[JAC note: Greg wrote this two days ago, and I think it will be the last thing written on this site about the Charlie Hebdo murders. One can never be sure, of course, but I think Greg’s post closes out the matter for us.]
by Greg Mayer
Since the terrorist attacks in Paris, a number of commentators, while of course condemning the killings, have attempted to ‘contextualize’ the attacks. Isn’t it a bit hypocritical of the French to mourn the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, they ask, while persecuting the comedian Dieudonne? No, it isn’t. French SWAT teams did not kill Dieudonne (along with his janitor and doorman); he was fined and had shows canceled. We can contest the wisdom of French (and European) anti-Nazi laws (as Christopher Hitchens did), but the case of Dieudonne doesn’t even begin to compare to the tragedies of last week.
And several commentators (including, perhaps predictably, Bill Donohue and David Brooks) pronounced Charlie Hebdo too blasphemous, or too racist, or too aggressive, or too unfunny—as if these failings somehow expiated the murder of the staff (and several others who had nothing to do with the paper). As several Francophone commentators have pointed out (including Matthew), much of this stems from a misunderstanding of French politics, or just not having read (or been able to read) the paper.
“Je suis Charlie” never meant “I agree with all they have written or drawn”, or that “I myself prefer aggressive caricature as the best form of criticism”, just as Le Monde‘s famous “We are all Americans” never meant that “We endorse all American policies” or “We think America is always right”.
What “Je suis Charlie” means is that certain outrages are so heinous as to strike at the very notion of a liberal, civilized society, and that at such times all persons who want to live in or build such a society must stand as one to oppose the barbarism that seeks to dissolve it.
If we are not Charlie, then we become Ward Churchill.
Je suis Charlie.
If it weren’t for cartoons, who could identify jesus, moses or muhammad in a line-up? Thanks to Charlie etal we know who to watch for.
I wonder what the Islamic reaction would have been had the cartoon been labelled “This is not Mohammed,” or “This is not the Prophet,” or “This is some guy named Mohammed alive in 2015,” or “This is one of the tens of millions of Muslim guys who happen to be named Mohammed.”
Naming millions of Islamic male primates “Mohammed” would seem to significantly trivialize the name. Why aren’t Muslims offended by that trivialization?
It offends Muslims that a pet be named “Mohammed.” (Re: the female British expat teacher of several years ago.) What if I name a new hybrid of rose “The Mohammed Rose”? Can I nickname my old jalopy “Mohammed” instead of “Nelly Bell”?
Hey, why not name a newborn female “Mohammed”?
Ought not the delicate aesthetic sensibilities of Muslims (Moslems? Mohammedans?) offended
Ignore that last incomplete sentence. Didn’t scroll to the end to see it. Early a.m.
Greg,
Let’s look calmly and rationally at the two issues.
Was the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo despicable? Absolutely. Was it also an attack on the journalists’ right of free speech? Certainly. Was it therefore an ominous threat to free speech around the world. Unquestionably.
But what about Donohue? Was his statement unreasonable? Not at all. He did not challenge the conclusions about the terrorists. He only added the indisputable fact that Charlie Hebdo had regularly insulted not just Islam but also other religions, notably Roman Catholicism, often in such vile ways as noted above. He also noted, inarguably, that though such insults may be legal, they are morally objectionable because they gratuitously belittle the deeply held beliefs of others.
For elected officials, candidates, religious leaders, and the denizens of Twitterdom to damn Donohue for stating this fact is stunningly ironic because they are denouncing his exercise of free speech at the same time they are celebrating, even idolizing the free speech of the journalists.
At this point, people who have resisted the temptation to mindless Groupthink, and reacted in a more nuanced way to Donohue’s statement, will be thinking that it is not so much what he said that deserves criticism, but his timing in saying it. That idea is interesting and understandable. Nevertheless, I submit that his timing, though disconcerting, was perfect!
One very encouraging discussion that has been growing in prominence concerns the challenge to hundreds of millions of moderate Muslims to overcome their silence and denounce the terrorists’ commandeering of Islam for barbaric purposes. Recently, the president of Egypt, gave a stirring speech urging his fellow Muslims to meet that challenge.
It will take a great deal of encouragement for moderate Muslims to find the motivation and courage to follow that President’s advice. But I doubt that it will come from slogans like “I Am Charlie,” which can easily be taken to mean, “I approve of Charlie’s anti-Muslim cartoons.”
By underscoring the difference between hating terrorism and supporting bigotry, Bill Donohue has helped motivate moderate Muslims to take up their challenge. For that reason, he has done the world a great service.
Sensitivity is aggression. It is an attempt to control the behavior and the thinking of others.
When friends and family attempt to control the conversation by sensitivity to insult, it is aggression. When governments attempt to do it, it is tyranny.
If Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons actually were an example of bigotry, Donohoe’s commentary would make more sense. The very existence of Xtianity, Judaism and other heretical faiths also constitute an insult to Islam, in a sense. If members of one group take offense at images or speech, there are many non-violent means for expressing outrage, and members of offended groups take advantage of those means all the time, including Mr. Donohoe. People are entitled to their opinions, and I wouldn’t even criticize Mr. Donohoe for his timing – it’s the fact that he always seems to be on the side of authoritarian religion over free speech and conduct that makes his attitude offensive, to me, not the mere fact that he is in the business of constantly feigning offense per we.
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“…they are morally objectionable because they gratuitously belittle the deeply held beliefs of others”
Just because a belief is deeply held does not mean it should be protected from ridicule, especially if the belief is in fact ridiculous. Ridicule may not always be the most effective weapon, but it is a fair one, and sometimes the only way to make people examine their ridiculous beliefs.
