS, FRENCH PRIME MINISTER (through translator): As Claude Lanzmann said, remembering that he made a marvelous film on the Holocaust,

without the Jews, France is no longer France. It's the oldest community. They have been French citizens since the French Revolution.

So we should reassure them by protecting them, taking the measures that we have done, which are unprecedented, protecting schools and

synagogues and Jewish institutions generally.

And we have to protect mosques as well because they have been attacked.

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AMANPOUR: There is also fierce debate among Muslims about just how much offense they can take. One thing is for sure, depictions of the

Prophet Muhammad are not banned by the Quran.

Joining me now to discuss all of this is Madjid Messaoudene, a city council member for Paris' Saint-Denis suburb, which does have a significant

Muslim population and here in the studio, Sara Khan, co-director of Inspire, which is a British organization that fights extremism and gender

discrimination.

Welcome to both of you.

Let me first start with you, Madjid, there in France.

What else could "Charlie Hebdo" have done today other than put this cartoon on the cover?

Four million people turned out across France, millions more supporting the right to free speech around the world.

MADJID MESSAOUDENE, CITY COUNCIL, SAINT-DENIS: Well, good evening. I think "Charlie Hebdo" could have put something else on their first cover.

For example, to condemn terrorism and to say that Islam has nothing to do with what happened one week ago.

I think they knew that drawing the Prophet would offend or insult millions, thousands of Muslims all over the world. I think in France, many

people are shocked because they think that there's a line. And drawing the Prophet, "Charlie Hebdo" crossed once again this line. I'm not sure it was

a good moment for that.

AMANPOUR: OK. I asked you wasn't it the only moment to do this now.

And I asked you, you say they should have said this is not Islam. Surely the "Je suis Charlie" and "Tout est pardonne," all is forgiven,

means precisely that.

MESSAOUDENE: No. It means that Islam has something to be forgiven for and the Prophet can't wear a "Je suis Charlie" banner because the

Muslims can't be -- can't agree with all that "Charlie Hebdo" says or draws.

So I think that the main mistake is to draw the Prophet and to make him wear this banner of "Je suis Charlie." I think this is amiss and

putting the Prophet is making a link between terrorism and Islam.

AMANPOUR: Let me turn to Sara Khan here in the studio.

Do you agree? Did he -- did you think that this was provocative of "Charlie Hebdo"? And did you get that message that Madjid seems to have

gotten from this cover?

SARA KHAN, DIRECTOR OF BRITISH NGO, INSPIRE: No, I don't actually. I didn't find the image to be provocative or there was an attempt by "Charlie

Hebdo" to be provocative, either.

And I think we have to be very careful because when we say Muslims are offended, we're talking about 1.6 billion Muslims across the globe.

They're going to hold very diverse views. And you will have views like Madjid, who will argue that it is offensive. But you'll have other views,

who will -- or other Muslims who will say it isn't.

For myself personally, when I saw the image -- there were three messages I felt "Charlie Hebdo" were conveying.

The first was that we're expressing solidarity with our murdered colleagues. The second actually was that they were trying to express a

respectful representation of the Prophet, not in a physical sense, but respectful to his teachings.

Many Muslims will tell you that the Prophet was a man who was regularly denigrated, mocked, humiliated, abused during his lifetime. And

he responded with mercy, with compassion and, above all, forgiveness.

So the "all is forgiven" struck on the top of the image is, for me, very powerful.

And I think the third message of the cartoon showed that it's in defiance of the terrorists. It's saying that rather than denigrating

ordinary Muslims across the world, we're actually undermining the message of the terrorists by saying it is you who insult the message and the

teachings of the Prophets themselves.

AMANPOUR: Let us get to the heart of the matter of the depiction. Yes, there have been much more offensive, vulgar depictions. But in terms

of an edict against depicting the Prophet, it does not say that in the Quran.

Where does this all come from?

And let's not forget that for years, for centuries, we've had brilliant art, works of art, with the Prophet and nobody's objected to it.

