by Jiwan Kshetry
It goes without saying that the new set of iconoclasts condemning the unjustified bravado of Charlie Hebdo, including this author, loathe the terrorists as much as anyone else and there is no question of justifying their grisly deeds. It is merely to remind the triumphant supporters of absolute ‘freedom of expression’ that if you sow poison, you cannot expect to harvest otherwise.
……………………..
Journalists using their pencils and pens being brutally murdered with Kalashnikovs, can there be anything more despicable than that? To borrow the words of a ‘common man’, a bunch of terrorists trying to apply blasphemy law with AK-47 on non-believers, can there be anything more outrageous than that? Should we let some psycopaths decide what limits we should impose on our ‘freedom of expression’?
All of a sudden a large number of human beings worldwide are asking these questions to themselves. Mainstream media (MSM) all over the world have multiplied and amplified these questions to such an extent that another cohort of people with ambivalent feelings towards the issue are increasingly feeling guilty for not being as outraged by the French killings as the former cohort and thus not contributing enough to preserve the sanctity of freedom of expression in the world.
So, are the Charlie Hebdo killings all about terrorists trying to apply blasphemy laws in Europe to muzzle freedom of expression worldwide? It seems so if the whole saga is taken out of context and understood within the compromised limits of ‘conventional thinking’ as decided by the MSM. The reality is, however, far more complex with no easy answers to the questions.
Before entering the prickly issue of freedom of expression vs sacredness of religious faiths, let me clarify this: I am a non-Muslim. A bit of quasi-journalism has made my skin thick, so I am not easily offended; even when I am, I mostly keep it to myself and it is beyond me to decipher the psyche of people who are eager to do as extreme things as blowing themselves up when offended by others. You can call me the prototype of tolerant citizen in this increasingly intolerant world.
Minding your own business and leaving others to mind their own, that is my way of showing to the world that I am a tolerant and peaceful citizen here. If I start dictating others how they should run their business, I am no longer tolerant and peaceful. If I still say I am tolerant, that is sheer hypocrisy and mockery of true values of tolerance. My attachment to my faith does not at all resemble with that of the Muslims anywhere in the world, nor does it with that of the Jews, the Christians, the Hindus, the Jains, the Buddhists and so on. Still I am perfectly alright with their way of carrying on with their faiths: some indulging in idolatry, others condemning it, some claiming a single god, others proclaiming many, and so on.
Yet, I am now badly offended by what Charlie Hebdo was and is up to, to be honest, even more than that by the terrorists who rampaged the magazine office. The MSM- propagated arbitrary dichotomy–between people advocating freedom of expression by showing solidarity to Charlie Hebdo and those ready to sacrifice that freedom either out of indifference or out of passive complicity with the deadly terrorists–is a hoax to me. Increasingly, they appear as the two extremes of the same spectrum of intolerance and insensitivity to the belief and faith of the others.
What do Charlie Hebdo and its European cousin publications do? They were (and are) literally condemning people for their faith. If 1.3 billion Muslims in the world believe that it is blasphemous to depict the physical appearance of their Prophet (let alone the abominable portrayals of nude Mohammad prostrating with the genitals highlighted), who are European cartoonists to proclaim it otherwise?
One excuse being given by the die-hard supporters of Charlie Hebdo is that they mocked the gods and symbols from other religions equally fervently. This excuse seems to have convinced many at the threshold that Charlie Hebdo was, after all, impartial if ruthless at mocking different faiths. But this can be said only with the presumption that every religious faith has to have exactly same attitude towards this kind of offence. But who is to decide that?
Apparently, every contentious issue in the world today has to be settled according to the so called ‘Western’ values, the mutated offspring of the European Enlightenment; the god of reason being the god of all gods. Can the Muslims statistically prove that drawing horrid images of the Prophet are blasphemous? No. Can they prove in the laboratory that it is blasphemous to depict the Prophet in a particular way? No. How would they possibly quantify blasphemy and assign a specific score for each of the potentially blasphemous act? They cannot do that. It is in this basis that the enlightened European cartoonists gleefully draw those cartoons offending no less than a billion people worldwide.
Not long ago, I was also one of the eternal admirers of this god of reason; the European Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution were the best things that could have ever happened to the humankind. After all, who can imagine the convenience and luxury of today’s world without the advent of science aided by the enlightenment values? If we set aside the excesses dealt on the planet in the mad rush to deplete and consume every life-giving resource aided by the science, the contribution of the modern science and liberal values to liberate people from the shackles of poverty, ignorance and servility has been significant.
But at the same time, I have now come to realize the sad truth that, the god of reason has been, by now, abused so thoroughly by the Anglo-European rulers (formal empires until recent past and deceptive and informal but ruthless economic empires today) that it is now doomed to elicit the sense of pain, loss and humiliation from a significant proportion of people in the world, arguably from a majority outside the Europe and North America. Wasn’t it the economic and military superiority resulting from the scientific prowess of the Europeans that helped them keep the rest of the world under their boots for more than a century? Were not the enlightenment values applied selectively among the Europeans as the same ‘civilizing forces’ eradicated the entire populations of the ‘barbarous races’ from North America to Asia and from Africa to Latin America? Was it not a century of egregious humiliation of the Ottomans that has given way to a bloody and blatantly unjust status quo in the Middle East today?
I am aware I may be accused of stretching my imagination too far while connecting the apparently unrelated threads from history to contextualize the French killings. The reality is, the sense of humiliation and injustice at the hands of the west among the Muslims from the past century was only magnified by the mass killings that they undertook over the past decade in the Muslim countries including Iraq.
Even as the abyss in Iraq and Palestine is too raw to be hidden, the western propaganda machine has been able to whitewash nearly all of the past crimes that the West committed against the non-white races including the Muslims during the last century. Unless I had read the eye-opening book ‘From the Ruins of Empire’ by Pankaj Mishra splendidly detailing the rise and fall of the Anglo-European empires, there is a good chance I would have been far less vigorous on criticizing the sudden infatuation of the thousands of people to the harmless slogan of freedom of expression as being parroted now.
