Join the discussion about Charlie Hebdo - closed

Red Winnipeg wrote:

Pondering: "Political satire is elevated by it's attempt to communicate some message beyond simply insulting people."

When is speech an "attempt to communicate some message" versus "simply insulting people"? If I say, [b]"Fuck the Pope!"[/b] should I be barred from doing so because it is "simplying insulting people" or can I say it because I have attempted "to communicate some message"?

Nobody is trying to bar you from saying "Fuck the Pope!"  They're telling you that nothing about making that statement makes you a brilliant satirist.  "Fuck the Pope!" absent any futher commentary puts you on par with an angry teenager.

Just popping in again as a reminder that for me and some others this horrible event isn't about free speech.

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Aamer Rahman rocks!

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Beyond Freedom of Speech for white men by Nora Loreto, rabble.ca blogger

Quote:

In 2011, the French government banned women from covering their face in public. France, a country with a brutal colonial relationship to many predominantly Muslim countries, chose Muslim women as its target in a state version of What Not to Wear.

....

The face-cover ban should be controversial. Every defender of free expression in the Western world should have mounted fierce opposition to the ban as it encroaches on women’s right to free expression. 

But the fight for Free Speech waged by most Canadian pundits isn’t a fight that includes women. It’s one of the few struggles that white men with access to both power and privilege can wage demanding even more privilege, without criticism. There is no universal access to free speech and free expression in an unequal society.

When a gunman murdered 14 people for political reasons in Montreal in 1989, it was condemned not as an attack on free speech, but as a horrifying example of violence against women.

...

So what state protections have there been for Muslim women who believe their faith demands they cover their faces? Why is their freedom of expression less important? Where’s the global outrage over the fact that pro-Palestinian protests been banned by the state of France? If violence against women is a tool meant to silence them (either through fear or murder), why do Western states consistently fail to keep women safe?

In the wake of the murder at the Charlie Hebdo offices, many pundits have reduced freedom of speech to fighting for the privileged to mock the oppressed. The greatest free speech advocates in Canada, the ones who rush to spew odes to freedom across whichever opinions sections, so often ‘forget’ to condemn attacks on freedom of speech when they happen to non-white, non-male people.

...

Imagine every single Canadian newspaper running editorials demanding justice for Indigenous women, based on the premise that the violence waged against them are attacks on their free speech and expression.

Imagine journalists collectively demanding that the state not only protect, but ensure stable funding mechanisms, free of political interference, to allow for the news industry to engage in investigative reporting or to hire more journalists.

...

Freedom of speech is extremely important and must be defended, and equal access to freedom of speech is not a struggle that exists in isolation. It includes the freedom for everybody to choose their own clothing. It includes the freedom to live without fear that your partner will murder you in your home.

Until the fight for Freedom of SpeechTM is wrestled away from the old white men whose names grace the opinion pages of Canada’s national newspapers, this campaign will only seek to give more rights to the already privileged while ignoring (and in some cases, further oppressing) the freedom of speech of the oppressed.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

I agree with your first statement. And as I said above, I'd say anyone who is actually concerned about free expression is just as alarmed about that comic being investigated.

What comic are you referring to that is being investigated?

Quote:

But the distractions, bandwagon jumping and exploitation aside, we are still left with that very basic question of freedom. If they crossed that big a  line, well where is that line?

Who is they?  Charlie Hebdo?  They are a bunch of nobodies who became heroes by virtue of becoming victims.  What is the very basic question of freedom you are referring to?

Quote:

Again, why did the attackers target a gang of irreverent comics, and other newspapers, and not the National Front? A bank?

They chose a target that offered good bang for terrorist buck.

Why didn't the Boston Marathon bombers choose a US political party?  Or a bank?

Quote:

I'd suggest that this renewed oppression and  violence is exactly what they wanted to happen.

Sure.  Increase polarization, increase recruitment.

@ wage zombie

The story at #451

A bunch of nobodies? Really?

The basic question: the right to publish or say anything so long as it doesn't contravene hate laws (and I include in that material which runs afoul of abusive use of those laws). Again, read the story at #451.

