You seem to be missing the point that this is not about cartoons. It’s about an idea - or a set of ideas. If “they” come to your door and tell you that you are now required to wear a burka in public are you going to fight back? It seems kind of silly to die for a freaking piece of clothing, or risk the lives of others for one, after all. Fabric isn’t even an idea, and besides, pale blue is so lovely with your hair. And all those girls in their skimpy clothing are offensive anyways…
This event (no one killed, no one even injured) was competing in the news with mass slaughter. If 12 people and many others had been injured, we would certainly be seeing it get more coverage. As it is, I watched maybe 3 or 4 different news shows yesterday, and they all covered it.
First, I said mainstream in their local regions.
They’re not mainstream even in local regions nowadays because they were discredited thanks to efforts of the Civil Rights movement and other anti-racism protestors of the '60’s onward.
However, they were widely accepted into the mainstream among many White locals in southern and certain midwest/western regions of the US up until the '60s.
And if we go back just a few decades to the 1920s, the KKK WAS actually part of the US White mainstream nationwide until the murder of Madge Oberholtzer, a young White woman by a sexually depraved Indiana KKK bigwig created a major scandal and caused their national popularity to drop.
Can we request a NOT helpful button?
In terms of western civilization, Someone asked Ghandi what he thought of western civilization, and he said it would be a great idea if you could find it:)
As is typical of this incident, there are a lot of people on all sides of it, those saying that the paper should of expected this result because they angered Muslims with their stuff, others saying all Muslims are violent terrorists seeking to kill everyone in the west and/or force Sharia on them, and so forth. The problem is obvious, that these are simplifications.
That said, it is a hallmark of civilization where thoughts and ideas, no matter how repugnant, can be treated as that, something that is someone expressing an idea or thought, and if it is repugnant, then the answer is to come back with your own thoughts and actions. Those who wish to banish repugnant speech, ban things like books denying the holocaust or being vilely anti semitic, and cite the horrors of the holocaust, forget that the Nazis cited their repugnance at Jews in banning music, art and books done by Jews as being offensive to Germans, and while I can be a lot more sympathetic to the idea of banning anti semitic screeds or holocaust deniers then I would be to the Nazi’s banning Mendelsohn, both are equally wrong for the very reason that they are deciding what is repugnant and what isn’t, it is wrong (the European laws might be well meaning, but they are stupid, and also are a slipperly slope,the same idea could be used to ban writing about or teaching evolution,or writing that LGBT people are not deviants, by religious people who find either repugnant).
Charlie did not single out Muslims for their ridicule, they do it to all religions. They had a cartoon with three rolls of toilet paper, and underneath the first was “The Bible”, The second “The Q’ran”, the third “The Torah”…and they have ridiculed the Catholic Church, they have ridiculed the Pope, they have ridiculed things like the 10 commandments coming from God…France has a long tradition of this, Voltaire and Moliere were ridiculing the Catholic Church centuries ago, and last I checked neither were shot or beheaded.
The other thing that the more liberal people forget is that while muslims can and are denouncing this kind of violence, there is also a problem in Muslim culture that is not the work of a fringe few. In relatively moderate Muslim countries, whether it is Turkey or Indonesia, you can be arrested and sent to jail for a fairly long stretch for committing blasphemy or anything that can be considered “deriding Islam or Mohammad”.No, this isn’t cutting someone’s head off or shooting them, but it has at the base the same issue, that somehow religious belief is above the law, that somehow someone saying or writing something that they felt denigrated the faith ruined it. I have heard the arguments, that this is the fringe radicals, that this is because Muslims are second class citizens in France, but the reality is that sending someone to jail because they wrote or said something that was decided was blasphemous has the same exact motivation the SOB’s who did this did, sending someone to jail is an act of violence, of brutality, and in those countries also could be a death sentence if the inmates in the jail found out why the person was in there, this is not trivial, and it indicates a mindset that is not limited to ‘the fringe’. Indonesia has such laws, and enforces them, and it is the most populous Muslim country in the world. More importantly, these laws, or the acts of the pieces of crap in France, do far more damage to Islam or the Prophet Mohammed then any cartoon or writing could ever do, it paints Islam as being the religion of intolerance and fanaticism.
And yes, the west was not all that much different not that many years ago, people were prosecuted for Blasphemy in countries like France and Italy into the early 20th century, and those laws were not removed from the books until after WWII, but the reality was that much of that died after the reformation and the enlightenment in Europe and has not been a serious factor since the 17th century.