The so called ‘Western’ and ‘Enlightenment’ values, often used interchangeably, have so far mainly enabled the ruthless subjugation and emasculation of entire non-western races as articulated brilliantly in Mishra’s book. A subjugated and ramshackle Ottoman empire may have been the thing of the past, as might have an Egypt alternately looted by the French and the British.
But the legacy from the past lives to this very day aggrieving the today’s citizens in the former Ottoman empire as much as their predecessors. The unending economic hardship under brutal and sclerotic despots propped up by the West aside, the sense of perpetual injustice forced upon them with violence or the threat of it–with the very existence of the state of Israel as the mockery of the sense of justice in the history of ‘civilized’ mankind–it is a miracle if the masses in the Muslim world are not increasingly inclined to grasp their religious faith even more strongly in the times of tumult and hardship.
Appraisal of this reality has made many analysts wonder not why Charlie Hebdo killings occurred but why they are not occurring more often. This is neither to say that the terrorists succeeded in their attempt to silence the flag-carriers of freedom of expression in Europe (apparently the living members of the publication are coming back with vengeance helped by the masochistic publicity given to the publication by the attacks) nor to assert that it was the right way to respond to their allegedly blasphemous acts. It goes without saying that the new set of iconoclasts condemning the unjustified bravado of Charlie Hebdo, including this author, loathe the terrorists as much as anyone else and there is no question of justifying their grisly deeds. It is merely to remind that if you sow poison, you cannot expect to harvest otherwise.
On a different note, whatever their intention, the terrorists have brought more trouble for Muslims in the West most of whom have been already reeling under the viciousness of Islamophobia and xenophobia.
Coming back to the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, their stance on their right to keep mocking Prophet Mohammad on the pretext of freedom of expression is as totalitarian and intolerant as that of the killers of the twelve people on that fateful day this week.
One is ready to kill people in a purported attempt to deter people from further blasphemous acts, the other is ready to get killed to make the point that freedom of expression means exactly what he thinks it means and nothing else. One has been indoctrinated by the idea that the global caliphate under his caliph and Sharia rule is what the world needs, the other has been indoctrinated by the idea that the Western values around the supremacy of reason and the absolute freedom of expression is what is needed to cure all evils of the day.
Neither side is ready to tolerate dissent, let alone making peace with the opponent. The worldwide demonstrations in solidarity with Charlie Hebdo are the attempts to institutionalize a brazen conformity in the world where the absolutist interpretation of the freedom of expression embodied by Charlie Hebdo, ironically, vows not to tolerate anything that deviates from it; that too in the name of protecting the right to ‘dissent’ against the religious dogmas.
That is indeed the symptom of the ailing era in which we are forced to carry on.
If not anything else, you must be convinced by now that I am undoubtedly devout in my faith. And let me confess this before closing this piece, I am an atheist.
Author is a Kathmandu-based freelance writer who regularly blogs at South Asia and Beyond.
Excellent contribution, thank you. You just organized for me the vague parallel I felt existed between these two extremes. Charlie Hebdo is praised as genialy “against the system” in France, but in the end it is completely within and with the system, a spearhead for occidental suprematism. Thanks again.
If freedom of speech is protected by the CH cartoons, lets challenge if they can make mockery of Holocaust.
I mean a nice cartoon depicting how jews were enjoying the ss treatment.
Yes, it is offensive and yes rightly it should not be depicted.
Muslims have rights too.
As a man, who works as a scientist non suscribing the values of Enlightment of a broken science which is nothing but a makeshift simulacra of knowledge, and a former Jew which cannnot suscribe neither to the notions of Exclusivism which is no more than a petition of principle for hegemony, i fully suscribe to the writings herein presented. The only unsubstantialdifference is that i am a theist
I’m sorry, but this is bollocks. Charlie Hebdo mocks everything, that’s a long-standing French tradition protected by the French Constitution. The feelings of “1.3 billion Muslims worldwide” are, frankly, irrelevant.
People in France are allowed to live under their own laws and according to their own customs regardless of any misgivings that people around the world might have. They don’t have to like it, they don’t have to buy Charlie Hebdo, but Charlie Hebdo shouldn’t stop amusing its readers because someone halfway across the globe might be displeased.
Likewise, Muslims around the world shouldn’t start eating bacon or drinking champagne just because Charlie Hebdo thinks it’s stupid not to. Let every country worry about its own business and things will be fine.
Dear The Saker,
A good clear piece – again in tune with you.
Rgds,
Veritas
You said: “.. What do Charlie Hebdo and its European cousin publications do? They were (and are) literally condemning people for their faith ..”
——
No, They condemn that inhuman faith itself! Islam says that you, as an ‘infidel’ are a worthless impure subhuman that have only 4 choises:
1- convert to Islam, pray & pay
2- be killed
3- be slaved
4- pay poll tax humbly ( only if you are one of the ‘People of the Book’ = jew or christian)
You can not decide democratically in an islamic country, to remove any islamic law ( Sharia) such as stoning of the adulterer.
And Islam has many ‘worldly’ laws about everything!
Why have I to respect a dangerous agressive Religion , which call me impure und a sunhuman? which wants to enslave or kill me ( If they can!)
They only speak of “love & piece” , when they dont have the power ! as Mohammed did !
I have very deep knowledge about Islam and I have experienced the islamic fascism in Iran, my homeland.
A few points:
1. Muslim religion may have a rule prohibiting representation of Mohammed. That doesn’t mean that rule has to apply to non Muslim people.
Similarly, according to Jewish religion, writing the name of God is prohibited, and if I respected that rule I would have written e.g. “G..” instead of “God”. That doesn’t mean that rule has to apply to non-Jewish people
Should a religious leader in Israel, or another Jew, accuse a newspaper printing the name of God of being “racist” or “provocative”, he would certainly have the right to do so (freedom of speech…) That doesn’t mean his comments would need being taken into account
2. Law applied in France is French law, which limits freedom of speech as far as attacks on people are concerned, however does not limit it as far as attacks on ideas, ideologies, religions are concerned, no more than regarding historical figures.