KHAN: You're absolutely right, Christiane. I mean, the dominant view is actually very much a modern one. And it seems to clash with firstly the

Quran, and there is nothing explicitly that prohibits the image, the drawings, any kind of imagery of the Prophet.

But also it flies in the face of Muslim history itself. So as you rightly pointed out, Muslim history is replete with and -- not with

cartoons, sorry; with images, with drawings, of beautiful medieval paintings of the Prophet Muhammad, standing alongside Jesus, for example.

Those images were there, drawn by Muslims, featured in Persian and Turkish artworks and so forth.

So it's there as a form of reverence and respect to the Prophet.

I think what we're seeing actually today -- it's the fact that in the last century in particular there has been a rise in extreme and hardline

interpretations for some, Salafism, for example, which has dominated the landscape of Islam today in the modern context.

It's this that we have -- it's a serious challenge that are facing Muslims today.

AMANPOUR: Madjid Messaoudene, let me ask you to answer that.

You were actually friends with Stephane Charbonnier, Charb, the main cartoonist who was slaughtered on last Wednesday. You were friends with

another of the "Charlie Hebdo" columnists there.

Do you agree with what Sara has just said and what many Muslims are saying, that actually there is no real ban in the Quran?

And those who say that depicting the Prophet is offensive are actually those who are using a hardline Salafist interpretation of that?

MESSAOUDENE: Well, I knew two of them, yes, Stephane Charbonnier and Donald Maris (ph). What I can tell you is that, for example, my sister is

wearing the veil. She has not Salafist interpretation of Islam. But she has been shocked by this drawing of the Prophet.

We can't understand why many Muslim people in France were shocked by this cover without taking into account the context we are living in in

France. We have the wide spreading Islamophobia in this country. We had like almost 100 Islam racist acts against Muslims this latest days.

So we can't make as if there was not a context that explains why Muslims feel once again insulted. This time it's by "Charlie Hebdo"; 364

other days by your - it's by the government, it's by the political parties. So I think we have to be careful with these symbolics (sic).

And even if there's no strict prohibition to do it, you have to take into account the feelings of the Muslims because they are part of the

population and we have to respect them.

AMANPOUR: Can I ask you to just confirm -- I mean, you said, yes, "Charlie Hebdo" has the right to exist and we have the right to criticize

it.

But what is your reaction to the rector, to Dr. Dalil Boubakeur, who said in no uncertain terms to me, we must have a reform of Islam. We must

rip politics out of the religion. And we must not allow the extremists, the Arabian Wahhabi Salafists to have the agenda and our imams need to

understand that Islam is not all that.

Do you agree with that?

MESSAOUDENE: Well, what Dalil Boubakeur says is not a scoop. He does not represent all the Muslims in France. The Muslim community is not

organized, as you know. The problem is that you have a small minority which is getting more and more extremist.

But they are not representative of the majority of the Muslims in France.

We have to let the Muslims getting organized. We have to let them choose the way they want to live their life. The problem is not from an

organization. The problem is not from getting politics in place in Islam.

The problem is that in France, the elites, the French republic does not consider Islam as a normal religion. They still consider it as a

threat. They still see Muslims not as citizens but as interior enemies.

This is the main issue in France. So Dalil Boubakeur is talking just for himself, his friends. But he's not talking about other Muslims in

France.

AMANPOUR: All right. But he is the rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris and he is the head of the Council of the French Muslim faith.

So let me ask you, Sara, where do we go from here? Because what Madjid is describing is sort of grievance offense. This is a big global

grievance that Muslims have and these cartoons exacerbate the feeling of being under siege.

Where do we go from here in terms of freedom of expression, balanced with faith?

KHAN: I think there's two things. I think Madjid raises a valid point about how French Muslims, many -- especially the young feel

disenfranchised. They're experiencing discrimination.

We know for example there's very high unemployment rates amongst French Muslims. That needs to be addressed, this feeling of social

frustration amongst Muslim youth in France needs to be addressed because that's why extremists deliberately target these young people, because they

know they feel aggrieved.

