Paris Terrorist Attack

Agree completely.

In most cases the act of drawing Mohammed isn't satire, it's just being a ****. Any satirical point we might wish to make about Muslims or Islam could be done without drawing Mohammed, so why do something that's guaranteed to get people up in arms regardless of the content?

You could draw a cartoon of Mohammed and depict him as the greatest thing in history and there are still Muslims who would be upset.

If you can engage in satire without drawing something that's considered offensive before any message is imparted, then why not do so? The important thing in any satire is the message or point you're trying to make, not how many people you offend.

I disagree with this bit. Unless one has their head buried in the sand, it shouldn't be a huge shock to find out that extremist nutters are willing to kill over a disrespectful depiction of Mohammed.

We can wax philosophical all day long about freedom of speech, how evil an act it is, etc etc, but the fact remains that these nutters do exist and much as we might wish otherwise, they're going to do evil things if provoked. We don't have to agree with their reasons or motivation, but we can accept the fact that they exist even as we try to change that.

It's the similar situation to the silly stances against people wanting to teach self-defense as a measure against rape. Rape shouldn't happen, but since we don't live in a perfect world teaching women how to defend themselves isn't a bad thing. Self defence isn't an example of the buzzword "victim-blaming", it's simply acknowledging the world for what it is and taking steps to increase personal safety. I shouldn't have to worry about having my house or car stolen, but that doesn't stop me from locking them both when I leave. I think that rationale is true in most other areas: criminals and evil doers exist, and we should hope and strive for the best while preparing for the worst.

 

Kind of wot I wanted to said only more better.

 

How on earth is that remotely anti-Semitic?

 

they are gold bricks

 

Well, don't I feel stupid.

 

I think some of these images they put out cross to far over the line. Ich bin Carlos.

 

Islamaphobe, anti-semitic. You hear these words daily. What's the equivalent for Christianity.

https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/world-watch-list/

It seems Christians are persecuted across the world more than I realised. If that surprised me, the fact 40 of those 50 worst countries are Islam doesn't. For the exercise of balance I googled muslim persecution. Try it yourselves you will be surprised.

 

Morons eh? Well on this occasion it takes one to know those that aren't. And b.t.w. the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists knew exactly what they were risking. Their office had previously been fire-bombed and the editor had his own personal bodyguard. Fat lot of good it did him (or the bodyguard).

What all of this is, is the frontline of the moderniworld versus medievalism. If that looks like the west versus Islam then that's largely because that's what it is but not entirely. The west is the modern world. Medievalism is most widely exhibited by radical Islam both by a minority of terrorists and Imams in the west and much more broadly in the Islamic world. There are Christian and Jewish medievalists too and they're all fair game for an atheist satirical magazine like Charlie Hebdo. But no special favours eh?

You propose appeasement. So did Neville Chamberlain as perfectly illustrated by G o Barry Endean @#500. Look where that led. These Islamic medievalists are not just bothered about cartoons. They want an Islamic caliphate because they are completely indoctrinated in the absoluteness of their religion as described 1400 years ago. And the majority of 'peaceful Muslims' are similarly indoctrinated, just not so pushy and violent about it.

When one of the terrorists spared a female member of staff, Sigolene Vinson, at the Charlie Hebdo office he did so saying "but you have to convert to Islam, read the Koran and wear a veil". So a bit more than 'just stop drawing those cartoons' then eh?

In what way do you think that, if Charlie Hebdo had changed its editorial policy, that would be seen as anything other than admitting defeat and bowing down and appeasing ignorant, absolutist murderers simply for an easy life? That it wouldn't be seen as anything other than the liberal west running scared in the face of medieval thuggery? That it wouldn't do anything other than encourage ISIL, al Qaeda, Boko Haram and all the other pathetic medieval Islamists to commit further atrocities because their methodologies would have scored such a notable victory?

Maybe you don't see all that because you wouldn't recognise a point of principle of the society you live in if it leapt up and bit you in the b.llocks. Assuming you have a pair. Well I don't do running scared and appeasement particularly in this case where it would so obviously be counter-productive. My principal regret is that a knee jerk appeaser supports the same football club as me.

 

Beeb's been castrated I see.

Edit: Not quite. At 06.03 they grew half a one.

Sky remains b.llockless.Hardly surprising seeing who owns it.

Charlie's selling like hot cakes on the streets of Paris apparently. Excellent news. Time for an even bigger print run soon I hope.

The best thing is that Charlie is getting assistance from all over the place. Temporary offices at Liberation. Financial sponsorship from Google et al. Not that it's necessarily gonna need it if they sell out a 3 million print run anyway. Apparently they had big financial worries a week ago. Not so now it would seem. So it would look like the backward, murderous thugs actions have entirely backfired. Yippee!