Speech such as “Let’s kill the X”, or “X are “, where X is the name of an ethnic group or a group of believers is forbidden. Speech such as “X is the most stupid religion / ideology / theory / idea” is allowed.
The rationale between that distinction is that attacks on groups of people (“X people are mere monkeys”) do not serve any useful purpose whatsoever, however are incitements to violence. Whereas attacks on ideas, religions, ideologies, thinkers or historical figures are part and parcel of the exchange of ideas and debates necessary to free thinking.
Whether this law is smart or stupid, good or bad, is for the French people to decide. Muslim French are part of that discussion.
By contrast, foreign Muslims, and foreigners in general, certainly have the right to comment (freedom of speech, again!), however French people have full right to discard these comments if they see it fit
3. Any person who doesn’t like to look at representations of Mohammed is fully entitled to not look at them. The same for ideas, drawings, etc. one finds objectionable.
Personnally, I’m Christian, and I don’t much like caricatures mocking Jesus or his Mother. Which is why I have fully exercised my right to not buy Charlie Hebdo. Just as I didn’t go to visit art galleries hosting the “artwork” known as “Christ in piss”. I found that this remedy worked as a charm for me!
Iranian and Egyptian Muslim leaders who lamented about “provocation” from Charlie Hebdo should try the same remedy.
4. Any person who doesn’t like what another says through word or drawing is fully entitled to use the same means to answer. Including in a mocking way.
Mocking the doctrine of atheism and caricaturing its great historical figures is protected by free speech
(continued from previous)
5. Muslim extremists have repeatedly and for a long time used violence or threats of violence in order to silence those who would criticize their religion or its founder, or more generally speak in a way they would find objectionable.
First widely known case was the Salman Rushdie murder fatwa issued by Khomeiny a quarter century ago.
Another case was the murder of Theo Van Gogh ten years ago.
Then there were threats against philosopher Robert Redecker in France because of his criticism of Muslim religion – he has since been forced into hiding.
Scientists and philologists who research the Koranic text and the history of its composition are threatened too because according to Muslim religion the Koran is not man made: Christoph Luxenberg who researchs that is hiding behind a pseudonym for security reasons his real name is unknown.
The Mohammed caricatures affair in a Danish newspaper a few years ago was particularly impressive: because a newspaper had published cartoons interrogating the link between Mohammed and Islamic extremism – rightly or wrongly, that is besides the point – violence erupted in several countries at Danish embassies, cartoonists were forced into hiding.
Muslim extremists wanted to force the application of their religious rules on all people under threat of violence or actual violence. Silence would be imposed to any criticism of Islam and any research into Koran, through violence, this not only in countries led by Muslim extremists such as Saudi Arabia or Iran, but all over the world, especially in Europe.
6. This is where the Charlie Hebdo affair began: the staff at this little satirical magazine was incensed by this violent intrusion into European countries to force blasphemy regulations on them, which in France were removed in the Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen on August 26th, 1789.
They were not the only ones being incensed, far from it. However, contrary to many, they decided to do something about it, that is to republish the Danish caricatures. The aim obviously was defiance and a strong message “We are not afraid”.
They were sued by Muslim associations, and they won before court, which was not surprising given that they had not attacked any religious or ethnic group, only attacked (or more precisely mocked, “attack” is too strong a word) an idea.
They received threats, and therefore were placed under police protection.
Guess what? They continued, and although they did not in any way single out the Muslim religion, they decided to extend the caricatures they had been producing since the 1970s, not only against symbols of authority, public figures and Christian religion, but to Muslim and Jewish religion too.
Until then, they had not felt any urge to do so. However, the very threats of violence they were continually receiving… were convincing them it was important to continue. Again: not through any fixation on Muslim religion. Just: not leave it aside in their caricatures and humour like they had largely done until then.
(continued from previous, last part)
7. Truth is that the Jihadists who targeted and killed those humourists – some among the most gifted in France – did score a tactical success, however made a severe strategic error. They made martyrs among their enemies.
The right for any French to speak freely within the limits defined by French law and no other law, similar rights in nations that have similar laws was endangered when extremists decided to threaten violence to tame it… a quarter century ago. However, that danger was largely unremarked, it was far from being at the forefront of public concern.
Now it is.
Those targeted cartoonists and Charlie Hebdo staff were atheists. I am not.
They liked to mock all authorities and all religions with strong humour. I do not.
They were very talented in their drawings. I am not.
However, just like Voltaire defined once the right to freedom of opinion as “Sir, I disagree with what you think, but I will fight to defend your right to say it”, one does not have to agree with Charlie Hebdo staff nor to be fond of their type of humour to understand that their insistence on freedom of expression, including corrosive humour, about IDEAS was and is right.
In this regard, yes, Je Suis Charlie – I Am Charlie
8. Not to forget this: I Am Cop, and I Am Jew. For the targets of Jihadists were three: independant-minded journalists + policemen and women + Jews. And all three deserve support and solidarity
Just like those Muslims who would be subject to violence or injustice by hooligans taking advantage of the Jihadist killings. A series of cases of insults on mosques and a couple of incendiary attacks – fortunately without any victim yet – has been observed, the authorities are investigating.
3.7 million French have demonstrated in support of unity of all French people, defiance against Jihadists and freedom. Any jerk who would attack Muslims, just like those jerks who have been attacking Jews for quite some time now, will find the French police and French people against him.
If it were true that the West held the position that it was okay to smear and provoke everybody equally, I would acknowledge that your essay is as much on point as it is well-crafted. But no rational and informed person would make the effort to equivocate the feelings of Muslims with the “values” of the West without pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of the West.
For more than half a century there has been a campaign to ridicule and marginalize Catholicism in the west. The “atheists/intellectuals” succeeded in achieving that objective by the end of the 1960s, and have kept kicking that dog down right up to the present.