So that has to be addressed and it has to be tackled.

But yes, of course, I agree very much that we do need to rip out politics from Islam because I think that's been one of the most poisonous

things to have happened to Islam, where it has become so politicized and it's very damaging in that sense.

So there has to be that debate. There has to be taking that debate forward.

I think we also have to recognize that, yes, there is freedom of expression and there are many, many Muslims. And we've seen this from the

Arab Spring. They died. They yearned for freedom of expression because they knew it's freedom of expression that protects all their other rights.

If they can't stand up to authorities, what other rights is there for them to protect?

It's very, very important. Naturally many activists like myself, we feel very passionate about embodying freedom of expression because in the

work that I do here in London, challenging gender discrimination in Muslim communities, challenging extremist ideologies, we do that through freedom

of expression and many people try to silence our voices in this debate.

So challenging and protecting freedom of expression is fundamental as well.

AMANPOUR: On that note, Sara Khan, thank you very much indeed for joining me from London.

And Majid Messaoudene, thank you so much for joining me from Paris. It is a debate that will continue.

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AMANPOUR: While views may differ on the rights and wrongs of the "Charlie Hebdo" cartoons, the outrage at the attacks spans the religious

divide.

But will vital reform be borne from this tragedy? It's a question I put to one of the highest religious authorities in France, the rector of

the Great Mosque of Paris. My interview with him after a break.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): First of all, it's appalling. And every time something like this happens, it happens in my religion's name

and it -- my blood boils, to be very honest with you. So I have traveled to show solidarity with the French people.

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AMANPOUR: That was Moustafa (ph), a Muslim from London who traveled to Paris to join the unity march last Sunday and to pay his respects to the

17 victims of those deadly attacks.

I visited the Great Mosque in Paris and I spoke to its rector, Dr. Dalil Boubakeur. He condemned the attacks and he called passionately for

reform to root out this mutation, as he said, in the Islamic faith.

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AMANPOUR: Dr. Boubakeur, welcome to the program.

BOUBAKEUR: Merci. Bonjour.

AMANPOUR: What does it say to you that more than 3 million people, nearly 4 million people came onto the streets?

BOUBAKEUR (through translator): It is a unique, an exceptional occasion for the population of France, coming together in Paris and

throughout France. In fact, since the liberation.

Since 1945, there's never been so many people mobilized, wishing to express very strong feelings, given recent events, when journalists at

"Charlie Hebdo" were murdered and there were also four fatalities in a Jewish food store in Paris.

And all this really mobilized the whole of France against terrorism.

AMANPOUR: You called this action by French Muslims a barbaric attack on democracy and a new form of war.

But actually, Amedy Coulibaly says that he was born in France and so were the Kouachi brothers are French. They were radicalized here in this

country. There's a problem in your community.

BOUBAKEUR (through translator): These were children, young people who were abandoned, who were imprisoned. They had delinquency problems and

they were, bit by bit, trained on the basis of being in prison through charismatic leaders in order to be brought into the political form of

Islam, Islamism.

And then they were induced to travel to Syria, to Iraq, to Afghanistan and they were recruited there by terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda,

Daish, and other organizations, which are absolutely terrorist organizations and, given the reaction of France to bomb targets in

countries where there is terrorism like Syria and Iraq, they were induce to react against France because of its policy of attacking terrorist centers

in the Middle East.

So they induced these people who were born in France to commit terrorist acts in France.

AMANPOUR: But how do you answer the fact that on Thursday, the day of mourning, some Muslim students refused to observe the minute of silence?

BOUBAKEUR (through translator): Yes. That is true. You are absolutely right. And we found that.

We Muslims, who observe what's going on and we see how fundamentalism has increased in France over a number of years, the Salafists, the

movements, there are some imams who are in favor of jihadism, in favor of fundamentalism, in favor of Wahhabism, the fourth school in Islam.

