Cartoonist Joe Sacco on satire, and Charlie Hebdo

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I’m not an expert but i think French intellectuals don’t have anymore the aura they used to in the 60s/70s.

But you have an interesting point. We certainly do treat our minorities differently : here they get no “special treatment” (sorry lousy english can’t find a way to properly express this). We’re supposed to be all equal citizens with equal rights. It doesn’t always work but it’s idealistic and I like the idea.

Am I, a 40 years old white guy, lacking empathy for minorities ? I hope not !

Your last paragraph lost me a little. CH is indeed mocking people in powerful positions
if that’s what you mean (it’s maybe 80 % about politics). They’re sued all the time by the Front national and the catholic church. CH is certainly not lacking empathy, and is not about humiliating minorities but defending them. Like when they defended same sex marriage last year.

Sorry I’m exhausted and I know I’m not answering your remarks properly.
I highly recommend to you and everyone to read this article by a French journalist. It
sums up everything I was trying to say and a lot more, and I hope it will answer your interrogations.

On Charlie Hebdo: A letter to my British friends

Firstly, a few words on Charlie Hebdo, which was often “analyzed” in the British press on the sole basis, apparently, of a few selected cartoons. It might be worth knowing that the main target of Charlie Hebdo was the Front National and the Le Pen family. Next came crooks of all sorts, including bosses and politicians (incidentally, one of the victims of the shooting was an economist who ran a weekly column on the disasters caused by austerity policies in Greece). Finally, Charlie Hebdo ,was an opponent of all forms of organized religions, in the old-school anarchist sense: Ni Dieu, ni maître! They ridiculed the pope, orthodox Jews and Muslims in equal measure and with the same biting tone. They took ferocious stances against the bombings of Gaza.
Even if their sense of humour was apparently inacceptable to English minds, please take my word for it: it fell well within the French tradition of satire – and after all was only intended for a French audience. It is only by reading or seeing it out of context that some cartoons appear as racist or islamophobic. Charlie Hebdo also continuously denounced the pledge of minorities and campaigned relentlessly for all illegal immigrants to be given permanent right of stay.
I hope this helps you understand that if you belong to the radical left, you have lost precious friends and allies. (…) Charlie Hebdo promoted equality, liberty and fraternity – they were part of the solution, not the problem.

It goes on much longer but it’s really worth it.
Bernard Maris, the economist he mentions, was one of my personal heroes. He was a very unique voice, trying to make the world better with intelligence and a smile. And I doubt he ever wrote anything about Islam.

One last thing : “The prophet appearing in a porno” ? Are you referring to the
Luz cartoon of Mahomet lying naked on a bed ? It was published after the
american movie Innocence of Muslims caused such an uproar around the world. It’s
not porn but actually a reference to a very famous (here in France !!) scene
from a Godard movie featuring Brigitte Bardot. They were imagining Mahomet as a
movie star in that famous issue (not their best). Of course they also made fun
of that shitty propaganda film too.

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I know that CH attacks powerful majorities. And they may often defend minorities. But when dealing with minorities you are dealing with people who are vulnerable i a way that majorities are not, and that they often defend minorities doesn’t mean that they don’t also publish things that are offensive and insensitive to those minorities, even if not intended as such.

Maybe the French approach is like Sumo, where there is only one weight class and everyone is assumed equal, while the US is more like boxing, where there are multiple weight classes and it’s considered less appropriate to for a heavyweight to go after a flyweight. Picking on the weak is not something to be especially proud of, and just because you also go after heavyweights, and usually defend flyweights, it doesn’t automatically mean it is OK to go after other flyweights.

Now, the French reaction is to argue that both the metaphor and the thought process are horrible, and that there actually aren’t any weight classes when it comes to criticizing people: we’re all equal, and equally resistant to criticism.

I disagree, as I’ll explain below.

I think Anatole France had something interesting to say about those who get no special treatment: “La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain.”

Of course, the point is that formalistic equality doesn’t always lead to practical equality, and some populations are vulnerable in ways that make certain rules, actions, or norms much more damaging to them than to others. Obviously France doesn’t seem to believe in this, as it remains illegal to even collect basic demographic data on race, ethnicity, or religion, as though pretending the issue does not exist will prevent it from becoming an issue. It’s difficult to take French bromides about colour-blindness seriously when it is basically illegal to even collect data or address the issue in an empirical manner.

