Why I am not Charlie

[ellenrr]

This crime in Paris does not suspend my political or ethical judgment, or persuade me that scatologically smearing a marginal minority’s 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 Islam’s involved. When a racist bombed a chapter of a US civil rights organization this week, the media didn’t insist I give to the NAACP in solidarity.

When a rabid Islamophobic rightist killed 77 Norwegians in 2011, most of them at a political party’s youth camp, I didn’t 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]

1. It is demonstrably clear. Outrage for some is very selective.

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]

3. Satire is hurtful to those who take themselves entirely too seriously

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]

35. That is one GREAT cartoon. (n/t)

[jeff47]

8. So everyone must watch what they say.

I seem to remember a different reaction when Ari Fleischer said that.....

[NYC_SKP]

11. On this board, yes. There are people who don't like to read dissenting opinions.

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]

12. "But that's different" is a pretty lame excuse, especially when they're the same subject.

Both are demands for self-censorship.

[NewDeal_Dem]

17. I think we -should- censor ourselves. Not everything that comes immediately to mind

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]

20. So we should let violence win.

Just threaten or cause enough death, and everyone you disagree with should just shut up.

[NewDeal_Dem]

29. Hasn't it just won? And not because the journalists were circumspect. What's your argument,

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]

36. Giving them an excuse to retaliate is not exactly "winning".

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]

39. If they shut up Charlie Hebdo type criticism of their religion the next stage is any criticism

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

A Saudi blogger who was sentenced last May to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes will be publicly flogged for the first time after Friday prayers outside a mosque in the Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah, according to a person close to his case.

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 region’s 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]

34. The murderers were going to kill the satire

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]

2. Good post

Rec

[oberliner]

4. The I Am Charlie is a statement of solidarity with those who are killed for their ideas

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]

10. Actually the makers of South Park did get death threats.

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]

15. And Comedy Central ended up censoring as well (if it's the incident I recall)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/201_%28South_Park%29#Threats_and_Censorship

[Shivering Jemmy]

5. Good for you. But I am.

[brooklynite]

13. And so am I

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]

18. Muslims are 7.5% of the population in France, and generally poor. They're a marginal

minority there, and indeed, everywhere in the world generally except north Africa, the middle east and Indonesia.

[brooklynite]

19. But the cartoons are generally not about muslims in France; they are about muslims in general

[NewDeal_Dem]

21. The magazine is published in france, by french people, and read in france, by french

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 Coulibay’s 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]

6. another one who just does NOT.GET.IT.

[Desert805]

22. Seriously.

I'd be embarrassed to post this OP.

It would keep me up nights even.

[jeff47]

7. Why would I join a Norwegian political party?

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]

9. I get it. And I agree with you. nt

[NYC_SKP]

14. Welcome to the small club...

...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]

23. Clearly not a satire enthusiast

Or a defender of the free exchange of ideas.

Sad.

[NewDeal_Dem]

16. Selective outrage indeed. Wonder why. One reason, I think, is that islam borders on

being an 'official enemy' of the US for various reasons.

[Desert805]

24. Your outrage

At the outrage people feel for 12 people murdered for their thoughts and ideas is noted.

*eye roll*

[NewDeal_Dem]

25. your outrage for the millions murdered by the US war & occupation machine is also duly

noted.

sorry you're having trouble with your eyes.

[Desert805]

26. I'd say "nice try,"

But it was actually really poor.

[Skittles]

27. VERY poor

[NewDeal_Dem]

31. In iraq we went to war over a lie. 150K direct deaths, up to a million indirect ones.

Yeah, very poor indeed.

[NuclearDem]

32. ...

[NewDeal_Dem]

33. i do say.

[Skittles]

38. yup they just keep on digging

[NewDeal_Dem]

30. Like I value your opinion....

[hrmjustin]

28. I denounce these murders and they did nothing to deserve it.

That being said I can nit associate myself with those cartoons.

[Ms. Toad]

37. Thanks you for posting this.

I saw it earlier in my facebook feed - and am glad to see it here.