And for years, they have been working in France and they are exciting young people, whipping them up against the West and turning them into

terrorists or at least people who can go to Syria.

AMANPOUR: What do you do, as such a big Muslim leader here, the day after this massive demonstration?

BOUBAKEUR (through translator): Today we want to appeal for a change in religious thinking in Islam, that we abandon political Islam so we

should not turn it into a policy but to keep it as a religion, a religion which doesn't ask people to kill anyone nor to carry out anti-Semitic acts

or anything political.

Islam is a religion of peace, a religion of tolerance, a religion in which people can live together, in which people can be brought up in

accordance with the ethics and morals of democracy. And it should be an example of humanism. True Islam is humanist.

AMANPOUR: The cartoons of "Charlie Hebdo," obviously, gave a lot of offense to some Muslims.

BOUBAKEUR (through translator): The cartoons and caricatures of "Charlie Hebdo" did shock a number of Muslims. And in all religions, there

are cartoons.

But if there is a problem with cartoonists -- and there are cartoonists everywhere -- some cartoons people agree with and there are

some cartoons that people don't agree with or they don't like it. Well, then, let them go to the justice system.

If the caricature or cartoon touches sick minds, violent minds, terrorist people, it shocks them. And then they are the authors of murder

of the journalists in this case because normal Muslims don't propose killing journalists.

AMANPOUR: You talked about a reform necessary.

What do you expect from the imams across France?

What should they be doing?

Because one of these Kouachi brothers was radicalized by a man proclaiming himself to be an imam.

BOUBAKEUR (through translator): We want to reform the training of imams. We don't want to allow these imams just to be trained anywhere or

in Arabia, spouting fundamentalism. There are four schools in Islam, four ways in which Islam can be practiced. The fourth school, the Hanbali

school or the Wahhabi school, which is dangerous and many imams are trained with this dangerous view of Islam, and we say no, not at all.

BOUBAKEUR: We don't want that our young people go to these countries where Wahhabis is taught, is teaching by these violent people because this

school is a violent school. We say it, for many years here in France, that nobody will want to hear as to listen to us.

AMANPOUR: Dr. Boubakeur, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

BOUBAKEUR: Thank you and thank you for you, for your visit. And we are ready to answer you and we thank you for your presence.

AMANPOUR: Merci beaucoup.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Artists around the globe have shown solidarity with the "Charlie Hebdo" satirists. But imagine a world where a Syrian cartoonist's

hands are considered his most dangerous weapon. More on that after a break.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, imagine a world where your hands become a dictator's enemy number 1. Legendary Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat

was almost killed by Syrian security forces in August 2011 when the civil war broke out there because he dared put pen to paper, drawing cartoons

critical of President Bashar al-Assad.

Since then, he's been living in exile in Kuwait and in view of what happened in Paris, we asked him to tell us about the high price he's paid

for his work in Damascus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALI FERZAT, CARTOONIST (through translator): On the day of August 25, 2011, a security police car with tinted windows was following me with four

men inside carrying batons. And then they cornered me in one of the most important squares in Damascus and four men jumped out of the car and

started attacking me.

After about half an hour of driving through which I was still being beaten on my eyes, on my head with their batons, then they grabbed my

fingers and they started breaking them one by one so to teach me a lesson for insulting the president. And they told me that this is how you learn

not to insult the president and that the president's shoes is over your head and over the head of anyone who is talking about freedom.

It is true they broke me up. But what I did was to break out of the fear that was dominating Syria for the past 50 years.

I was not surprised about what happened. And I was pained for those cartoonists. Those artists did not carry a gun or a weapon. They only

carried a pen, just like I did. It appears that the pen is mightier than any weapon as we have seen when the terrorists attacked and killed those

cartoonists.

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AMANPOUR: And on this night of all nights, it's important for all of us to keep up the fight to keep the pen mightier than the sword.

And that's it for our program tonight. Remember you can always see the whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook and

Twitter. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.

And that's it for our program tonight. Remember you can always watch our show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.

END