Join the discussion about Charlie Hebdo - closed

If I may be excused for bringing in a purely personal element. My daughter is in Southern France, and the plan was for she and her partner to take a fairly extended trip to Morroco, by ferry from Algeciras.

Lord only knows in how many directions things are inflamed in France and North Africa. So I'm not thrilled about this trip.

For sure, Muslims in France, and anyone who 'looks like a Muslim,' will bear the brunt of this... and I cringe at the picture. But it wont be just Muslims, or just in France.

Definitely chewing on making the kind of phone call we generally stay away from.

I'm surprised this type of thing doesn't occur more often at news organizations, for any number of reasons.

Paris Manhunt: 3 Gunmen At Large, 12 Shot Dead at Charlie Hebdo Offices (and vid)

http://rt.com/news/220603-manhunt-paris-charlie-hebdo/

"I took cover under a desk...they spoke perfect French...they said they were Al-Qaeda,' cartoonist Corine Rey, aka 'Coco', was quoted as saying by the weekly Humanite..."

Fatal Shooting at Charlie Hebdo HQ in Paris LIVE UPDATES

http://rt.com/news/220523-deadly-attack-french-newspaper/

1730 GMT: "An Islamic State (IS) militant praised the attack on the French satirical magazine: 'The lions of Islam have avenged our Prophet,' Abu Manab, who fights for IS insurgents in SYRIA, told Reuters via internet connection. 'These are our lions. It's the first drops - more will follow,' he said, speaking via an internet connection from SYRIA. He added that he and his fellow fighters are happy about the incident..."

Quote:

The first point is that French President Francois Hollande declared this a “terrorist” attack very early on. Now, we don’t need to know any concrete details to understand the purpose of this. “Terrorism” is not a scientific term; it is inherently normative.

The uses of “terrorism” in such contexts are by now well understood. I suggested apropos the Woolwich killing that it functions as a narrative device, setting up a less-than-handful of people as a civilizational threat evoking stoic defense (of “British values,” “la république,” “the West,” etc). It justifies repressive and securitarian responses that tend to target Muslims as such, responses which in the United Kingdom chiefly come under the rubric of the government’s Prevent strategy.

The second is that there is already an enormous pressure, in this context, to defend Charlie Hebdo as a forceful exponent of “Western values,” or in some cases even as a brilliantly radical bastion of left-wing anti-clericalism.

Now, I think there’s a critical difference between solidarity with the journalists who were attacked, refusing to concede anything to the idea that journalists are somehow “legitimate targets,” and solidarity with what is frankly a racist publication.

On Charlie Hebdo

KenS wrote:

But really, in the 'Western' world we live in- do all the other semi-organized nutbars taken together rival the Islamists for what they are capable of?

And for the world we inhabit in our daily lives, state terror does not take out newsies as an example to others.

White supremacists have a staggering body count of their own, and limiting it to the 'Western world' gives a rather incomplete picture and rigs the game more than a little, doesn't it?

Full quote, and the context:

Slumberjack wrote:

I'm surprised this type of thing doesn't occur more often at news organizations, for any number of reasons.

I dont know. Sounds a bit sanguine about the "particularities" of this.

Sure, there is a lot of overblown paranoia about Islamist terrorists ready to pop up anywhere.

But really, in the 'Western' world we live in- do all the other semi-organized nutbars taken together rival the Islamists for what they are capable of?

And for the world we inhabit in our daily lives, state terror does not take out newsies as an example to others.

KenS wrote:

But really, in the 'Western' world we live in- do all the other semi-organized nutbars taken together rival the Islamists for what they are capable of?

Yes, as George Galloway pointed out in the above quotation,

"Hypocrites like among others the French government which has been facilitating exactly such carnage, except daily, in Syria for the last four years. And through the agency of the very same kind of terrorists as murdered the French citizens today."

France, like Canada, has supported the very same political extremists in Syria ON A DAILY BASIS FOR THE LAST 4 YEARS. The "blowback" of supporting such extremists [and calling them "moderates"] is that now ISIL, etc., controls vast swaths of the territory of Iraq and Syria.

The difference is that the "nutbars" are our own governments and the deaths are far away from our shores.

Quote:

And for the world we inhabit in our daily lives, state terror does not take out newsies as an example to others.

Do you really want to get into valuing some lives more than others? This is what many political parties rely upon and why they can indulge in demagogic attempts to win votes over the dead bodies of others. [As long as those "others" are far away.]

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The problem for a terrorist group like al-Qaeda is that its recruitment pool is Muslims, but most Muslims are not interested in terrorism. Most Muslims are not even interested in politics, much less political Islam. France is a country of 66 million, of which about 5 million is of Muslim heritage. But in polling, only a third, less than 2 million, say that they are interested in religion. French Muslims may be the most secular Muslim-heritage population in the world (ex-Soviet ethnic Muslims often also have low rates of belief and observance). Many Muslim immigrants in the post-war period to France came as laborers and were not literate people, and their grandchildren are rather distant from Middle Eastern fundamentalism, pursuing urban cosmopolitan culture such as rap and rai. In Paris, where Muslims tend to be better educated and more religious, the vast majority reject violence and say they are loyal to France.

Al-Qaeda wants to mentally colonize French Muslims, but faces a wall of disinterest. But if it can get non-Muslim French to be beastly to ethnic Muslims on the grounds that they are Muslims, it can start creating a common political identity around grievance against discrimination.