As was mentioned upthread the attackers chose a good target by design, or more likely because they happened to be the only ones willing to go to the boards on the issue of the image of Mohammed, because they have a sometimes offensive style of humour that some aren't willing to defend (though I challenge those who question CH's political intent) . I think there are plenty of media voices, even in the Muslim and Arab world, who see beyond that.

Please be more explicit about the expected takeaway from your link in #451.  It is a very short article.  My takeaway is that the right of free speech is applied selectively by the state.

I get the sense that you're looking to debate whether anything published by CH was hate speech.  Please inform me if that's not the case.  At this point, I think that question is irrelevant.  It's no longer about Charlie Hebdo (IMO).

Quote:

As was mentioned upthread the attackers chose a good target by design, or more likely because they happened to be the only ones willing to go to the boards on the issue of the image of Mohammed, because they have a sometimes offensive style of humour that some aren't willing to defend (though I challenge those who question CH's political intent).

So why was the Boston Marathon bombed?  Are extremist muslims anti-fitness?

@ 6079

"I don't think anyone honestly concerned with press freedom considers that a conflict."

I hope you're right.  Presumably the newspapers and liberal blogosphere will shortly be full of loud howls of condemnation over these acts -- French authorities arresting 15 year old girls for "terror speech" and sentencing Muslim men to 4 years in prison for off-the-cuff remarks.   As I mentioned previously, the real threat to free speech in France is posed by the authorities, not Muslims, and we are now seeing that rather vividly. 

Durrutix wrote:

Left: "Koran is shit; doesn't stop bullets. 

Right: "Charlie Hebdo is shit; doesn't stop bullets

Did anyone claim it could?

lagatta wrote:

Cabu and Wolinski have been very well-known cartoonists and illustrators in France (and throughout the French-speaking world) for many decades.

Thanks for the explanation.  My assumption was based on the 60,000 circulation of the magazine which seems quite small.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

@ wage zombie

Actually no. I'm not trying to debate that. I don't care if some one thinks it was hate speech,  though I don't think it was. There are plenty of people who have said they deserved it.

Here on Babble?

Thanks for clarifying your other points.

Here's one from the Arab Democratic Movement: "It's hard to be co-opted by idiots"

http://assawra.blogspot.fr/2015/01/marche-republicaine-cest-dur-detre.html

The disproportionate charges and prison sentences are disturbing indeed. I remember back when, we'd casually say things like "Where are the FLQ, now that we really need them?" and none of us were about to set off bombs or kidnap anyone.

Charlie Hebdo Massacre Bolsters Stephen Harper's Tough Line on Radical Islam: Walkom

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/01/09/charlie_hebdo_massacre_bol...

"It may be crass to ask which Canadian politician benefits most from the Charlie Hebdo massacre. But it is necessary. In the short run, and with an election scheduled no later than October, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is the clear winner from this grim affair.

Given popular revulsion over the Charlie Hebdo atrocity, Harper will find it politically easier to pass new laws aimed at beefing up security - even if they whittle away unnecessarily at individual civil liberties.

Conversely, the Liberals and New Demoncrats will find it politically more difficult to oppose such laws or to criticize Canada's participation in the latest Iraq war.

'The international jihadist movement has declared war,' Harper said Thursday, hinting strongly that Canada would respond in kind.."

New Anti Terror Laws Could Be 'Slippery Slope': US Expert

http://www.canada.com/News/canada/anti+terror+laws+could+slippery+slope+...

"The federal government will soon table a bill to allow for certain laws of preventative arrest to thwart potential terror acts.

'I think that's a very slippery slope, to be honest,' said John Horgan, director of the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

'We are dealing with a complex phenomenon; we have shifted to this preventative paradigm,' Horgan told the Citizen. 'It's remarkable to me as a scholar how we seem to have lost any sense of proportion in that..."

6079_Smith_W wrote:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/12/french-comedian-dieudonne-c...

Not helpful.

Thing is, I am sure those at the paper would have been the first to defend him, if they were still alive.

Actually, a follow-up to #451.

Here's a cover they did of him at the time of the previous scandal:

And a bit of a translation of that and some other cartoons:

http://www.understandingcharliehebdo.com/

I still expect they'd take an even more dim view of those in power to use this as an excuse to clamp down on comedy.

and @ lagatta

Good article. That cartoon is worth reprinting.

