In an email interview to Vidya Venkat of The Hindu, Professor Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, author of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, explained the difference between critiquing a religion and ridiculing it, and why it is one thing to oppose censorship and quite another thing to reprint Charlie Hebdo cartoons in solidarity.
“The problem with the ongoing discussion of Charlie Hebdo is that it tends to confuse bigotry with blasphemy. I am personally more favorable to blasphemy, but have no time for bigots or bigotry.”
Read the interview: ‘Charlie Hebdo cartoons are bigoted’ – The Hindu.