It is all great and good to talk about the KKK, it is all great and good to talk about lynching, about gay bashing, about anti semitism and the holocaust and point out that western civilization hasn’t always been so civilized, but that does not change the fact that the underpinnings of what these scum did in France has roots in their faith, and in many places in the Muslim world is the idea behind the killings, that deriding Islam should be punished, is legally sanctioned (not the killing, the idea of punishing those responsible,. using the law). This is not a knock on either Islam or Muslims, it is a call to recognize that no faith should ever be above being criticized, made fun of, lampooned or even made the butt of offensive jokes and such, either in the law or in violence, but rather, it should be that if the faith is lampooned or written about or whatever, you protest, you make clear it is wrong, you reach out to other people of good faith to show condemnation of what was written. We have had politicians in the US who have said stupid things, anti semitic things, anti gay things, anti black things, and they faced a groundswell of negative opinion from people both who were jewish/gay/black/etc and more importantly, from other people, and that is the way you answer it. If someone publishes a book that is anti semitic, you don’t buy the book, you write and refute what the book says, and if you are so inclined, you organize boycotts of the companies books. If a politician is an anti semitic yahoo, you work to make sure they get defeated.
I do agree with other posters, that when it comes to offensive speech, I would wish people would think about what they write, to understand why others would be upset, but to quote voltaire, I would fight to my death for the right for them to say or write whatever it was, especially in the face of threats of violence, no matter how repugnant I found it was, but then I would also be one of those on the picket lines calling the person who wrote it every name in the book and stating just why they were a horse pitoot and should be laughed at and reviled, not honored.
Does anyone else remember the controversial exhibit in NY of some of the work of Andres Serrano? If not, here’s a
link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andres_Serrano
Several of his pieces were considered extremely offensive to some Christians and were even vandalized in France by a group described as “French Catholic fundamentalists” and the article says that the museum will be re-opening the exhibit of the vandalized work so “so people can see what barbarians can do”
Andres himself, is alive and well and continuing his successful career in spite of the controversy. I wonder if he will be using Muslim imagery in any of his courageous art; I wonder what will happen if he does.
Clearly, it’s ok to be highly offensive to every religious group except Muslims. Why? Because no matter how offended the other groups are, it’s clear that a violent, murderous response is pretty much non-existent as far as I can see. What is it going to take for mainstream Muslims to come out strongly for tolerance for that which offends them (which is the only kind of tolerance which has any meaning)?
What part of “all the French imams condemned the shooting in the strongest terms” do you not understand?
http://www.straitstimes.com/news/world/europe/story/parisian-imams-condemn-attack-call-it-declaration-war-20150107
musicprnt,
The prevalent antisemitism which was prevalent in Europe and which was fanned by mass media playing and amplifying hateful stereotypes against “outsider groups” had its roots in Christian hatred of the Jewish people as “Christkillers” and for refusing to acknowledge Christ as the messiah and convert to their “correct religion”.
Adding to the complexity was how it had to be the specific Christianity accepted by the state whether it was the Roman Empire from Constantine onward or France(Catholic) or Germany(Protestant with a substantial minority of Catholics).
Add stereotypes of the Jewish people being greedy moneygrubbers who will sell out the “Christian nation”, the blood libel, need to find and use the ever convenient scapegoat for their own problems…sometimes self-inflicted, and twisted ideas of racial purity from the enlightenment period onwards and fan the flames of the already widespread antisemitism with mass media amplifying and sensationalizing such bigotry and stereotypes and the German and to some extent, European experience has been that it results in genocidal policies and wars with all its ill effects on the victims, perpetrators, and others caught up in the conflagration.
I fail to see how this makes European society described above as any different from what you describe in the Muslim culture.
Especially considering there have been recent upticks in antisemitic violence in France and longstanding scapegoating and stereotyping of Muslims and other foreigner groups in France. This also has its roots in France having been a Catholic Christian dominated nation which has had suspicions about Muslims derived from religious wars dating back to the crusades and wars between Muslims and Christian armies going back to the 700s.
It also doesn’t help that many Algerians are in France due to France’s colonial legacy which had as its supposed motivation to “bring French civilization” to its colonies. Part of that “civilization” was not only French culture, but also its Catholic religion…and they were pretty brutal about it when the indigenous population weren’t very appreciative.
The most recent part for France and Algeria was the decade long Algerian Independence war which was quite notorious in its brutality* and almost resulted in a military coup against DeGaulle in the early '60s which resulted in the sacking of many generals and the permanent disbanding of some military units:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generals%27_putsch
- Jean-Marie Le Pen, prominent extreme-right wing politician was an intelligence officer in the French forces during that war and has admitted knowing about the widespread torture practices used by the French even while denying his own involvement despite his position and being accused of partaking by some groups.
