In conversation with ANTARA in Jakarta on Monday while speaking in connection with Macron's support for the display and reprint of cartoons on Prophet Muhammad, Abbas believes Macron’s apology could help to assuage tensions and avoid conflicts.
"Muslims will accept his apology if he is keen to say sorry, and the flames of hostility that he has fueled will subside," said Abbas, concurrently one of the chairpersons of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia's second-largest Muslim-based organization.
The MUI secretary general believes that although people in democratic countries have the freedom to speak and express their opinions, misusing their right of freedom of expression to insult and humiliate others, and, more importantly, any religion, is not acceptable on any grounds.
Muslim communities globally would never stay mum in the event of anyone found insulting and blaspheming Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). They would react to such culprits, he emphasized.
Abbas maintained that several acts of violence involving Muslims in different parts of the world were largely related to their reactions rather than actions.
"The acts of violence are committed as the reactions against the people, who have made them feel offended," he remarked while urging international communities to desist from insulting any religion if they are keen to live in a peaceful world.
President Macron's anti-Islamic remarks on the pretext of "freedom of expression" have fueled a backlash from Muslims worldwide over these past few days.
Macron's remarks following the beheading of Samuel Paty, a history and geography teacher, for showing cartoons of Prophet Muhammad during a class on October 6, 2020, have also sparked controversy over their Islamophobic content.
Abdullakh Anzorov, 18, who killed Paty on October 16, 2020, was later shot dead by the French police. Anzorov had felt offended by Paty's blasphemous act.
"France will not give up our cartoons," Macron, responding to Paty's death, was quoted by the BBC as saying.
Following his death, Paty was bestowed the Légion d'honneur, France's highest honor.
In the aftermath of his murder, cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad, made by Charlie Hebdo, were projected onto public buildings.
In response to Macron's Islamophobic behavior and hostility towards Islam, Prophet Muhammad, and Muslims all over the world, the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) denounced the French leader and categorized him as a "kafir harbi," or infidel.
"Macron's decision to bestow Samuel Paty with the Légion d'honneur is obviously a crime against the teachings of Islam," the FPI Central Executive Board disclosed in its letter dated Oct 24, 2020.
As mentioned in the letter signed by FPI General Chairman Ahmad Shabri Lubis and FPI Secretary General Munarman, this Muslim-based organization also urges Muslim communities globally to rise from the oppressions of "modern civilization of ignorance" that project Islam as an enemy.
Prior to the Paty case, French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo had frequently published cartoons mocking Prophet Muhammad that triggered public ire in several Muslim-populated nations.
Two people attacked the offices of the magazine on January 7, 2015, after it published cartoons on Prophet Muhammad, on grounds that their publication was in accordance with the freedom of expression. Some 12 people were killed, while 11 suffered injuries in the attack.
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EDITED BY INE
Translator: Anom P, Rahmad Nasution
Editor: Suharto
Copyright © ANTARA 2020