 

Evan Davis showed the cartoon in Newsnight, although it looked almost accidental and he looked a bit shaken when he realised he'd done it, before going on to interview an mi5 informer from the Finsbury Park mosque who was as intelligible as A Jokanovic post match interview transcript, read aloud By Derek Payne.

 

So the Mi5 bloke's not in the frame for our asst. coach vacancy then?

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-30780965

This was mentioned on an R4 interview a couple of minutes ago and true. Except, as the georgeous pouting Agnès Poirier pointed out: all of Charlie Hebdo's staff have been murdered.

 

Re. Murdoch. That's not cojones. Instructing Sky News to show the Charlie front cover would have been. The big, fat Man Utd. presenter tw.t made a point of saying their editors hade made a specific decision not to.

 

There doesn't really see much point in a "Je Suis Charlie" movement if we then expect Charlie to carry on speaking freely, except when it is about Islam.

I was sceptical about Je Suis Charlie in the first place. I posted about the hypocrisy of it and the conflict it could cause with normal Muslims.

But, most importantly. I also felt that it changed the argument. the extremists are not just against free speech, they are against non Muslims. Charlie just gave them a convenient excuse to kill, in exactly the same way that they say Western involvement in the Middle East gives them an excuse to kill. Both completely wrong, of course, but that doesn't bother them. Already, we are seeing all over the world people are saying something similar to Molly, that Charlie/we should appease to extremist threats (by curbing our free speech) otherwise we bring trouble upon ourselves, and we would deserve it.

If there was not one more image of the prophet drawn anywhere in the world would ISIS stop their own campaign? Of course not, they would draw strength from their victory and get stronger, and find some other excuse. The extremists are now laughing at us. This is all a massive victory for them.

 

Excellent post except for the conclusion. Of course there will be loads of mollys out there who run and hide if someone bursts a paper bag. But queues round the block in Paris tell a different story.

 

Sorry, I forgot to use the "loathsome ****" smiley before introducing anything from Murdoch. Much of this wahhabist/salifist fundementalism is exported from (and financially supported by) Saudi Arabia and much of the financial support for Murdoch's empire (aka investors) are from...Saudi Arabia.

 

I don't believe that most Muslim people particularly care about the cartoons unless someone with a vested interest wishes to wind up them up about it. And then of course if no one got wound up about it there wouldn't be any drawn.

I think they might care if they thought someone's intention was to insult them or because the cartoons are a bit stereotypical. But I do not believe most care about the theological aspect of it. I think the front cover is wholly justified today because the target is clearly Fundamentalism and its adherents and not all Muslims.

 

Big queues around Paris may look impressive, but they'll be forgotten next week.

 

Much of your post has been answered @#535 above. However ...

You say that the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists are being deliberately and provocatively offensive. Maybe they are. But why shouldn't they be? Like you they're atheists. And atheist cartoonists at that. So they haven't got any respect at all for this Muhammed geezer. Why should they have? As far as they're concerned he's as fair game as Nicolas Sarkozy, Benjamin Netanjahu and the Pope. They've got no respect for him because, in their eyes, he hasn't done anything to deserve it. So why not offend those who can't see through it because they've been indoctrinated since birth and/or are too thick to see beyond the end of their own noses? I agree with the Charlie viewpoint entirely. This isn't 1400 in Mecca/Medina. It's 2015 in Paris. Je suis Charlie. Je suis Stephane Charbonnier aussi.

This thread briefly diverted to an evolutionist versus creationist discussion the other day. Thankfully nobody actually claimed to be a creationist but there was still a lot of very wooly thinking on display which I didn't have the time to get around to answering. But here's the thing.

Evolutionary theory developed because those investigating it had enquiring and open minds. They looked at the evidence, drew their conclusions and developed their theory. If, at any time, evidence to the contrary had come to light the theory would have been modified or even abandoned. But it never has and there are now millions of pieces of evidence across about 20 natural science disciplines to support it. So am I supposed to have some sort of respect for people who say, no - it can't be because it says something different in my silly book written 1400 to 2000 years ago? I think not. They simply deserve ridicule. Likewise therefore I don't have any respect for pretty much anything else that's written in any of their silly books because they were written so long ago when nobody knew any different.

Here's the associated thing. Science proceeds in exactly the same way across all its disciplines. Open and enquiring minds investigate things by observation and experiment. They make their hypotheses and draw up their consequent theories and if they're found wanting, they modify them and move on. That way they progress and learn. This is entirely at odds with religious devotion which is absolutist in its adherrence to fairy story texts and has taken us precisely nowhere for 1400 plus years. But science through the route pure science - applied science- applied engineering - has given us all sorts of material benefits in the last 300 years (not much happened before then). Aeroplanes, automobiles, and everything electronic from toasters via lighting to this iphone. So why is it then that the majority in the Muslim community (and fundamentalist Christians and Jews) can be quite happy to use all the mod cons but refuse to believe in evolution, the certainty of which was developed in exactly the same way? Well it's obviously convenient. But it's also because using the mod cons doesn't conflict with anything in their silly books. No-one back then contemplated flying thousands of miles thousands of miles through the sky, or riding about in a four-wheeled carriage not pulled by a horse or switching lights on all night without an oil lamp. They only had a story about where we all came from to cause us all so much grief centuries later. So I say, OK if you don't want to join the scientific 21st century then don't. No electricity then, no driving and certainly no getting on an aeroplane. You wanna go to the Yemen and pursue jihad for six months? OK - here's a donkey. See how you enjoy sitting on the back of that for six months. You should enjoy it. It's part of the world you aspire to.