Here’s an example of the realities of what happens in the Muslim actual world. Here’s a Tunisian preacher speaking in from The Hague last month - edited for length:
Bechir Ben Hassen: "From here, opposite the International Court of Justice in the Hague, I would like to address the Muslims in all corners of the world. The brothers at As-Soennah Foundation in the Hague asked me to speak about al-wasatiyya [moderate Islam]. We must instill this notion in the minds of our youth. Indeed, from the Hague, from Europe, from opposite international institutions like this, we preach belief in Allah all over Europe. In the lands of modernism, democracy, freedom, and indeed, secularism, we are able to preach belief in Allah, and to teach and guide the people. We are free to wear what we want, and our freedom of speech is unfettered. This is freedom in its most sublime form. When freedoms are denied, when people are oppressed, and when scholars and preachers are silenced, one should not wonder about the spread of extremism and takfir, which lead to terrorism.
Here is the exact same person speaking about 2 weeks later in Tunisia, again edited for length:
"The Safavid Shi’ite movement has been spreading in Tunisia. Their presence and their increasing activity is the most dangerous threat to Islam. This country is a Sunni country, whether the Rafidite Shi’ites of all sects like it or not. They have no business being in this country. I say this loud and clear. Loud and clear. The Shi’ites have no business being in Tunisia. We will use all means at our disposal to confront them, because we are absolutely convince that the threat they pose to Islam and the Muslims is greater than that posed by the Jews and the Christians. We are lying in wait for them, with all the means at our disposal.
Beware! Keep a watchful eye over your wives and children. Make sure you do not have Rafidite channels on your TV – channels like Al-Manar TV, Al-Kawthar TV, Al-Zahraa TV, Al-Furat TV, and others. You must remove all these channels, just like you remove the pornography channels, because they are a source of fallacies about Islam. One day, when you are out, your son, daughter, or wife might flip to one of these channels, and might like what they see there. They might go astray, while you are oblivious to what is going on. I pray that Allah will humiliate these people, and will purge our country of them."
Same guy, two completely different messages aimed at two completely different audiences. To the West, he’s all peace and love and freedom. To Muslims, he’s all the exact opposite. This is the way it works. There are actual clips, btw.
Unrelated, [url=<a href=“http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4978/france-islamization%5Dhere’s%5B/url”>http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4978/france-islamization]here’s[/url] one journalist’s rundown of the French year dealing with Islamists. I have no idea how accurate it is.
As to blaming Israel, which I said would happen, my favorites so far have been from the West:
- One of the founders and a spokesperson for "Free Gaza", Greta Berlin, posted this on Facebook: “MOSSAD just hit the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo in a clumsy false flag designed to damage the accord between Palestine and France…Here’s hoping the French police will be able to tell a well executed hit by a well trained Israeli intelligence service and not assume the Muslims would be likely to attack France when France is their freind (sic.) Israel did tell France there would be grave consequences if they voted with Palestine. A four year old could see who is responsible for this terrible attack.” [Maybe she ask a 4 year old.]
- Mary-Hughes Thompson, Free Gaza co-founder, tweeted: “#Hebdo killings indefensible. Can’t help thinking #JSIL Mossad false flag though. Killers spoke with perfect French accents. Time will tell". [Note the racist assertion that Arabs can't speak correct French but Israelis can. And note that JSIL is a substitution "Jewish State in the Levant". Note the word "Jewish", not "Israeli" because these are racists. I understand that when people objected to this tweet, she called them "Zionist trash". And Heil Hitler to you too.]
- The International Business Times - which is an online news aggregator - actually posted this: “Charlie Hebdo Attack and Mossad Link: Is Israel Venting Its Fury for France’s Recognition of a Palestinian State?” [Someone with a brain removed it from the site.]
- My favorite is wikileaks, meaning something related to Julian Assange: "How the Jewish pro-censorship lobby legitimized attacks on Charlie Hebdo for "offensive" speech" and then references an article in the UK Telegraph from 2009 in which Charlie Hedbo editor fired a columnist for alleging that Sarkozy's son was converting to Judaism for "financial reasons". Not sure what this really has to do with Jews other than some Jews supported firing the guy and others didn't. That someone writing for wikileaks thinks that makes a "Jewish pro-censorship lobby" speaks volumes. BTW, wikileaks has also been posting about the US being at fault: "US "fatwas" against journalists create a climate where attacks on journalists are seen as acceptable".