Even without that data. however, I don’t buy the idea that France believes everyone should be equal. Indeed, there is evidence that the French believe the privileged should get more deferential treatment!

Take the example of DSK’s perp walk in Manhattan, and the outrage that generated in France. Certainly the French have seen this happen to less elite people in popular media—and likely even in other news coverage (I suspect most French have seen a picture of someone accused of a crime in the US, even though running such pictures would be illegal in France)—but it seemed like the French were particularly disturbed that this would happen to someone of DSK’s stature. Equality of all, but special respect for the powerful? (Yes, I understand that many expressed contempt at the very idea of a perp-walk, no matter who it was applied to, but I also think that the French must have been aware that this was in fact something that Americans do to accused criminals).

Here’s what Max Gallo had to say:

Another commentator, Max Gallo, said this was the" first time in the history of France that a top-level official is treated like a common criminal whose guilt is already established." But he also noted that the American system is more egalitarian.

Or Eva Joly, a French magistrate:

Ms. Joly, who is now a leader of the French Green Party expected to run in next year’s presidential election, added that this sort of media spectacle might be “more violent for a celebrity than for an unknown person,” but noted that the American justice system “doesn’t distinguish between the director of the I.M.F. and any other suspect. It’s the idea of equal rights.”

I’ve seen Le Mepris, and the picture of the prophet certainly didn’t bring it immediately to mind, perhaps because I didn’t recognize the caricature of Godard, but I don’t think another the “A star is born” image from the same page is that defensible, especially since it seems to be making the same joke in an even more tasteless and inflammatory way.

An interesting read, and I agree with most of what he has to say—except that to the extent that CH knew how their cartoons were being (mis)interpreted, I think they should have (as good leftists) taken steps to either examine why their cartoons were being interpreted that way, or done something to mitigate this. Much of these issues are the same as ironic- or hipster-racism, where racist tropes are used in the subjective belief of the hipster that the ironic usage of the trope objectively neutralizes the racism or makes it acceptable. Of course, this ironic racism may not be received that well be actual minority communities, and I think that if someone is aware that their comments are being interpreted in the exact opposite way that they are intended (even if it is it the result of the audience’s “confusion and madness”) then you should reconsider whether you’re doing a competent job of conveying your message.

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It doesn’t rate at all and it’s about as strong as your statement.

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Tom the Dancing Bug published a pretty good critique of some of Sacco’s assumptions:
http://gocomics.typepad.com/tomthedancingbugblog/2015/01/in-non-satirical-defense-of-charlie-hebdo.html

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So what do you make of the history of Christianity?
In the past, it has either been the government or responsible for giving the government its power.
And to disagree with it did mean death.

Now, It might seem that I’m trying to prove your point but really, we’ve been through this before. Even the “Islamic invasion” with the crusades.
The idea that this is a special kind of enemy must serve a purpose, it must serve to also deploy special measures against them. Something I do not advocate for.
The sad truth is that Sacco makes a wonderful point of suggesting that killing terrorists ( and by extension cartoonists) is easier than solving the problem. And killing the terrorists is next to impossible, its even been suggested that killing terrorists breeds more terrorists.

This is not a special kind of evil, between the two of us we could think of worse kinds of evil, (Some of which would of course overlap but not be the exclusive domain of Islam), humanity has seen religious zealousness before, in most cases, its gotten better without having (Being able?) to do away with the abstract concept of religion.

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I agree that moderate thinkers tend to serve as a shield for extremists, but I also think that arguing religion in criminal cases also means that we allow for that shield to be raised.

Arguing that Islam is the root cause of these murders must mean that we hold the perpetrators to be slightly less responsible for their actions as individuals as we project part of the blame on a collective. Or does it not follow?
Are people not more, rather than less willing to attack Muslim’s because of what these people did? If Muslim’s are more hated because of this, aren’t the moderates right to say that they are being lumped in with the bad?

If we ask a catholic to deny that the bible does not teach that the earth is 6K years old, and are not satisfied that they answer truthfully, that they believe it does not. Why are we talking to them in the first place? We already knew the answer. Isn’t this then about attempting to attack the religion and dismiss the specific actions that are the reason we’re talking about this in the first place?