Bot, starting sometime in the 1990s, Islam became the primary target for ridicule and marginalization. Whereas Christianity is fundamentally pacifist, and therefore ill-equipped to counter the attacks upon it, Islam prescribes revenge and retribution upon those who attack it. While it is legal to attack Islam, it is not moral to do so. While it is illegal to punish those who attack Islam, it is -under carefully prescribed conditions according to the Quran-morally compelling to do so.
But what underscores the inherent evil intent of those attacking the world’s two largest religions is the penalty meted out to those who attack Judaism in its extremes: Holocaustianity, Zionism, Kabalism, and Talmudic Judaism. Those, who do so, are not given the privileges of “Free Speech”. Always harassed and persecuted, often arrested and sometimes imprisoned, these are the critics who bear the burden and render the sacrifice of speaking truth to power.
So, what you refer to as “western values” -as practiced- is nothing more than what has been foisted upon us by Jewish-controlled governments and Jewish-controlled propaganda.
May this article about the two narratives go viral! This is the type of necessary analysis which evidently some of the more pseudo intellectual types in France can’t quite manage.
I just bought a copy of Mad Magazine–I love satire and low brow humor. I have never read Charlie Hebdo so I can’t comment on their hidden political line or whether they selectively target certain people for political reasons or not. Maybe the 12 plus 6 did not die in vain if this can lead to dialogue, interfaith meetings and better police work.
What amazes me about this mass killing is the outcry it created in France. We have mass killings by deranged types all the time in the USA. There are 4 million Muslims there but only 3 criminal Muslims acted out their sense of grievance to commit murder. So what if the ordinary Muslim in the Streets of the mid East cheered?– Maybe
Saying, “they kill our kids, take our land, starve us with sanctions, support the secret police of our rulers, insult our faith…and finally a couple of their apologists get the same delivered in return. Yay. ” Seems logical to me on this level. But understanding that takes a level of empathy.and the narrative of the apologists of the empire is to keep us in fear, anger and hatred and finally, contempt.
The piece eloquently describes the hypocrisy of the western white supermacism involved in the anti-Muslim attitudes, that same self-important bigotry embodied in the hasbara spam of “Alexko” and “MazdakBamdad” defending it here. It also describes the rage of those victimised by these white supremacists very well.
But one very important aspect of this new form of population manipulation the article doesn’t really touch on is the social manipulation used now to incite, reinforce and enhance such white supremacist thinking, while at the same time, also designed to deliberately inflame the most reactionary among the Muslim faith. This clash of peoples is being deliberately engineered through modern mass psychology and marketing techniques (including the use of myriads of web sayanim to spam hate in the web), the intended result being population control.
Before we can even hope to bring some understanding between the peoples being manipulated, we have to eradicate the source of the manipulation. This where we need to concentrate our efforts most, I believe. Otherwise, they’ll continue staying one step ahead of our efforts.
вот так
Dear Saker,
I have been meaning to comment about the events in France and I just wanted to say thank you for all your work. I appreciate your insight and dedication. I also want to express my thanks to all the volunteers for giving their time and expertise to this community.
:Hugs to all:
A good start would be to flush the Judeao-supremacists from RT. The sort who write this kind of thinly disguised zionist propaganda:
Rising anti-Semitism? One in eight Brits think Jews use Holocaust to get sympathy
http://rt.com/uk/222491-jewish-antisemitism-rise-yougov/
Exposing zionist, and Judeao-supremacist, manipulation of the media is the first step to removing the power the ZPC/NWO has over people’s minds.
вот так
The author makes some good points but also has questionable assumptions. The main one is that this terrorist act was planned by Muslims and not by the deep state of Muslim-haters, who used Muslims to stir up hatred against Muslims.
The broad picture of who gains from terrorism is overlooked. Jimmy Carter is in the MSM news for suggesting that Israel had something to do in creating indirectly the Paris killings; think Gaza. Wow! The quick and self-serving rebuttals are a sight to behold. I have the impression that these zombie pundits are paid by the word.
Free speech is subject to the higher laws of justice and love.
I suspect that this blog does not allow me to overstep a line that only its moderator can see. And I entirely agree. I believe one of my recent comments was deleted because of my statements on religion, sex and common mores in our culture which were offensive to the values of this community.
In other words, I acted like Charlie in insulting a group of people on their own ground. I will try not to do that again, and play by the rules here.
In claiming freedom, Charlie insults justice and love; that kind of freedom is false.
The author discloses that his religion (if you can call it that) is atheism. My religion is love (if I can call it that). If someone insults love, I don’t take offense because love is bigger than such petty bickerings.
I value this blog because it honestly cites its sources, whether it be Orthodoxy or another author such as Dimitri Orlov, who also, btw, does the same in citing sources.
If this comment does not show up, I won’t take offense; it’s just part of the game, and grist for the mill. If it wasn’t a technical glitch, I probably deserved to be censored.
If I go to live in someone else’s country, they can legitimately expect me to keep to their LAWS, not necessarily to their CUSTOMS.
If I’d like the laws to be different, I should try to get them changed, by whatever means that country has set up for the purpose (eg elections).
They can tell me what language to speak in public, how long to educate my children, what taxes to pay….. but not WHAT TO FEEL. Nobody can legislate what hurts me and what does not.
So the Muslims are 100% entitled to say what they FEEL is blasphemous, and no amount of “but I don’t mind if that is done to MY religious leader” makes it okay to deny that THEY feel certain images are blasphemous, to a degree they believe bad enough to be punishable by death. The actual killing can be legislated against, the feeling of insult not.
Of course the whole way this was done, and then “discovered” and ended, makes me believe it was NOT insulted Muslims who did this, much later videos claiming it notwithstanding. Whoever organised the killings knew full well about the legitimate feeling of insult, as that is what the theatre was based on.
I fully understand many in France were horrified and shocked, and are still in disbelief. But the meme, the posters, the march, were all orchestrated, to sweep more and more people into the anti-Muslim feeling which is the other sided of the shock and mourning coin.