@pizzagirl, thanks for your post #41. I’ve been struggling with the idea of offensive cartoons but your post put it in an interesting perspective.
The best thing I have read so far about these murders is Ross Douthat in the NYT:
When journalists in a Western democracy are self-censoring because they afraid they might be murdered, we have a big problem.
Cobrat, please don’t lecture us all about the history of European colonialism and antisemitism. We know all about it. You sound like an earnest high school history teacher with a bunch of 9th-graders. Give the CC readership some credit, please.
BTW I am opposed to hate speech laws, campus speech codes, Holocaust denial legislation, symbol banning, and all that. I agree with John Milton in Areopagitica:
Reacting with violence isn’t mainstream (and indeed condemned) in the majority of cultures, not just Western ones. Western covers a large range of cultures, and non-Western does so as well. Not everything civilized is Western, and not everything Western is civilized.
Muslims come from a vast array of cultures and places. Any statement involving a “Muslim culture” or a “Muslim world” will be a gross generalization. You cannot lump such a diverse people.
The Tunisian’s preacher’s speech seems to me to be very similar to the speech of missionaries from any religion, although they may not always call themselves missionaries.
Anjem Choudary - an honest opinion:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/01/07/islam-allah-muslims-shariah-anjem-choudary-editorials-debates/21417461/
The sad thing is even if he speaks the truth of how many Muslims feel, the PC West is determined to say that it isn’t so…
As part of a population (African American) long subjected to highly offensive cartooning and hate speech in America, I can sympathize with the way Stressedout must feel. Many of us are regularly outraged by racist rhetoric and images in print media and television, and those among us who are most outspoken in our outrage are routinely condemned as “opportunists”, and ironically at times, “race batters”. However, at no time have we harbored among our community, groups so radical as to advocate and carry out wholesale massacre. We’ve taken to the airwaves and streets to protest such offenses, sure. But, that too is in keeping with America’s ideals of free speech and free expression. The way to counteract racism and xenophobia, is protest, intelligent debate, economic sanctions where they might have an impact, and legal redress. There’s nothing noble or civilized about mass murder. No cartoon or newspaper editorial meets the standard whereby that can be justified (I am not implying, btw, that Stressedout thinks that it does).
This novel is linked to the Charlie Massacre:
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21638092-book-started-it-all-irrepressible
The author has now left Paris is reportedly in hiding. He does not benefit from protection despite probably needing it badly.
Two quick ones:
- An old joke. Moses is talking with Jesus and they decide to appear walking on water to convince people to live good lives. They appear off Miami Beach and Moses is walking along the waves but Jesus keeps slipping under the water. Moses turns to him and says, "Just step on the rocks!" Now change Jesus to Muhammed and that joke can get you killed. So when people talk about insult and blasphemy, I say they are free to use whatever words they want but only words.
- Nice piece [in Slate](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/01/08/charlie_hebdo_and_islam_what_that_radical_cleric_in_usa_today_gets_wrong.html) about the lack of blasphemy in the Qur'an and the lack of prohibition of images of Muhammed and his companions.The article seems pretty accurate to me.
The book sounds interesting. A bit like “1984” or “The Handmaid’s Tale”.
How much truth is there beyond this question that appears to be non-rhetorical: “So why in this case did the French government allow the magazine Charlie Hebdo to continue to provoke Muslims, thereby placing the sanctity of its citizens at risk?”
Is the answer that the radicals expected the French government to censure its media to protect the safety of the citizens? Does he think the same about the reconstructed Twin Towers in New York? If the French are guilty, so must we be as well.
Should our governments imposed policies that aim solely at avoiding the wrath of so-called religious leaders who are hard to dissociate from their terrorist followers?
I am providing that background because some of the comments made here betray a lack of awareness of the religious roots to both and how it’d be better if denunciations of this terrorist attack isn’t based on Western self-congratulatory pat on back rhetoric.
Not a good way to build bridges…especially in the international community and non-Western nations or immigrants from such societies.
Also, it’s interesting you’re citing an article written by a conservative columnist Ross Douhat considering he seems to have stirred up controversy by defending conservative views on GBLTQ rights, racism, etc:
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/05/ross_douthats_real_mistakes_in_2014_why_his_confessions_fall_short/
Citing Douhat is almost as bad as citing Fox News or its pundits.
That very article notes cites him as being a radical among British Muslims.
I typically disagree with Ross Douthat, but I read his NYT article and I thought he was spot-on. The fact that he has conservative opinions on social issues where I vehemently disagree with him doesn’t mean that he can"t also say things I agree with. It’s sloppy intellectual thinking to think otherwise.