It can’t be that we believe Islam to be less fragmented than Christianity, we know this isn’t true. Some Muslims get killed because they’re not the right kind of Muslim.

Its a mess, I know. I’m only suggesting that asking moderates to weigh in on the extremists actions and not accepting what they say on face value, must mean we already made up our mind before asking the question and are fooling ourselves for asking.

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Le mépris : it was the French dialogue that made it easily recognizable so it’s quite normal you didn’t identified it.

I don’t feel qualified enough to debate with you about the pros and cons of our respective systems but it certainly makes me want to read more about it. As I said I like the idealistic philosophy behind our system but it’s evidently not working as it should. And I agree that ethnic data should be authorized.

I don’t think DSK treatment is such a good example of your elite theory. If French public opinion was (very slightly) shocked to see DSK handcuffed was not because of who he was but because we don’t see this kind of reporting here. Poor or powerful: if you’re not proven guilty you’re not shown this way. I remember a postsecret card where the guy explained he had been arrested in front of a tv show camera when he was young ; 20 years later he was living in fear of reruns of the show. We don’t want that. Be assured there was no kind for support for DSK here and we were more than happy to see this evil bastard fall when we realized who he really was (an I was never a fan of him to begin with). And while it’s true that he was “the first top-level official” to be shown this way, no one in his league was ever accused of something as horrible as rape in France.

France is not so “monocultural”. As your (interesting) link points out there are a lot of our top political leaders who are from foreign origin, like our current prime minister or our ex-president Sarkozy. But it’s without any doubt easier for white people to ”fit in” the French society. It’s slowly changing but not fast enough ; and the events of last week won’t help. I’m not scared of terrorists, but I’m really scared of the Front national and I’m afraid these murders will scare some people into voting for them.

As a French white man I realize life is easier for me, but if there’s a ”French white elite” I certainly don’t feel like I’m part of it !

Concerning Charlie let’s narrow down the controversy a bit: SOME muslims were offended it’s absolutely true. Not all of them. And it is, I insist, the only “minority” that ever sued (1 time) or felt offended by CH. I’ve seen in a lot of English news that they are homophobic, misogynistic, all white… All completely untrue. Since you seem to know French I encourage you to Google it in my language if you have any doubts : no results, not even the beginning of a controversy. But lots of (unjustified) misinformed bullshit in english newspapers, sadly. I think the real controversy is serious enough that it’s not necessary to invent some more on the basis of misunderstood cartoons (not that you ever mentioned anything incorrect ; but I don’t know if it’s very clear to you).

So it’s definitely not a habit of CH to “pick on the weak”. And I do believe that defending minorities does make a difference. For instance there’s a weekly article spotlighting an illegal immigrant having trouble with French authorities, in the hope it will help her/him get papers. Almost always from “muslim” countries. They condemn acts of racism. They fight the front national. It does make a difference.

A star is born : I remember thinking wow they’re gonna get problems other that one it’s going very far because it was depicting Mahomet. But honestly I found the “concept” (showing an asshole to make a movie star joke) kinda funny (I have a childish sense of humour !). Had it been François Hollande or Georges Clooney represented here I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. This is classic over the top CH. But evidently it WAS Mahomet and it makes things very different. You’re talking racism again and I understand your arguments but where does satire stop ? Would it have been ok if it was Jesus pictured instead of Mahomet since we’re (mainly) a catholic country ? Muslims are a (big) minority here but they are 1.6 billion over the world so should they be considered vulnerable? Especially since the call for murders came from out of France (some french Muslims publicly disagreed with the cartoons but no one asked for their murders. The killers were evidently terrorists psycho). Would it be okay if it was published in a muslim country like Turkey instead of France ?

CH office was bombed a few years ago. A journalist asked Charb if he understood the anger of some muslims and he answered : “I’m an atheist. When I walk past a church, a synagogue or a mosque I hear what I consider a lot of bullshit but I don’t bomb the place”. They are fighting religions, not communities. It’s important to mention that CH does not portray muslims, catholics, jews, or whatever. They draw priests, prophets, gods… They are attacking ideology. Not people.

Time runs out. The topic will be closed and I don’t know if you’ll ever read this. Thank you for your remarks that I certainly not consider groundless and I agree with some of them. But you seem to have a very bleak view of French society. I’m not happy with the way things work but I don’t think we’re that awful…

Again it’s hard for me to really “master” my writing in English but be assured that none of this was written in a vindictive tone.

