Are you absolutely sure? I’d agree with you on that in most developed nations, but the world is big and we are talking about the few extreme nutters. No religion, not even buddhism is free of those.
But what I’m trying to get at is that if you want to annoy person #325 from group A, why fling proverbial shit at the entire group A? Just because there’s freedom of speech doesn’t make it any less dumb.
True. I keep forgetting how hard reading comprehension can be.
Your posts deserve a more thorough answer, but one thing you have to understand is that “anticléricalisme” (meaning hostility towards organized religion, and actually hostility towards religion, period) is a central part of Charlie’s identity. Traditionally this meant cartoons lambasting the catholic church, these past few years Islam got quite a few front pages.
Note : a fairly typical front page, during the heated debate about gay marriage a couple of years ago : a catholic bishop fondling a young boy who is sitting on his lap, telling him : “If you’re nice, we’ll go to the anti-faggot rally together”. You could make an argument that because Muslims are a minority without much power or voice in France, the objective impact of the cartoons is not the same but it seems a stretch to say they were subjected to more vitriol than Christians (or Jews, though that is a slightly different matter).
And to extend it one step further, it’s self-censorship when you say “I’ll stop being a dick because I’m afraid you’ll kill me if I don’t.”
IMO that last step of extended analogy is critical in this discussion.
People need to eat. They don’t need to draw. But that’s a gratuitous point on my part, sorry.
People tend to put some rules above others. Bacon in your example isn’t such a touchy subject unless you go to a deeply religious area and insist on having said food item right there and then. And then yes, I would find it odd.
Those are not actual Charlie Hebdo front pages, but spoofs by Joe le Corbeau, a pal of Dieudonné. The point he wanted to make is precisely that nobody would dare publish this, including Charlie. Whether or not he is right, and whether or not they should be published, I’ll let others debate.
Ah, that’s what I get for not learning French. Other covers depicting Jews seem to be legit though.
Subjective much? I think they should be able to publish whatever the fuck they want, and this attack was an excellent example of a hundred different things that are wrong with the world today. But that’s like saying, “Well. they believe in those things, so they can’t possibly just be dicks.” Sure they can, within an admittedly subjective definition of dicks.
Ultimately, no censorship policy is ever going to get applied uniformly, and I think the French should simply do away with the notion. But having a policy that allows people a sort of airy-fairy cultural plausible deniability to publish some hateful speech while not allowing other hateful speech is inviting a lot of resentment.
I agree, mainly because we’re products of Western/European culture. Most Westerners have no (or just a minor) problem with people desecrating their own or others religion(s), but once you leave that bubble you’d be playing a very dangerous game - in and with a completely different world and culture.
The literal minded serve the same god, regardless of name. #CharlieHebdo
— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) January 7, 2015
This is a paranoid conspiracy conjecture for which I have absolutely no
evidence… But what are the odds this was actually a false flag
operation by the French far right?
Probably about the same as the odds that 9/11 was a CIA/Israeli false flag operation.
What is it about some people that makes them reach for a conspiracy theory as the first available intellectual tool?
There have been a lot of covers depicting orthodox Jews doing ridiculous and/or obscene things, yes. Anything about the Holocaust (like the two spoofs you linked to) would almost certainly be considered off-limits.
The fact that those in power feed us so many lies?
(Not that I give any credence at all to the conspiracy theory in question here.)
You know what? That is exactly what came through my mind when I first heard of it.
The last cover of Charlie Hebdo was all about Baby Jesus, and it was not exactly respectful…
What is it about some people that makes them reach for a conspiracy theory as the first available intellectual tool?
The fact that those in power feed us so many lies?
I think it’s probably driven by the way that the conspiracy theories (in general) tend to lead us towards a simpler, more comprehensible world view, where things happen for simple reasons and there are fewer moral grey areas. In some ways a good conspiracy theory can be very reassuring.
again, the Onion says it best:
It Sadly Unclear Whether This Article Will Put Lives At Risk
Fair enough.
I do think there’s a greater trend towards publishing cartoons that are primarily meant to offend and/or indict Islam as a whole. Even with your example of the Catholic-bishop cover, I think it’s easy to see this as not so much an attack on Christianity as a whole, or even Catholicism, but on the Catholic Church as an organization. Not many would see this as an attack on the core beliefs of Catholicism or Christianity, but I’m not sure that our conceptualization of Islam is sophisticated enough to analyze or interpret Islamic cartoons in the same way.
Here’s where I see the distinction:
Making light of the Prophet, Jesus, Moses, Popes, Rabbis, Imams and the countless people who follow their teachings or commit acts in their name is mocking religion. That seems to be the kind of humor that makes up Charlie Hebdo’s bread and butter.
On the other hand making light of the Holocaust (or denying its existence) is mocking the victims of one of the worst mass murders in history. That kind of humor isn’t offensive because it pokes fun at someone’s religious beliefs, it’s offensive because it pokes fun at an act of mass murder that is still fresh in the memories of those who survived it and their descendants.
Should both forms of humor and satire be tolerated? Maybe. But I don’t think it’s necessarily hypocritical if this magazine chooses to employ the former and not the latter.
From the wiki:
Religious satire is a form of satire targeted at religious beliefs. From the earliest times, at least since the plays of Aristophanes, religion has been one of the three primary topics of literary satire, along with politics and sex.
A moderne example:
Isn’t this natural? After all, the central point of religion is faith, which is an act of suspension of disbelief (I know, I’m being tautological here). Anyone who, for any reason, cannot suspend his disbelief, will naturally find most religious material as patently ridiculous.
This said, I hope this barbarous act will stimulate more conversations about everyday censorship by actual religious groups. For one small groups of fanatics killing people with weapons paid with petrodollars, there are thousands of regular bigots from all walks of life who force their own version of religious censorship on everyone else every single day.
What I’m going to say will be unpopular. So be it. When I look at the
cartoons of Charlie Hebdo I see the worst version of freedom of
expression. The depictions of Islamic extremism hold up a mirror to the
vile racism of the artists, journalists and editors of the magazine.
I’ve been reading posts and seeing comments about how Liberté was the
victim of today’s shootings. Perhaps, but Liberté would not have been so
vulnerable had the artists, journalists and editors of the magazine
(and indeed every publication across Europe) given care not to
slaughter Fraternité first. You see you can draw an extremist without
recourse to the racist imagery of the “dirty arab” ready with a scimitar
to slice open the next infidel. You can still be funny, satirical and
cutting without the denial of people’s humanity. Caricature is not so
impoverished to need these images to convey the same message. Unless
that message is: hey, I’m a racist. I agree with Salman Rushdie that we
should not be afraid for our lives for being assholes, or for
slaughtering sacred cows. However, I do not think we need to be so quick
to march in solidarity with people whose work, frankly, is just as
illiberal as the people who took their lives.
I condemn the act of murder. But I condemn as well the unapologetic
racism masquerading as freedom of expression. Je ne suis pas Charlie.
