Attack on French satirical magazine who posted jokes about the prophet Mohammed - 12 killed

[magisme]

Unless of course you fancy wearing a burqa in France.

Incidental! Incidental!

[SoulMonster]

And yet another opinion, this one from The Washington Post:

Charlie Hebdo’s editors took big risks to defend freedom of expression

Suddenly, satire is the great issue of our time.

Last month, North Korea’s Stalinist dictatorship launched a cyberattack, accompanied by threats of physical violence, against the makers and distributors of a silly film that dared to violate the cult of personality surrounding Kim Jong Un, according to the FBI. Pyongyang’s alleged hack succeeded, at least temporarily, in blocking the movie’s release.
Charles Lane is a Post editorial writer, specializing in economic policy, federal fiscal issues and business, and a contributor to the PostPartisan blog. View Archive

And on Wednesday, there was the slaughter of 12 people in Paris, mostly staff members of Charlie Hebdo, a weekly newspaper that delighted in mocking the prophet Muhammad, who were gunned down by masked men crying “Allahu Akbar” and “We have avenged the prophet.”

It turns out that such political jokesters take big risks, bigger than perhaps even they realize or anticipate — and the repercussions affect us all.

Yet it is vitally important that the United States and all other Western democracies rally to their unequivocal defense.

If freedom means anything, it means freedom of expression — to include expression that some might find irresponsible, offensive or even blasphemous. In the realm of art and ideas, pretty much nothing is, or should be, sacred, lest we head down the slippery slope to censorship, or self-censorship.

Obvious as that principle might seem, Western politicians have been a bit wobbly about it in recent times.

In September 2012, when Islamist extremists rioted across the Middle East, ostensibly because they took offense at a crude Internet video mocking Muhammad, Charlie Hebdo fired back by making fun of Muhammad in its own pages. The French foreign minister accused the editors of pouring “oil on the fire.” President Obama’s spokesman questioned the publication’s “judgment.”

To be sure, both officials quickly added that Charlie Hebdo had a right to publish what it wanted and that no mere publication or video could justify violence.

Yet their mixed messages unavoidably implied that the rioters had a valid point, which is never something you want to imply — at least not if you understand how dangerous it is to give violent extremists a veto over what your citizens can and cannot say.

Here’s an irony: Americans and Europeans have spent much of the past year and a half debating how to rein in the potential threat that the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance poses to privacy and freedom.

Yet in that time, the worst actual assaults on freedom of expression in the West have been carried out by the totalitarian, nuclear-armed North Korean state and, now, in Paris, by Islamist terrorists — that is, the very people against whom the NSA is supposed to protect.

In fact, if you wanted to fault the “surveillance state” for anything, in light of these events, it might be for being insufficiently comprehensive.

The Paris massacre reminds us once again that there are real threats to democracy, from states and organizations that regard freedom itself as evil, and that Western democracies need strong intelligence, police and military institutions, appropriately restrained by law, to counter those threats.

Ultimately, though, security and law enforcement cannot substitute for clarity about our own values.

Fortunately, there has been some progress on that front. Perhaps learning from the futility of his administration’s equivocations about the Muhammad video in 2012, Obama responded forthrightly to North Korea’s alleged cyberattack: “If somebody is able to intimidate us out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing once they see a documentary that they don’t like or news reports that they don’t like.”

Ordinary Americans, too, eventually roused themselves to assert their rights, despite the (admittedly implausible) threats of North Korean-backed violence. They went to see “The Interview” in art-house theaters or ordered it online.

Of course, these demonstrations of civil courage were trivial in comparison with the routine bravery Charlie Hebdo’s editorial director, Stéphane Charbonnier, practiced in the exercise of his fundamental human right to make fun of all religions. He did this in spite of constant death threats, one bombing and not-so-subtle official pressure to cool it, so as not to inflame the extremists.

“Everyone is driven by fear, and that is exactly what this small handful of extremists who do not represent anyone want — to make everyone afraid, to shut us all in a cave,” he said in 2012.

Stéphane Charbonnier persisted in acting on those beliefs right up until Wednesday, when he lost his life for them.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-lane-charlie-hebdos-editors-took-risks-to-defend-the-freedom-of-expression/2015/01/07/8b4a3782-9694-11e4-927a-4fa2638cd1b0_story.html

[magisme]

We get it. Western media is an echo chamber.

[SoulMonster]

Norwegian newspaper's description of the perpetrators: "Became orphaned as young, smoked marihuana and hated the USA"

[streak]

Is it really being bullied into silence though soulmonster? or being sensitive to large minority of your population?

I'd say that death threats and fire-bombs are in the field of bullying. But yes, one can easily say that they shouldn't have published offensive satire and thus offended a large minority of muslims. Other will say it is important to be critical of religion, even to the point of risking to offend, and that the freedom to express oneself is more important than the freedom to not be offended by words.

Its a tough one.

[Lio]

We get it. Western media is an echo chamber.

We get it. Everything is always our fault.

[SoulMonster]

We get it. Western media is an echo chamber.

