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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy I am not Charlie
This crime in Paris does not suspend my political or ethical judgment, or persuade me that scatologically smearing a marginal minoritys identity and beliefs is a reasonable thing to do. Yet this means rejecting the only authorized reaction to the atrocity. Oddly, this peer pressure seems to gear up exclusively where Islams involved. When a racist bombed a chapter of a US civil rights organization this week, the media didnt insist I give to the NAACP in solidarity.
When a rabid Islamophobic rightist killed 77 Norwegians in 2011, most of them at a political partys youth camp, I didnt notice many #IAmNorway hashtags, or impassioned calls to join the Norwegian Labor Party. But Islam is there for us, it unites us against Islam. Only cowards or traitors turn down membership in the Charlie club.The demand to join, endorse, agree is all about crowding us into a herd where no one is permitted to cavil or condemn: an indifferent mob, where differing from one another is Thoughtcrime, while indifference to the pain of others beyond the pale is compulsory.
http://paper-bird.net/2015/01/09/why-i-am-not-charlie/
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)And in our culture, even among many (but not all) on the left, outrage against Muslims and in defense of their detractors and provocateurs, is as easy to come by as a spiffy avatar.
Let's please think a little more deeply, these things didn't happen in a vacuum.
And, while sharp incisive satire doesn't draw blood, it hurts very deeply nonetheless and it is decidedly NOT harmless.
If it was harmless, they wouldn't use it.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)If you are capable of laughing at yourself then satire loses much of its sting.
That's the problem a lot of us see with religion, people take ideas that are on their face ludicrous and inflate them into something they take as quite literally a matter of life and death.
The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. -Mark Twain
spin
(17,493 posts)jeff47
(26,549 posts)I seem to remember a different reaction when Ari Fleischer said that.....
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)Editorial cartoonists have a different row to hoe, a very different mission and set of hazards.
It's just the way it is out there.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Both are demands for self-censorship.
NewDeal_Dem
(1,049 posts)is kind, politic, useful or true.
Like we don't have to censor ourselves in every other aspect of our lives. I censor myself at work on a daily basis. I'd be fired if I didn't.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Just threaten or cause enough death, and everyone you disagree with should just shut up.
NewDeal_Dem
(1,049 posts)that if we just insult others *enough*, violence will stop?
Or maybe you're in favor of the anti-terror state Bush instituted after 911 to keep tabs on and catch the people you consider the 'bad guys'?
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)The binary POV is not helpful to finding solutions.
Sometimes it's best to wait until the right time to project the message, sometimes the message needs to be softened, or hardened.
Using reason to craft the most effective message is not "letting violence win".
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Eventually any criticism of Islam will be strictly off limits.
Indeed, the most extreme Islamic position is that the very existence of non Muslims is an insult to the Prophet. Our good allies the Saudis are very close to that point right now.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/08/saudi-arabia-blogger-raif-badawi-public-flogging
Raif Badawi was sentenced on charges related to accusations that he insulted Islam on a liberal online forum he had created. He was also ordered by the Jeddah criminal court to pay a fine of 1m Saudi riyals, or about $266,000.
Rights groups and activists say his case is part of a wider clampdown on dissent throughout the kingdom. Officials have increasingly blunted calls for reforms since the regions 2011 Arab Spring upheaval.
Badawi has been held since mid-2012, and his Free Saudi Liberals website is now closed. The case has drawn condemnation from rights groups.
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)only gave them a reason. They joined a radicalized organization and would eventually kill someone. It was not the satire that taught them to hate.
malaise
(269,186 posts)Rec
oberliner
(58,724 posts)The whole concept of "I don't agree with a thing you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - as a wise Frenchman once said.
Not everyone likes South Park, for example, but most of us don't think the creators should fear for their lives when they poke fun at Scientology or Mormonism or Judaism or Christianity or Islam.
They have gone full on with taking down the icons of the first four, but pulled back on the fifth.