 

Good post Kelso. I dont necessarily agree with it all. But good post.

 

Oddly enough I do agree with all of your post in regards Kelso's post.

 

It's funny this whole Je Suis Charlie.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4337031.stm

Hypocrisy at it's finest.

 

I have split my response to your post seeing as, if I didn't, no doubt a precis in cartoon form would have been requested. Maybe it has been already. Anyway ...

Fundamentalism is not exclusive to the Islamic world. I once, with my wife, had the misfortune to argue evolution v creation with two creationists from Alabama over a campfire in a sky island canyon in southern Arizona. Their occupations - pilots. You couldn't make it up. But be assured if flying around the planet had been contemplated 1400+ years ago it would have been declared blasphemous. Just as a freak snowfall in northern Saudi Arabia has now rendered all snowmen abominable. It's just anti-fun because they don't like anything to deflect from slavish religious devotion. The Taliban don't like singing and dancing either.

So here's a bit of gratuitous offence. As spelt out @#494 above, the 'cult of Muhammad' has a whole lot to answer for with regard to the position of women in their society which is diametrically oposed to the way things are moving in the liberal west. Ergo - I have no respect for their cult at all. I simply regard their main man as being a bit of a c.nt instead.

This is the great issue of our time. Will we be held back by being misguidedly respectful of this drivel or embrace a humanist agenda which is derived from the common themes of all religions and our common human experience? Or be consumed by a misguided and slavish agenda to not upset anybody and their specific religious idiosyncracies? Back @#261, after I and others had pressed Squibba on why he was offended by the cartoons and why they shouldn't have been published he came up with this - because "you're not meant to". Well mate, I was raised in a Christian tradition. Not indoctrinated though. I attended schools were there was a partially religious morning assembly every day. There were RE classes in the Christian tradition. I was never exposed to any other religions at all. I went to Sunday School. When I was about nine I started getting interested in the natural world. I took an interest in evolutionary theory before it was ever formally taught to me. One day (well Sunday) at Sunday school when I guess I was about twelve I'd finally had enough. The 'teacher' was spouting off about some particularly stupid bit of creationist b.llocks and I believe my words were - 'that's a load of bloody sh.t'. They were the worst words I knew at the time. My how times change. I was summarily removed and I believe banned from further attendance. How would I know? I had no intention of returning and have never looked back since. So it's OK to question. " You're not meant to" just doesn't cut it

Will there be blood on the steets? Yes probably. Nudging and cajoling and appeasing just isn't working. It's the price of progress.

 

I'm afraid this does your cause absolutely no good at all. Of course there's hypocrisy. Regarding the Netanyahu gold-brick wall as well. The point is - Charlie Hebdo would publish ALL of it.

 

France is being slightly hypocritical as a nation then is it not?

 

I dunno. What's Frances' position here? Tell me ...

Edit. OK - I see The french legal system is backing the Catholic church. Yes quite right then. Totally hypocritical.

 

I'm lost.

 

Agreed. But Squibba does have a valid point as you recognised. It really is all or nothing.

 

I do actually agree with you on this particular point here.

That said, if that is all you can answer the many criticisms of Islam on this thread, a piece of 9 year old news that (imo) doesn't insult the Catholic faith since it is based on a piece of art not on Christianity itself as the clothing company pointed out.

You told me to f*** Saudia Arabia (even after you brought it in to the debate) effectively saying that I can ignore how they treat Christians as it isn't indicative. Yet Saudi is the centre of the Islamic faith. To ignore what the Vatican preaches in a debate on Catholicism would also be senseless. Actions speak louder than words and Islam being the religion of peace and the millions of peaceful Muslims is just words. The reality to everybody else is the actions committed for, on behalf of and in the name of Islam which is not peaceful, whether that is flying jets into the Twin Towers or rounding up and arresting children in a bible study class.

I said earlier I tried googling where Muslims face persecution. I couldn't find anywhere just pages and pages of Islamic persecution of Christians. It seems every whim of Islam is catered for in the UK (in a way that is not reciprocated in any Islamic country) yet all of it isn't nearly enough for far too many Muslims. Give them enough rope etc for there is a breaking point somewhere.