I don't think you know what an echo chamber means It means a secluded place where you can act out your opinions wthout fear of being met with counter-arguments. International media publishing news that is available to everyone can't possible be said to act in an echo chamber.

The media agrees on this subject because they honestly think that attacks on the press freedom is a bad thing, and that shouldn't be surprising to anyone

[magisme]

We get it. Western media is an echo chamber.

We get it. Everything is always our fault.

Show me where I said that.

[Dazey]

Well then perhaps socio-political issues are a little too grown up for em. I hear Viz is recruiting.

So it seems.

[Len Cnut]

Didnt know there still was a Viz!

We get it. Western media is an echo chamber.

I don't think you know what an echo chamber means It means a secluded place where you can act out your opinions wthout fear of being met with counter-arguments. International media publishing news that is available to everyone can't possible be said to act in an echo chamber.

The media agrees on this subject because they honestly think that attacks on the press freedom is a bad thing, and that shouldn't be surprising to anyone

Oh yes because newspapers are all about honesty and integrity and civil liberties The Sun, The Daily Mail that you posted up there are hotbeds of intellectual discourse, famous around the world for it, when they're not trying to jam a zoom lens up Posh Spices clunge. The same Daily Mail that supported Oswald Moseleys fascist party, or The Sun that printed lies about football supporters robbing and pissing on dead bodies during The Hillsborough Disaster in the 1980s, admirable publications.

[SoulMonster]

We get it. Western media is an echo chamber.

I don't think you know what an echo chamber means It means a secluded place where you can act out your opinions wthout fear of being met with counter-arguments. International media publishing news that is available to everyone can't possible be said to act in an echo chamber.

The media agrees on this subject because they honestly think that attacks on the press freedom is a bad thing, and that shouldn't be surprising to anyone

Oh yes because newspapers are all about honesty and integrity and civil liberties

I never said they all are. On this non-brainer of an issue, though, they seem to get it right.

Edited January 8, 2015 by SoulMonster

[Len Cnut]

We get it. Western media is an echo chamber.

I don't think you know what an echo chamber means It means a secluded place where you can act out your opinions wthout fear of being met with counter-arguments. International media publishing news that is available to everyone can't possible be said to act in an echo chamber.

The media agrees on this subject because they honestly think that attacks on the press freedom is a bad thing, and that shouldn't be surprising to anyone

Oh yes because newspapers are all about honesty and integrity and civil liberties

I never said they all are. On this non-brainer of an issue, though, they seem to get it right.

Well as long as they get the ones that are important to you thats all that matters eh?

[SoulMonster]

We get it. Western media is an echo chamber.

I don't think you know what an echo chamber means It means a secluded place where you can act out your opinions wthout fear of being met with counter-arguments. International media publishing news that is available to everyone can't possible be said to act in an echo chamber.

The media agrees on this subject because they honestly think that attacks on the press freedom is a bad thing, and that shouldn't be surprising to anyone

Oh yes because newspapers are all about honesty and integrity and civil liberties

I never said they all are. On this non-brainer of an issue, though, they seem to get it right.

Well as long as they get the ones that are important to you thats all that matters eh?

Only when what is important to me aligns with what is important to the public and society.

Edited January 8, 2015 by SoulMonster

[MB.]

Is it really being bullied into silence though soulmonster? or being sensitive to large minority of your population?

I'd say that death threats and fire-bombs are in the field of bullying. But yes, one can easily say that they shouldn't have published offensive satire and thus offended a large minority of muslims. Other will say it is important to be critical of religion, even to the point of risking to offend, and that the freedom to express oneself is more important than the freedom to not be offended by words.

Its a tough one.

No it's not.

Besides there is always court to fight it out. Nobody should give in to violence.

Then you have people say on the internet: they took the risk themselves and all that. They did, but that's already the point. Why was writing a cartoon considered a risk even? In our western society, we are able to take the piss out of everything. If you don't like it or feel hurt, don't read it. If you feel offended, go to court. But don't go and shoot twelve people. I have no understanding for that and nobody should. If I offend you with satire, you have no right to kill me. Not in our society that is and there isn't much more to say about it.

I assume we all agree with that the killing was horrible and shouldn't have happened. I don't even understand what there to discuss or what this discussion really is about.

[Dazey]

And for the sake of balance.

[SoulMonster]

I don't even understand what there to discuss or what this discussion really is about.

Just the standard deviations: Talking about the roots of terrorism; if we really ought to offend Islam; if all forms of expressions should be protected, even the really offensive ones; numerous lennyisms where we go on long rants about the media, capitalism, how brown people are being treated, etc; and magisme's usual wishy-washy moral and cultural relativism. I think a lot of it is more borne from a desire to argue and a reluctance to give in, than really heartfelt beliefs and opinions.

[magisme]

[DR DOOM]

This makes me wanna put on a Power Rangers mask, grab one of those Moslem women with the ninja outfit on, publicly derobe her, throw a bucket of pig's blood on her and then stuff her mouth with pig dicks while a mate films it.

It's morphin time, fuckers.

PS not really

[Len Cnut]

I don't even understand what there to discuss or what this discussion really is about.