So by their deaths the Charlie cartoonists gave one more blow to Muslims, some of whom are now going to be obliterated with French help because of the ill-feeling whipped up by their killing….a killing which could not have happened this way had they not acted as they did.
If I ever turn into Charlie, PLEASE someone just kill me, put me out of my misery.
Alexis TK27 said…from 14 January, 2015 16:28 ad nauseum
“Personnally, I’m Christian”
“8. Not to forget this: I Am Cop, and I Am Jew.”
The thing about hasbara is that is not designed to engage the analytical portion of people’s minds, but instead, it is designed to manipulate their emotions. This is why one finds all kinds of inconsistencies in hasbara writing, such as Alexis TK27 is engaging in here. This why such writing is light on factual material and heavy on simple minded sloganeering. It’s not intended to engage the person, but to manipulate them instead. The “Muslims bad, us good” theme throughout that comment is the dominant message.
This is the sort of zionist/Judeao-supremacist hate propaganda that needs to be exposed for what it is. Supremacist ideology disguised as “liberalism”, literally scientifically engineered to manipulate people into a powerless state where their emotions, rather than their reason, decides. people who can be endlessly kept on a leash and lead by the nose. Goebbels, and his ilk, thought they were superior, too, and we all know what that lead to. It’s time we ended that ugly chapter in the history of this planet and evolved.
вот так
Those who throw gasoline on a raging fire…..
Should not be surprised……………
When……………….
The conflagration…………….
Engulfs them……………………..
[from Blue]
Alexko said…
…
Let every country worry about its own business and things will be fine.
14 January, 2015 15:25
What you suggest is fine, but the problem is that the French, like the rest of and other empires, do not mind their own business but go raiding, adventuring, exploiting, warring, and colonializing the rest of the world. That’s the root of all this, not religious or cultural differences differences.
Excellent post. I would recommend this article (with Cartoons as well!) from Glenn Greewald as well:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/09/solidarity-charlie-hebdo-cartoons/
This blog used to be informative (about what is going on in the Ukraine), then it was interesting (finding out what makes Russia tick) and now finally it is just a joke.
All writings here can be summarised by naming the three main characters: “the dark and evil West”; “the martyr of the light that is Islam” and “I see Jews everywhere, crawling and plotting in the shadows”.
Pathetic.
Here is a really devastating critique, by a former employee of the ‘satirical’ magazine, published in 2013. He could clearly see where things were headed.
LENIN’S TOMB: Charlie Hebdo ‘not racist’? If you say so.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40677.htm
Saker,
I am not aware if you read this by Mr. Chris Hedges; which is a commentary on the whole Charlie Hebdo charade. I find it most appropriate. Especially his characterization of their cartoons/caricatures as juvenile, not funny in the least and inappropriate. A characterization I completely agree with. I find this sort of vulgarity passed off as so-called humor similar to that of young teenaged boys cutting up. Amorality and disregard for those different from oneself at it’s ignorant best.
What a load of illogical tripe.
Is the following true?
French cartoonist Sine on trial on charges of anti-Semitism over Sarkozy jibe:
http://www.siasat.pk/forum/showthread.php?316212-I-am-not-Charlie-I-am-Sine
“One excuse being given by the die-hard supporters of Charlie Hebdo is that they mocked the gods and symbols from other religions equally fervently.”
Right after the Paris incident, Glenn Greenwald published an article titled “In Solidarity With a Free Press: Some More Blasphemous Cartoons.” In it there were several truly ghastly cartoons of a Christian theme. (Later the same day the Christian cartoons disappeared.) So, I accept that Charlie Hebdo ridicules Islam and Christianity, but what about Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism? Particularly Judaism – I’d really like to see some ridicule of Judaism…
John
Let the hebdoists (secular humanist atheists) and the radical Islamists fight this out. Both are a bunch of intolerant a-holes.
Again if the hebdoists were not into the disease of multiculturalism they would not have imported millions of muslims and call them “frenchmen”, and they could of stuck with blaspheming christianity.
Maybe one should also mention the christian “pro life” wackos who go killing clinic personal at places where abortions are performed, hm?
Actually one of the staff who worked there for a decade says this rag was not just a satirical magazine but had been turned into a hate filled racist agenda on par with what pedophiles get off on, looking at nude pics of children.
So why does looking at nude pics of children be considered bad? Just like why looking at some cartoons are bad. Maybe once should consider the concept of why and what for it is. You dont do it just because you can. You dont do it because it is offensive to a large group of people. They could have just stayed home and played with all the kids they liked or drew tails on prophets but they did not stay home did they. So a bunch of imperialists show rage when they are shown a doze of their own medicine. How dare they do that to us. Only we can destroy wedding parties.
Joining them in the march were the leaders of various countries. It included Benjamin Netanyahu from Israel that has been accused by many of committing war crimes against the people of Gaza and an illegal occupation of Palestine; Turkey, which is helping to facilitate the destruction of Syria; Britain, that helped the United States destroy Iraq; and, of course, the ambassador from the United States, the country that waged an illegal war that helped give rise to ISIS and Islamic extremism; and, of course, the United States for decades going back to the assistance or facilitation of the rise of Hitler, and then many dictators since, that has been allying with religious extremism and fanaticism as a foreign-policy strategy.
“Charlie Hebdo”, not racist? If you say so… by Olivier Cyran translated by Daphne Lawless
He worked there from 1992 to 2001, before walking out, angered by “the dictatorial behaviour and corrupt promotion practices” of a certain Philippe Val [former CH editor – trans.] Since then, Olivier Cyran has been an observer from a distance, outside the walls, of the evolution of Charlie Hebdo and its growing obsession with Islam. He went over this long-term drift on the occasion of an opinion piece in Le Monde, signed by Charb [Stéphane Charbonnier, one of the cartoonists murdered in January 2015 – trans.] and Fabrice Nicolino.