This tactic is similar to the one used by Stalinists in the early 20th century. Decades ago I read an account by the philosopher Karl Popper of how he flirted with Marxism for about 6 months in 1919 when he was auditing classes at the University of Vienna. He left the group in disgust when he discovered that they were attempting to use false flag operations to provoke militant confrontations. In one of them police killed 8 socialist youth at Hörlgasse on 15 June 1919. For the unscrupulous among Bolsheviks–who would later be Stalinists– the fact that most students and workers don’t want to overthrow the business class is inconvenient, and so it seemed desirable to some of them to “sharpen the contradictions” between labor and capital....

For those who require unrelated people to take responsibility for those who claim to be their co-religionists (not a demand ever made of Christians), the al-Azhar Seminary, seat of Sunni Muslim learning and fatwas, condemned the attack, as did the Arab League that comprises 22 Muslim-majority states.

We have a model for response to terrorist provocation and attempts at sharpening the contradictions. It is Norway after Anders Behring Breivikcommitted mass murder of Norwegian leftists for being soft on Islam. The Norwegian government launched no war on terror. They tried Breivik in court as a common criminal. They remained committed to their admirable modern Norwegian values.

Juan Cole: Sharpening Contradictions: Why al-Qaeda attacked Satirists in Paris

French militancy, including when it's been in cahoots with it's NATO partners of the willing, has been responsible for killing more innocent people around the world than you can shake a stick at.  What we're seeing in the western media is another one of those 'they hate us for our freedom' events, as it's being spun already.

"Thoughts and prayers of entire community are with the people of France. We stand by them as they did us when we faced similar cowards." - Paul Calandra MP (CON)

Charlie Hebdo Paris Shooting: Canadian Politicians React

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/charlie-hebdo-paris-shooting-canadian-po...

The attackers displayed a degree of skill and calmness that comes only from advanced military training

from the Telegraph link:

Quote:

Amateur footage shows them using classic infantry tactics. They move along the street outside the office working as a pair: one advances while the other gives cover.

Instead of spraying automatic gunfire, they fire two aimed shots at each target – a pattern known as “double-tap” firing – thereby conserving their ammunition.

Paris Attack on Charlie Hebdo: Gunmen Showed “Advanced Military Skills”

The article poses the following question: Trained killers sent by ISIS or a government?

Yes, obviously that does not mean they can't follow into "humanitarian imperialism". But these were typically people (at least the older ones; I'm less familiar with Charb's background, as he was a few years younger than I am) who were squarely on the left and anticolonialist.

"French militancy" (from below, and I presume one is speaking at least of the "liberal-democratic" left) and "French militarism" aren't synonyms, slumberjack. Of course France is a colonialist, capitalist power.

Those reporters and police officers got what they deserve, why be concerned over them?  They were all well past their prime and really didn't offer anything of substance to the world. 

It's all horrible lagatta.  An explicit propaganda is at work within the emphasis being provided towards one set of victims over others who are barely mentioned at all. When corporate political hacks announce their horror and revulsion, and about how their hearts are going out to the families of the victims, the hypocrisy does turn the stomach.  

Global military action gets categorized as such and falls within the domain and right of the global powers, while the term militancy is reserved for lesser entities.  Propaganda is embedded in the choice of language and how things are described.  If we erase those distinctions, then the term French 'militancy' corresponds to the actions of the French state on the global stage, regardless of what political flavour in France is actually calling the shots.

Ottawa satirical magazine ‘Frank’ to publish ‘Charlie Hebdo’ cartoons

http://globalnews.ca/news/1760322/ottawa-satirical-magazine-frank-to-pub...

So one of the French cops killed in Charlie Hebdo attack was Muslim
#KillAllMuslims was created

@Lagatta:

Being horrified at the murder of journalists and cartoonists doesn't require me to praise their work

Also, Former CIA deputy director said that "This is Europe's worst terror attack since 2005." Forgot about Anders Breivik

Or is it "terror" only if done by Muslims?

Today's news will assert that a crazy, White outlier attempted to bomb an NAACP office, and that Islam carried out a terror attack in Paris

I always assumed France WAS part of the so-called west

And there's this:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-07/paris-attacks-part-of-battle-th...

http://cpj.org/attacks/

Slumberjack, I wasn't making a distinction between conservative and social-democratic governments in terms of "militarism" vs "militancy" To my sjmind "militancy" refers to civil society. Of course it could also be far-right, but so far they haven't popped up. Lots of militarism by recent Socialist Party governments, alas.

Sherpa-finn, I've taken part in even colder demos (union protests, and some of the 2003 anti-Iraq-war ones). Unfortunately I'm a bit down with a cold and a bad fall (nothing broken) hurt knee and ankle.

F you, Netanhayu...

CH cartoonists are being lionized when satirists in the Middle East have led the way in mocking extremists and dictatorships for a very long time

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/in-the-mideast-as-in-france-satire-is-a-weapon-against-extremists/article22331032/

A Lucky Break in the Case?

https://twitter.com/AndreyPanevin/status/552948198919004161

'unverified reports that one of Charlie Hebdo terrorists dropped his ID at scene'

Terrorists Exposed?

https://twitter.com/Sevodnay/status/552909448428392450

"Video of #ParisShooting Gunmen heard speaking Russian at 00:12 secs."

Paris Attack Quickly Becomes Washington Funding Fight (and vid)

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/07/politics/paris-attack-triggers-homeland-se...

"...The New York Republican told reporters on the Hill - 'But we have to make it clear that Homeland Security -- at a time we saw this massive attack in Paris -- that we can't be cutting funding or programs which would protect Americans from a terrorist attack..."

Some 30,000 Germans Protest Against Anti-Islam Rallies

http://news.yahoo.com/protests-4-german-cities-against-anti-islam-rallie...

Perfect timing...