Just the standard deviations: Talking about the roots of terrorism; if we really ought to offend Islam; if all forms of expressions should be protected, even the really offensive ones; numerous lennyisms where we go on long rants about the media, capitalism, how brown people are being treated, etc; and magisme's usual wishy-washy moral and cultural relativism. I think a lot of it is more borne from a desire to argue and a reluctance to give in, than really heartfelt beliefs and opinions.

OR Soulmonsters refusal to entertain the notion that there was any course of action or discretion that could've been exercised to avoid death in this situation. Because, as even a superficial understanding of the Soulmonster mentality will reveal, human lives are just numbers and their value is directly relative to how their deaths can be manipulated with a view to the furtherance of the Soulmonster perspective.

Oh yeah, and the idea that freedom of speech actually means the freedom to offend, for no greater good other than to offend. The 'like it or fuck off mentality'. Just another valuable set of deaths for the Soulmonsters memory bank next time he has a point to make.

Edited January 8, 2015 by Len B'stard

[Lio]

We get it. Western media is an echo chamber.

We get it. Everything is always our fault.

Show me where I said that.

I didn't say you literally said that. It's just a feeling I got. Maybe I got it wrong.

Anyways: I feel like it’s always: The West is arrogant, the West is bombing their countries, the West is forcing its values down their throats… That may well be true, but for one, there is no ‘the West’, just like there is no ‘the Muslims’; and second, it’s not about that in this case. It’s about freedom of speech, one of our basic values, and protecting that value right here. Showing that we (and by ‘we’ I mean everyone that happens to live in the West, including (the overwhelming majority of) muslims, atheists, christians, black, white, whatever) will not have our freedom of speech/freedom of press taken away like that.

Of course media say roughly the same in this case. They’re journalists. They should fight for the freedom of press, they themselves are under attack.

[magisme]

Yes, you're wrong about my perspective.

And I've already explained why I don't think it's about freedom of speech in a number of posts. So has Len. I'm not going to keep repeating myself.

[Lio]

Yes, you're wrong about my perspective.

And I've already explained why I don't think it's about freedom of speech in a number of posts. So has Len. I'm not going to keep repeating myself.

It's okay, you don't have to repeat yourself, you're both wrong anyway

[Amir]

Yes, you're wrong about my perspective.

And I've already explained why I don't think it's about freedom of speech in a number of posts. So has Len. I'm not going to keep repeating myself.

OK, so it's about individual discretion and respect according to you and Len, am I right? Fair enough, but this partly seems to be based on precedent, i.e. they've threatened death and killed before, so let's not antagonise them by printing cartoons again. But as I've said before, the attacks and dialogue are not specifically about cartoons on their part. The cartoons are seen by many radicals as symptomatic of an arrogant, decadent Western culture. Is the West arrogant in its failure of imagination to picture a better civilisation, to posit that they are at The End of History? Yes. But that doesn't mean tiptoeing around and kowtowing to the whims of their enemy.

I'm not saying two wrongs make a right, that "they started it" or "we started it", etc. I'm saying the people committing these acts fundamentally hate everything the West stands for. Are there people in these countries who loved the West and then became radicalised because their brothers were bombed by drones, or pawns in some Great Game between imperialist states? Undoubtedly, but it doesn't excuse the death of a cartoonist.

Yes, the media does often exacerbate the "Us vs. Them" narrative. But that doesn't mean there isn't a fundamental difference in worldview between the major players.

[Len Cnut]

Anyways: I feel like it’s always: The West is arrogant, the West is bombing their countries, the West is forcing its values down their throats… That may well be true, but for one, there is no ‘the West’, just like there is no ‘the Muslims’; and second, it’s not about that in this case.

And you see no correlation there whatsoever? It has to just be 'the muslims are wrong'? Sit and think about the idea of bombing countries for a moment, think about what it entails. Think about the 12 dead bodies in Paris and the emotions that has evoked...now think about the results of bombing a country. Still don't relevant?

Of course media say roughly the same in this case. They’re journalists. They should fight for the freedom of press, they themselves are under attack.

So...they've a vested theological interest in the statements they're making? Well, that always makes for fair journalism eh?

I'm saying the people committing these acts fundamentally hate everything the West stands for.

So the best course of action would be to give them a REALLY good reason to hate everything the West stands for.

Also, its worth noting y'know (or perhaps not for some) that a muslim copper died in the midst of all this. A muslim died protecting their right to take the piss out of his religion, something thats not been made mention of for some reason.

[magisme]

OK, so it's about individual discretion and respect according to you and Len, am I right?

I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but yes.

but this partly seems to be based on precedent, i.e. they've threatened death and killed before, so let's not antagonise them by printing cartoons again.

No. It's about knowing that billions of people subscribe to a religion with a particular taboo, and that when the nations forming the spear poking these folks' countries with so many wars, declared and undeclared, add insult to literal injury in such a way, bad shit is going to happen. Let's try to avoid that if it's not too big of a deal. But I guess being able to make cartoons about the prophet and fear absolutely no repercussions from any part of society whatsoever is what free speech is really about. I missed that class.