Dear Charb and Fabrice Nicolino,
“We hope that those who claim, and will claim tomorrow, that Charlie is racist, will at least have the courage to say it out loud and under their real name. We’ll know how to respond.” Reading this rant at the end of your opinion piece in Le Monde[1], as if to say “come say it to our face if you’re a real man”, I felt something rising within me, like a craving to go back to fighting in the school playground. Yet it wasn’t me being called out. Which upright citizens you hope to convince, moreover, is a mystery. For a good long while, many people have been saying “out loud” and “under their real name” what they think about your magazine and the effluent flowing out of it, without any one of you being bothered to answer them or to shake their little fists.
http://www.leninology.co.uk/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-not-racist-if-you-say-so.html
Why waste effort dissecting Charlie Hebdo and the Muslim attitude towards it? This whole think positively reeks of false flag.
A few items:
The youngest suspect turned himself in with an airtight alibi. He was at school at the time, seen by others.
A completely professional attack on Charlie Hebdo, except one of the attackers conveniently left his id behind.
A reporter managed to speak with all the gunmen just before they were all killed (dead men tell no tales).
A French investigator committed suicide while investigating the incident.
This reads more like an Operation Gladio B than a genuine terror attack.
Alexko the French can do what ever they the hell they please in France..
So why are they globe trotting all over the planet with their giant #$%^& showing they can bomb everyone?
No one sent anyone to hurt the French.. No one even cares didly about the French. Even the Vietnamese thought they were not worth the bother.
The only thing anyone in the whole farking world wants of the French is FTV, The rest.. The french should stay home.
So the bollocks here seems to be your selective and biased memory. Racists and bigots usually have that problem.
I meant to add that 21st Century Wire has an excellent piece titled ‘ Paris Double Siege Ends in Death of Suspects, New ‘Anti-Semitic’ and ‘Al-Awlaki’ Narratives Emerge’ that details much of my above post.
The magazine in question is apparently a textbook case of poor, tasteless ‘satire’ concealing a darker underlying bias that foments prejudicial ignorance and contempt.
With reference to the question of whether a fairly large group of Francophone ‘satire-lovers’ should be allowed, within the law, to indulge themselves in a lavatorial periodical that encourages and reinforces negative, ridiculous, offensive inter-racial attitudes, then the answer has to be, simply thus: in any sentient society exactly the same level of legislative protection and publishing courtesy would be afforded to every faith simultaneously.
Regarding the supposed victims of the supposed violence in question, then either:
(1) There were no victims since it was a series of drills – or –
(2) There were real victims however the identities and allegiances of the real perpetrators are, as yet, not common knowledge
(3) The facts are generally exactly as reported on TV and in the press
To identify the perpetrators, locate the beneficiaries.
Allow me to debunk this entire post [by Jiwan Kshetry] with this…
Moroccan-born mayor of Rotterdam tells fellow Muslims who do not appreciate the ‘freedoms’ of living in the West to ‘pack your bags and f*** off’ on live TV
LINK> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2907941/Moroccan-born-mayor-Rotterdam-tells-fellow-Muslims-not-appreciate-freedoms-living-West-pack-bags-f-live-TV.html
Read the comments’ section, have a feeling of how the native-populous feel about this issue. Then come back to me and tell me how ‘out of order/out of touch/insensitive’ Charlie Hebdo cartoons were….
.
TL2Q
Very strange to spend so much time on a false foggy debate created by a false flag. Did Perseus spent his time discussing and/or debating with horrifying faces of petrified statues? No, he just put a mirror in front of Medusa.
There are few commentors here and elsewhere, beginning to suggest a reasoned argument,that the proposition of “free speech” needs to be looked into. Are Charlie Hebedo or that recent supposedly satirical American movie depecting an assasination truly examples of “free speech?” I’m not so sure.
I think the Saker has taken an unnecessary hit on the Charlie H affair. As far as I can tell it was another false flag operation as reported from Turkey, on Veteran’s Today, and all over the internet. Part of the objective is to make the supporters of the targeted group look stupid. If you had looked at the incident as a false flag first meant to play on your emotions, then you wouldn’t have taken the bait. So please continue your blogging but thinking first about outside manipulation of information and events to create an response. Thanks for your efforts on our behalf.
If the French feel strongly that free speech is sacred, and mockery and satire is sacrosanct,implying that no topic under the sun is sacred and, ergo, open to ridicule, and at the same time Muslims cannot tolerate blasphemy from the infidels amongst whom they live, then it appears that the French people and their Muslim immigrants have irreconcilable differences and they need a divorce. It will require the Wisdom of Solomon to find the solution to this problem.
Dmitri Orlov is a great satirist: “If you like your neo-nazis, you can keep your neo-nazis.”
(the god of reason being the god of all gods)
It seems even atheists need a god, Greens worshipping trees,or ideology such as communism, or I Am Charlie. They all become or replace religion. A French comedian was arrested yesterday for posting I love Charlie Coulibaly on his twitter account. Mocking the new religion?
You are right. But. But.
Check the video here: any specialist in guns will telle you that it’s a blank bullet which is fired, that the cop’s head should explode in blood (no blood), that his body should be brutally shaken by the impact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2ya9teWUiM
The whole scene is a movie scene.
And if the French government lied about a cop’s death which did not happen, then all bets are off. The question is now: who is behind that stuff? and: Cui Bono? And were those guys real Muslims? And how comes those determined professionnals managed to forget their ID in the crime car?
For all the rest, I agree.
Abdelnour
Who are these cartoonists to offend 1.3 billion foreigners, you ask?
They are FRENCH cartoonists speaking to 60,000 FRENCH people.
Who are those 1.3 billion foreigners to decide how an advanced civilization which gave us the very freedom of speech you use every day should evolve?
And why are there 1.3 billion such foreigners? Because of the SCIENCE that was permitted by free thought. So sure be offended, burn Galileo at the stake, and starve and die of diseases.
Or be grateful to the results of this freedom of thought which you enjoy today.