Charlie Hebdo satire for all religions? NOPE just Anti-Islam Bigotry

Another Ex Charlie Hebdo staffer documents mag's rising  OBSESSION not just with fundamentalist Islam but Muslim stereotypes.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11343077/How-I-c...

http://www.lesinrocks.com/2015/01/10/actualite/luz-eyes-us-weve-become-s...

Quote:

 

Now, there’s momentum. And in a year, what will remain of this rather progressive momentum for the freedom of speech? Will financial help be offered to private press? Will people oppose the closure of newspapers? Newspaper stands? Will people buy newspapers? Will anything remain of this momentum? Maybe. Maybe not.

Anyone else read Andrew Coyne's latest editorial on this (he has written two in succession) - the latest comparing Bonhomme on his cover to Mohammed on theirs.

Well he said it. He's no different from Charlie.

Your point?

I'm finding it fascinating that militants with enough conviction to kill others (and/or die themselves) over their grievances are, when the act is done, suddenly too bashful to say what those grievances "really" are, so they have to make something up on the spot about "The Prophet" or whatever.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

And while I don't buy the argument that selective censorship by government is a valid argument that it is a good thing, if one is arguing for self-censorship (as is being done here) does that extend to cutting women out of pictures so as not to offend religious sensibilities? The question of legality is moot.

Just the opposite. I would say the moral imperative is to vigorously reject such censorship. In this case women are being wronged by being removed from the public eye. The appearance of women is not directed at offending fundamentalists. The women appearing does not threaten to increase bigotry or violence against them. There is no moral imperative not to offend anyone's sensibilities in the general sense.

The reason most Canadian news sources didn't reprint the most offensive cartoons is due to multiculturalism. Canada is not free from racism or from crimes against humanity in our treatment of indigenous peoples but as a nation we are trying. We place a very high value on mutual respect for one another's cultures and religions. We passionately and earnestly struggle with the question of imposing life-saving treatment on an 11 year old girl because she is indigenous.

Basic respect and consideration for one another is a core tenet of multiculturalism. Muslims aren't preventing us from reprinting the cartoons nor is it self-censorship. It's self-respect and pride in trying to be a civilized nation.

It is our sensibilities that that dictate restraint.

France is the place, remember, where the concept of free expression has failed to stop politicians from banning headscarves and burqas. Charlie Hebdo may claim to be a satirical, equal-opportunity offender. But there’s good reason critics have compared it to “a white power mag.” As Jacob Canfield wrote in an eloquent post at the Hooded Utilitarian, “White men punching down is not a recipe for good satire.”

...

Free speech allows us to say hateful, idiotic things without being punished by the government. But embracing that right means that we need to acknowledge when work is hateful or idiotic, and can’t be defended on its own terms. We need to recognize, as Vox’s Matt Yglesias argues today, that standing up for magazines like Charlie Hebdo is a “regrettable” necessity, in part because it provides cover for anti-Muslim backlash. “Blasphemous, mocking images cause pain in marginalized communities,” he writes. “The elevation of such images to a point of high principle will increase the burdens on those minority groups.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/01/charlie...

It also provides cover for the people most responsible for this carnage and that isn't the shooters or even radical imams.

If my particular Holy Book says that some thing or other is "sacred" and must not be named/eaten/spoken of, and I neither name, nor eat, nor speak of it, then am I not good to go?

In other words, why am I supposed to give a rat's ass if someone else names, eats or speaks of the sacred thing?  Am I somehow accountable, in an afterlife context, for what some total strangers do, too? 

Jews (or certainly, American Jews) live in a world that reveres bacon.  How do *they* make it to the afterlife without forcing others to not eat bacon? 

Durrutix wrote:

@ 6079

"I don't think anyone honestly concerned with press freedom considers that a conflict."

I hope you're right.  Presumably the newspapers and liberal blogosphere will shortly be full of loud howls of condemnation over these acts -- French authorities arresting 15 year old girls for "terror speech" and sentencing Muslim men to 4 years in prison for off-the-cuff remarks.   As I mentioned previously, the real threat to free speech in France is posed by the authorities, not Muslims, and we are now seeing that rather vividly. 