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I’d heard that the French can be very hierarchical/deferential to those marked out as future company leaders/who went to the best universities (at least at Airbus, who are the only French company I’ve worked with). Don’t know if that’s really true, though.

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Isn’t this a tautology? Or are there cases where Islam is a driving factor in terrorism by Catholic extremists? : :stuck_out_tongue:

If you were given the task of rooting out Muslim terrorists, you would of course suspect Muslims far and above anyone else. It would be idiotic not to do so.
Look, I’m with you: “Sings imagine” And no religion too :notes: and all that.
But what other workable solution can be had other than promoting moderation?
I’m all for nailing the guys responsible for the to the wall, but attacking their religion and not the specific people that do horrific stuff seems to me like tilting at windmills.

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Daneel I’m a librarian and what you mention is so far from my life experience that I have no idea if it’s common. Reading you makes me feel really glad I don’t work in this kind of professional environment !

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It’s probably just British engineers whining about French customers :smile:

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I certainly don’t want to give the impression that I condemn all Muslims for events like this and the Muslims I’ve met have been great people. Islam is not the root cause; these actions generally have strong ties to political realities and people’s allegiance is often opportunistic rather than ideological. However, I think there will be a number of issues with any religion that is based on thousands of year old teachings and claims to perfection, even if these teachings were generally pretty advanced for the time. Many moderates will work around problematic parts or interpret them in a peaceful way, but the passages are still there and when they are used to support violence, this should be addressed. The treatment of women, non-believers and apostates is very problematic, and much is written into authoritative writings. You can take a more liberal approach, but other people can take it as many leaders have interpreted it in the past and present.

I don’t blame those who are peaceful at all; as far as I’m concerned, people have different reasons for following religions and I can only judge them on what they actually do or support, not what I think they are logically bound to support based on my poor interpretation of their beliefs. What I would say is that when people are drawn into an extreme form of Islam (or Christianity, or whatever) and this is part of their motivation to attack someone or support attacks, I can criticise their ideology (and in doing so I am not criticising all believers, but neither am I accepting that there is necessarily a true version of their religion that is completely free of criticism). There is a parallel with rape culture here; not all men are rapists or support rape, but there is a significant subsection who do. If every time rape culture is criticised someone jumps up to say “but not all [X] are like that” even when you are quite clear that you never claimed that, it starts to look like those people are closing ranks around the offenders.

If 16% of French Muslims have sympathies for ISIS despite being aware of their brutality towards other religious communities, this says some pretty bad things about the ideologies of this 16%. I’m really not sure how you can have sympathies for ISIS but not for killing innocent civilians. If you have a nuanced opinion, support a nuanced group. The examples he gave of Christian violence were inaccurate: people do strongly criticise the church for its role in things like slavery, the Crusades, the 30 Years War, the KKK, sectarian violence in Northern Ireland and so on. Muslims still bring up the Crusades (and rightly so), and no amount of protests that they didn’t reflect true Christianity or that Christianity created the Renaissance takes away that criticism. PEGIDA is a national shame in Germany, and there were 25,000 people who demonstrated with them after the Paris attacks. The demonstrations against them are much larger though - over 75,000 people came out to show their support for Muslims (and I know there was a demonstration in Hamburg that they didn’t count).

In the end it goes back to the Charlie Hebdo issue - it’s important that we are able to criticise ideologies without fear. This freedom should be used appropriately, but it should be used and it is effective.

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Agreed.
I do think that when these things happen some people do claim that all Muslims are bad.

Agreed again.

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I do think that when these things happen some people do claim that all Muslims are bad.

Mostly it seems to me that people make invalid assumptions about critics of fundamentalist Islam and try to falsely paint them as bigots. We’ve seen numerous examples of that in this very thread, and in intellectual discourse generally (that recent Ben Affleck / Sam Harris incident comes to mind). Of course there are no shortage of bigots and racists, and it’s easy to find them on twitter and at right-wing rallies, but attempting to misrepresent liberals (in the european sense of the word) seems highly counter productive to me.

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Votre Anglais est plus bon de ma Francais, mon ami (as you can see :wink: ).

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