You guys are still clueless about Charlie Hebdo; you still thing the whole paper was just about pissing off Muslims.
Use the Internet and get a clue:
http://bit.ly/17IGGzC (results now clearly slanted towards Islam after the massacre)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo
The two favourite targets of Charlie Hebdo were the Front National (a French political party) and the Catholic Church. They didn’t spare anybody, very much being an “equal opportunity offender”.
Now you can go back to frantically looking for reasons to feel good about the massacre.
Equal Opportunity Offender? Really??
~~~~~~~~~
http://m.liveleak.com/view? i=384_1420849530
ISRAELI MEDIA REVISITS THE CASE OF “ANTI-SEMITIC” CARTOONIST MAURICE SINET WHO WAS FIRED FROM CHARLIE HEBDO IN 2009
Maurice Sinet, 80, who works under the pen name Sine, faces charges of “inciting racial hatred” for a column he wrote last July in the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. The piece sparked a summer slanging match among the Parisian intelligentsia and ended in his dismissal from the magazine.
“L’affaire Sine” followed the engagement of Mr Sarkozy, 22, to Jessica Sebaoun-Darty, the Jewish heiress of an electronic goods chain. Commenting on an unfounded rumour that the president’s son planned to convert to Judaism, Sine quipped: “He’ll go a long way in life, that little lad.”
A high-profile political commentator slammed the column as linking prejudice about Jews and social success. Charlie Hebdo’s editor, Philippe Val, asked Sinet to apologise but he refused, exclaiming: “I’d rather cut my balls off.”
Mr Val’s decision to fire Sine was backed by a group of eminent intellectuals, including the philosopher Bernard-Henry Lévy, but parts of the libertarian Left defended him, citing the right to free speech.
Last week, the anti-capitalist, anti-clerical Sine, who recently founded his own weekly magazine, Sine Hebdo, took Claude Askolovitch, the journalist who first accused him of anti-Semitism, to court for slander in a separate case.
“When I heard that I was being treated as anti-Semitic, my blood ran cold,” he said during the trial, adding that if Mr Askolovitch had turned up in person, “it is not a trial he would have had but a head butt.”
Alien Tech, I never said that the French government respected this basic principle, just that everything would be fine if everyone did.
Regardless, killing people for drawing pictures you don’t like and drawing said pictures are very, very different things.
It only was a newspaper nobody was forced to buy. Where does harassment and blackmail begin ? Today, you cannot print this thing, tomorrow, eating pork will hurt somebody else feelings, and day after tomorrow Sunday will become Friday.
Je Suis Mohamed :)
Who are the terrorists in the Charlie Hebdo psychological operation? Surely not the shooters, but some entity in the shadows! What is the objective of the Charlie Hebdo Affair?
What a waste of human time and energy listening to someone…anyone telling us what happened at Charlie Hebdo’s! Who cares what happened at Charlie Hebdo’s? It is an insignificant event, yet millions of words have been written and spoken as humanity divides into je suis Charlie or ne je suis Charlie!
I am not choosing one of the two options every enlightened sophisticated man is offered by another binary mind control operation. It doesn’t matter who you chose, but only that you chose one of the binary options! This is the objective of the Charlie Hebdo psychological operation…you succumb to divide and conquer at the level of the binary neural fencing. You can’t see the simple system which traps humanity in endless cycles of reality football! What’s the score tonight…my friends?
[from Blue]
I see a number of articles about this at http://www.wsws.org/
French government carries out mass arrests for “defending terrorism”
By Ulrich Rippert, 15 January 2015
The terror attack on Charlie Hebdo is being exploited to prepare an escalation of France’s military intervention in the Middle East.
UK puts military on standby after Charlie Hebdo attack
By Julie Hyland, 15 January 2015
Canada’s Harper promotes new police powers and war
By Roger Jordan, 15 January 2015
Imperialist war, the “war on terror” and the end of democracy
A Potemkin gathering of world leaders in Paris
“Free Speech” hypocrisy in the aftermath of the attack on Charlie Hebdo
More on the Charlie Hebdo killings
Alexko, no one here supports killing others no matter what the cause.
But this French thing has nothing to do with the rest of us, we did not create it, we did not cause it and we do not want to get into the middle of something that is obviously a domestic French matter created by the French for the French and off the French. Obviously asking us to side with some French is asking us to side with what we do not support and consider offensive and immoral.
ESPECIALLY considering asking us to side with those who fund the terrorists who are chopping off the heads of Syrian Christians is not only offensive but beneath dignity. Obviously the French cant be expected to act as responsible and decent people. The French should STAY HOME and mind their own business instead of dragging the rest of us into mindless chaos and violence.
Yes you can turn around words and make it appear to say what you want. But these people who drew these pictures obviously were considered Christians insulting Muslims and the price is paid by others far away. In fact the French have now internationalized the issue into innocents far away being killed. People who had nothing to do with the French. The French have a lot of blood on their hands. This selective outcry is pure hypocrisy by a demented society using a selective human ethics of free speech as a banner to create hatred and violence on others.
The French should have some shame in asking the victims to feel outrage for what they themselves are responsible for. Gandhi might feel differently but I doubt most others would want to turn the other cheek so you can slap it.
Alexis TK27 said…
“Guess what? They continued, and although they did not in any way single out the Muslim religion, they decided to extend the caricatures they had been producing since the 1970s, not only against symbols of authority, public figures and Christian religion, but to Muslim and Jewish religion too.”
Personally I find it disgraceful and revolting the cartoon’s they draw.And they really aren’t even humorous.They are like the drawing the nazis used to draw about Jews in the Hitler era.Which brings up another point.From your comments I take it it would be OK in France for cartoonists to dust off some of those nazi cartoons on the Jewish faith and print them now.After all those are only attacks on religion,not on people.So France should have no problem with them being cleaned up and reprinted today.Is that right?
Uncle Bob,Je suis Vanya,Je suis Donbass,Je suis Russia.
What “I am not Charlie” really means in practical terms: “Oxford University Press Bans Use of Words “Pig” and “Sausage” to Avoid Offending Muslims and Jews”.