6079_Smith_W wrote:

And yes, free speech is selectively recognized by the state. That is a bad thing in my opinion, and I don't see how it is in conflict with standing up for the right to publish in this case.

The conflict is that when free speech is defended selectively it is not free speech that is being defended.

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."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/4351672/French-c...

If anyone should be fired it's the editor who is responsible for deciding what does and doesn't get printed. Charlie Hebdo did not defend free speech they bowed and accepted censorship to avoid offending the powerful.

Pondering wrote:

If anyone should be fired it's the editor who is responsible for deciding what does and doesn't get printed. Charlie Hebdo did not defend free speech they bowed and accepted censorship to avoid offending the powerful.

Didn't we go through this already?

Sinet won a wrongful dismissal suit, and Val actually resigned form the paper the year after the firing. The question was raised whether he was a good fit in the first place.

And those pictures are being printed, as have a number of images making fun of CH. Where's the fury? There is no more basis to that than the accusation that they only made fun of Islam.

Who is Responsible For the French Terrorist Attacks?  -  by Peter Symonds

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/01/13/pers-j13.html

"Last week's terrorist attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris is being cynically exploited not only in France, but also by United States and its allies to advance an utterly reactionary agenda.

Attacks on basic democratic rights, already evident in the mass deployment of French police and new troops, go hand in hand with the preparations to escalate war abroad, in the first instance in the Middle East and North Africa..."

France Deploys 10,000 Troops in Wake of Charlie Hebdo Attacks  -  by Chris Marsden

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/01/13/fran-j13.html

"France increasingly resembles a police state.

Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, who came to Paris for Sunday's march, has played a leading role in whipping up a climate of fear over the attacks, to the extent of placing him at odds with Hollande's government.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said Saturday that Jews 'not just in France [but also in Belgium and other places, Sweden] were 'under attack' by a combined Islamist anti-Semitic attack,' and that 'the safest place for Jews is the national home of Jews.'

Further evidence of the extent of official knowledge of all involved in the terror attacks reinforces growing suspicion of possible French state involvement. Both of the Kouachi brothers were on British and US terror watch lists, and Coulibaly was previously convicted for plotting to free an Islamist militant from prison. Coulibaly met Cherif Kouachi in prison.

US intelligence has said that Seif Kouachi had been placed under surveillance by France in November 2011,  but scrutiny was supposedly ended in June 2014, after he was, without explanation, deemed to be no longer dangerous..."

Thank you for your earlier comment Wage Zombie.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

As for the motive for cutting women out of photographs, your distinction isn't actually valid (and I even recognize that they have the right to do it, however offensive). In the first place, I reject the notion that everyone who has fallen victim to a fatwa or attack did it only to offend. Was The Satanic Verses just a gag?

I never made that claim. I am talking about this particular incident not all incidences. I never said everything Charlie Hebdo printed was of the same quality as what I saw which in my opinion lacks content therefore makes no statement beyond being offensive. I would have preferred the cartoonists be honoured by examples of their finest work.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Even so, the fact is we are allowed to poke religion in the eye, because as much as fundamentalists there and in the United States and elsewhere would like to argue that religions are people with human rights, they are not. And any attempt to give legal recognition for that sort of nonsense - especially above the rights of actual people - SHOULD be resisted.If that means printing forbidden images, so be it.

Did Charlie Hebdo print those images in reaction to an attempt at giving Islam legal personhood of some sort?

6079_Smith_W wrote:

As for some media in multicultural Canada wanting to be sensitive, I am fine with that, as I said upthread. I am glad though, that rabble has decided to take a laissez faire attitude toward it.

I don't see anything about it on Rabble. They leave it up to the mods to determine which posts are acceptable as usual so not particularly laissez faire. Canadian publications individually decided not to print based on their assessment of the value of the material which is also a normal process. All material goes through an assessment process. Nothing is printed by default.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Pondering wrote:

It also provides cover for the people most responsible for this carnage and that isn't the shooters or even radical imams.

Oh really? Do tell.

That will take a post of it's own and it won't be tonight because the chain of events that led to these murders is long.