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March 6, 2006

France: Muslims Protest Against Voltaire Play

The issue of Muslims complaining about works of art or any representation of their "prophet" continues. But one subject of recent criticisms is not a new work of art, but one that is two and a half centuries old. The object of Islamic ire is the celebrated French thinker, writer and satirist, Voltaire (1694-1778).

The work in question is a play called "Fanaticisme, or Mahomet le Prophete", a satirical play written in 1740.

In the town of Saint-Genis-Pouilly, which lies close to the border with Switzerland, a community centre decided at the end of last year to stage a reading of "Fanaticism, or Mohammed The Prophet", which originally used Mohammed as a vehicle to satirise the excesses then current in the Christian arena.

The mayor of Saint-Genis-Pouilly, states Andrew Higgins in Newspress.com, (originally published in the Wall Street Journal), received letters from local Muslims claiming to represent the Muslim community. The correspondence urged the mayor to cancel the performance, but the demands were unheeded, and the play-reading went ahead in December.

Hubert Bertrand, the mayor, called in police reinforcements and, as is so yawningly typical when Muslims get "upset", a minor riot broke out. And in typical French Muslim traditions of "protest" a car and several dustbins were set alight.

Voltaire, real name Francois-Marie Arouet, fell foul of the French king, and spent part of his exile in Geneva, where one of his books was publicly burned, leading him to move to a chateau, a few miles from Saint-Genis-Pouilly.

The play's text can be viewed in its entirety here, but unfortunately the text is in French. When completed in 1740, Voltaire dedicated it to Cardinal Fleury. The play was first performed in 1741 in Lille by Lanoue and company, and then by the Comedie-Francaise in 1742. Voltaire sent a copy of the manuscript to Pope Benedict XIV, who gave it his blessing, describing it to the author as "your excellent tragedy... which I have read with great pleasure."

Before its first public performance, Voltaire read aloud the play to Emperor Frederick of Prussia in 1740. However, the play was dogged by controversy. Its third performance, which commenced in Paris on 9 August, 1742 was banned after pressure was made by Jansenists. It received various bans up until 1748.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," was a famous quote from Voltaire, but sadly his works, which helped inspire the modern trends of secularism in Western society, have had few champions of late.

In Geneva in 1994, to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Voltaire's birth, Herve Loichemol attempted to perform a reading of the play. Loichemol, who staged the reading at Saint-Genis-Pouilly, found that he was met with resistance, and the play was dropped by the Geneva authorities. Chief among those against the play's staging was Tariq Ramadan whose objection rested on its "insulting" of the prophet Mohammed. In an open letter written in October 1993, Ramadan claimed that staging the play would ''be another brick in an edifice of hatred and rejection in which Muslims feel they are being enclosed.''

According to Andrew Higgins, Ramadan, grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, who lectured in Fribourg and Geneva, has recently played down his opposition to the play, and even boasts that he has taught "Fanaticism" to his students.

According to Coranix, the Koran had originally been banned in anything other than handwritten form, was the subject of a fatwa in Turkey in 1757, banning its printing. This led Voltaire to write an impassioned pamphlet in 1765 entitled "On the horrible danger of reading". The first printed copy of the Koran did not appear until 1787.

The irony of the "Fanaticism" case is that, despite being titled after Mohammed, its subject matter is a satire on all religions. As Ross Mullin wrote in 1994, after the Geneva ban:

The city of Geneva has once again proven Voltaire's subversiveness-by preventing performance of his play, "Mahomet, ou le Fanatisme." Voltaire wasn't actually attacking Mohammed. His main targets, thinly disguised, were religious fanaticism in general, and Christian fanatics in particular.

Voltaire was a champion of secularism and freedom of speech, and as such is an integral cog in the intellectual machinery which shaped the modern Western world.

Though his first critics were over-sensitive Christians, who wished to impose their rule above all others, now the main enemies of Voltaire are Muslims, who wish to disestablish the rule of secular law, and to have it subsumed under their own religious tyranny.

The play "Tamburlaine the Great", written by Christopher Marlowe in c.1585 was performed by Bristol Old Vic repertory company in November last year. The Times and Robert Spencer noted that the director of the performance, David Farr deliberately censored a key part of the play. He refused to show Tamburlaine burning the Koran, admitting that he had done so for fear of offending Muslims. Obviously Voltaire's attempts to dilute the repressive power of religion mean nothing to the mandarins at Bristol Old Vic.

In a letter to Frederick of Prussia, Voltaire wrote: "Why must I blindly follow the blind who cry out to me: hate, persecute all who are rash enough not to be of the same opinion with ourselves, even in things and matters we do not understand? ... A spirit of indulgence would make us all brothers; a spirit of persecution can create nothing but monsters."

Higgins points out that on his deathbed in 1778, a priest tried to give Voltaire the last rites. When asked if he would renounce Satan, the great man replied: "This is not the time to be making enemies."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at March 6, 2006 8:54 PM

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Posted by: Richardt Thomas Lionheart at March 9, 2006 6:02 PM

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