See: libertyblitzkrieg.com/2015/01/14/peak-stupidity-oxford-university-press-bans-use-of-words-pig-and-sausage-to-avoid-offending-muslims-and-jews/
At what point will you guys see that inverting stupidity still is stupidity?
Anonymous said…
“The two favourite targets of Charlie Hebdo were the Front National (a French political party) and the Catholic Church. They didn’t spare anybody, very much being an “equal opportunity offender”.”
Can you refer us to the cartoons they did that ridiculed NATO,or Israel,and Judaism. No? Well then maybe we disagree on the meaning of them being an “equal opportunity offender”.If you can,then maybe I’d agree with your point.
Uncle Bob
slander gets sued and damages awarded in a court…..
you don,t shoot the slanderer…
this blog would not last a day in saudi arabia …..but here you are along with a few others writing trying to justify the massacre,scratching around for something,anything,to explain
pathetic
Not all Muslims reject depicting the prophet and there is nothing in the Quran that forbids it.
In the history of Islamic art there are numerous paintings of the prophet too. The ban on depicting Muhammed has later been introduced in Islamic tradition and is nowadays stressed thanks to Wahabi propaganda.
CH is not mocking all Muslims. It is mocking the Islamists and terrorists who try to make life hard for non-believers.
If other Muslims find themselves insulted by that it is their choice. They may as well find themselves insulted by the fact that 5.5 billion people do not believe in Islam and as a consequence implicitly consider Muhammed a false prophet.
@Alexis TK27
English, Russian laws are both different from French. English law is precedent-based; reading just the law formulation is not enough. While Russian law is quite young.
So, people may be unfamiliar.
Also what is being discussed is a controversial topic– also controversial in Russia. So, can’t be expected that all will agree.
Dear Uncle Bob, regarding your false assertion “Can you refer us to the cartoons they did that ridiculed NATO,or Israel,and Judaism. No?”: I did provide a link up above
(here again: http://bit.ly/17IGGzC) and anyway you are free to use a search engine to fight ignorance.
The muslims have committed numerous murders and atrocities against other people, including europeans. It is a joke that European imperialism is worse than islamic imperialism.
While British and French colonial empires are responsible for the extinction of native americans and many other horrible crimes, the muslims have caused far more harm and they have eradicated many ethnic-cultural-religious groups in middle east and islamic occupied Europe.
For 700 years the Arabs occupied Spain
while the Ottomans occupied south eastern Europe for 400 years with christians “dhimmis” being sold as slaves, over-taxed and having no rights.
The barbary pirates plundered many coastal european areas for centuries and abducted many white christian people who were later sold as slaves by jewish middlemen and slave traders.
The Arabs sold many african slaves into middle east.
The Crimean Khanate abducted and sold numerous Roxolani (or slavs of the Ukraine) as slaves into ottoman empire.
The ottomans abducted christian children and raised them as muslim to become Jenissary.
The Young Turks massacred the armenians and greeks of Minor Asia.
The Turks expelled and confiscated the properties of the Greeks of Instanbul, Imvros and Tenedos with the istanbul pogrom (which was a violation of the treaty of Lausanne) while Greek authorities have allowed Turks of Greek Western Thrace to stay.
And last but not least, many religious minorities of middle east (Catholic, melkite, greek orthodox, copts, assyrians etc) are under attack by various muslim groups and many have been killed or left their homelands
A precision to the “young turks massacred the greek and armenians…”. They were Donmehs, apostate Jews, mainly from Thessaloniki, including among them Chaim Arlozorov, founder of the Likud party, whose present leader is Netanyahu.
As for the role of the Moors in Spain, the story is more complex. But Westerners may like it or not, they brought with them Greek science and philosophy, adding to it of their own.
phenonadhominem
If your faith in God can be defeated by a cartoon, then you have no real faith. You are a pretender.
Now, many are saying that the cartoonists have brought the slaughter on themselves. This amounts to ‘blaming the victim(s)’ My God does not allow me to blame victims. Your God may be more tolerant.
Alien Tech,
I for one am not asking anyone to support anything, let alone to “be Charlie” or to subscribe to any other silly slogan. I just think it’s insane to say that drawing stupid cartoons and killing cartoonists are “equally offensive” things.
And generally speaking, I don’t think it’s reasonable to blame Charlie Hebdo for the unreasonable reactions of others to their cartoons. The day we have to censor everything for fear of retaliation by various types of nutjobs is the day we stop living.
As for Sarkozy and Hollande’s foreign policies, well, France is a US vassal, so it behaves as such. Hopefully that won’t last.
Some of the commentators have reacted to the opposite comments with an “Ad Hominem Fallacy”.
Instead of analyzing the contents and arguments, they simply mark them as ‘Brainwashed of zionist/Judeao-supremacist hate Propaganda’.
Easy! Not ?
But even if these are ‘hasbara’, it changes nothing about Islam, being a very agressive and fascist religion, with a great potential for terrorism, as we see now in the reality!
And there is no better judge than the realty itself!
Mohammad himself let his civil oppenents, such as an old jew woman who made satire poems (Asma bint Marwan), be killed by terror-commando!
The fact that Iran and some other moslem countries, fight against USA, does’t make them better than USA! Hitler also fought against USA! And if he had won, did we have a better world now?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Asma%27_bint_Marwan
Let’s face it, these kinds of obscene publishing practices exist to serve an ideological purpose, to keep the population whipped up, looking down their noses at the barbarians they need to blow up.
If Muslims had any balls, they’d photoshop some porn of Obama’s children and then see how ape shit the West goes.
But it’s only a cartoon! It’s only fiction! It’s just an image!
How many knuckle dragging white westerners will buy into those justifications? They’d do everything in their power to block the images, and if possible wrap their hands around the necks of those who produced it.
What does this mean: even Western culture has its own limits of visibility, for which it will hang and torture against every blasphemy.
F_ck Charlie Hebdo.