That's not right.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)One of them is a neighbor of mine and for weeks, there was security posted on every corner, watching his house.
Ridiculous to kill anyone over a fucking cartoon.
PeaceNikki
(27,985 posts)Shivering Jemmy
(900 posts)brooklynite
(94,745 posts)From what I see, the cartoons may have been offensive TO a "marginal minority", but they were not ABOUT a marginal minority. They were about a worldwide religion that 1/4 of the world's population adheres to.....and ANOTHER religion that 1/3 of the world's population adheres to...and any number of other religious and non-religious targets.
Je suis Charlie
NewDeal_Dem
(1,049 posts)minority there, and indeed, everywhere in the world generally except north Africa, the middle east and Indonesia.
brooklynite
(94,745 posts)NewDeal_Dem
(1,049 posts)people. The reported terrorists are French, not infiltrators from muslim countries, and second-generation French to boot.
"Coulibaly, a Frenchman of Senegalese descent from Juvisy in the Essonne area outside Paris...One of 10 children and the only boy, Coulibaly became a delinquent at 17, and a repeat offender for petty thefts and drugs crimes, moving onto an armed bank robbery in September 2002 in Orleans, in the Loiret, before radicalising. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11335794/Paris-kosher-store-siege-Who-are-Amedy-Coulibaly-and-Hayat-Boumeddiene.html
"Raised in care in Rennes after his French Algerian parents died when he was young, he returned to Paris with his brother in his teens and found work as a pizza delivery man, and lived in the 19th arrondissement.."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11334249/Charlie-Hebdo-attack-the-Kouachi-brothers-and-the-network-of-French-Islamists-with-links-to-Islamic-State.html
Boumediene told police examiners that she had become radicalized by her lover...And as the Daily Mail reports: The couple lived in nearby Bagneux, where they were known as devoutly religious couple, despite Coulibays regular run-ins with the law. They had reportedly gone on a trip to Malaysia together, and then recently disappeared from the neighborhood only to re-emerge when their names were all over the news.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11335794/Paris-kosher-store-siege-Who-are-Amedy-Coulibaly-and-Hayat-Boumeddiene.html
Skittles
(153,193 posts)Desert805
(392 posts)I'd be embarrassed to post this OP.
It would keep me up nights even.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)As for hashtags, there were plenty in the wake of the attack. And a massive crowd heckled Breivik with a song he hates. Twice. Both times got lots of reporting.
But the reason there is more pressure to "be Charlie" is all the cowardice we have shown in the past. South Park won't skewer Islam like they will Christianity. Fox refused to show an image of Muhammad on Family Guy. Those are two franchises famous for not giving a damn about offending people, yet they won't dare to offend Islam. Because of fear.
That is why there is more pressure "to gear up exclusively where Islam's involved". Because so many have cowered in fear instead.
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)...or deeper thinkers who challenge conventional wisdom and lockstep outrage, and look for deeper dynamics.
This is a mess without winners, no participant in the war is above scrutiny, and shouldn't be.
I'm encouraged by the few posts I'm seeing, finally, that add perspective.
Desert805
(392 posts)Or a defender of the free exchange of ideas.
Sad.
NewDeal_Dem
(1,049 posts)being an 'official enemy' of the US for various reasons.
Desert805
(392 posts)At the outrage people feel for 12 people murdered for their thoughts and ideas is noted.
*eye roll*
NewDeal_Dem
(1,049 posts)noted.
sorry you're having trouble with your eyes.
Desert805
(392 posts)But it was actually really poor.
Skittles
(153,193 posts)NewDeal_Dem
(1,049 posts)Yeah, very poor indeed.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)NewDeal_Dem
(1,049 posts)Skittles
(153,193 posts)NewDeal_Dem
(1,049 posts)hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)That being said I can nit associate myself with those cartoons.
Ms. Toad
(34,099 posts)I saw it earlier in my facebook feed - and am glad to see it here.