It is my deeply held belief that telling kids they will go to hell if they don’t believe is child abuse.
As a former counselor of abused children, I am deeply offended everyone I hear someone talk to a child about the need to believe.
I am doubly offended if the speaker belongs to a church that has enabled physical and sexual abuse of children and protected teh perpetrators.
I am triply offended if the speaker belongs to a religion that describes women as less than fully human or as subordinate to men.
That would be all the Abrahamic religions. I omit other offensive religions only because I am ignorant of their details.
And quadruply offended if they cut off the heads (or just shoot) of those they deem Kafir. Islam’s apple is rotten to the core.
Ridicule and satire are in fact very powerful weapons to fight bigotry and pernicious beliefs, such as the idea that homosexuality is a crime, resulting in an increasing rate of lynchings and imprisonment of gay people in Africa. I once watched Dario Fo (the Italian Nobel Laureate) doing a skit kicking the pope in his rear, before a shocked audience in an auditorium of the Law Department at Yale University. His antics caused the Italians to distance themselves from the Vatican and its control of Italian legislation (divorce was not allowed by Italian law–not anymore!).
If satire and ridicule offends you, you should investigate your beliefs–there is a big certainty that your beliefs are completely loopy.
By the way, I’m looking for cartoons that would send me, an atheist, vomiting to the toilet. Any examples?
“By the way, I’m looking for cartoons that would send me, an atheist, vomiting to the toilet.”
Maybe Jack Chick tracts, if you don’t die laughing…
The Book of Dreams, on the other hand…
But that makes the point. Jack Chick tracts are hateful and bigoted, and yet the targets of their bile are amused.
If you are secure in yourself, you cannot be threatened. Even by discovery that you are wrong. Secure people are not threatened by correction.
Exactly so.
Douglas, it seems to me that you’re missing the whole point of the debate. Muslims certainly had the right to express their outrage over the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, vocally or in print and, as far as I know, no one is questioning their right to do so. Similarly, others have the right to express their outrage over Donohue’s comments, vocally or in print. Criticism is not the same as suppressing free speech. The line that’s being drawn here is at murdering your critics.
Nicholas said, “Bill Donohue has helped motivate moderate Muslims to take up their challenge. For that reason, he has done the world a great service.”
Now, Nicholas, as you asked Greg, are you looking at this “calmly and rationally?”
Bzzzt. Donohue further argued that people who publish blasphemy are responsible for their own murders.
If you don’t find that unreasonable, I don’t know what else to say.
Cite, please. Who is arguing Donohue has no right to say these things? As far as I can tell, criticisms of Donohue consist of pointing out that he’s victim-blaming, supporting censorship in the case of blasphemy, and that both positions are fairly despicable (with the second running counter to the first amendment). Which they are.
‘He also noted, inarguably, that though such insults may be legal, they are morally objectionable because they gratuitously belittle the deeply held beliefs of others’
Very few things are ‘inarguable,’ and this assertion isn’t one of them. One can take Charlie Hebdo’s journalism as offensive but not ‘morally objectionable.’ I am quite offended by the insults toward atheism in general and mine in particular, yet there is nothing immoral about such speech-acts in themselves. Ad hominem hurst, to be sure, but is to be answered in kind or forborne. When words or images are backed with physical force, of course, it’s a much different matter. Nor is what satirists like Charlie Hebdo’s do in words and images ‘gratuitous:’ rather, they make points with sharp-pointed pencils. And it matters not a jot whether the beliefs they ridicule are held by one human or billions.
‘hurts,’ that is. sorry
Yes. Further, whenever I see the “deeply held beliefs” argument, I bristle. A belief being “deeply held” shouldn’t make it immune from criticism. Few consider the “deeply held beliefs” of white supremacists, anti-semites, racists or NAMBLA to be immune from criticism, so why is a belief involving the supernatural any different?
Or even a deeply held belief that zygotes deserve constitutional protection, eg Hobby Lobby.
I find it interesting to note that people who denounce the characterization of the violence of radical Muslims as typical claim that the extremists “…do not speak for all Muslims…” yet claim that “all Muslims” are offended by the same things that set off the attacks. Surely there must be some Muslims who are not mortally offended
by having their religion mocked, but either it’s to trivial a thing for them or they’re too scared to say anything.
“…denouncing his exercise of free speech…”
No. Denouncing the content of that speech.
What you attribute to Donohue is a gross over-statement.
“He also noted, inarguably, that though such insults may be legal, they are morally objectionable because they gratuitously belittle the deeply held beliefs of others.”
Just inserting the word “inarguably” does not make it so. Your assertion is at the very least questionable. Inarguably.
sub
bus
bub.
Beelze…?
b&
I think he was attempting to type “bubble” when it popped.
Je suis Charlie.
And, also, oh-by-the-way, they just happen to be my type of people.
b&
The fact that David Brooks n’est pas Charlie only proves we are in the better company.
I remember from long ago, when I still watched TV, that he used to be a Friday night regular on the MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour. I can’t remember, though, if he was Tweedledum or Tweedledumerer.
b&
Definitely the latter: the so-called-liberal from Massachusetts was the less-dumb one, though not by much.
You mean Mark Shields?? I beg to differ with my esteemed fellow-Californian. I don’t think that either Mark Shields OR David Brooks is remotely dumb, despite Mark’s being a Catholic. And Brooks is generally very reasonable for a conservative.
Seconded.
Fair enough. Dumb is not the right word. Liberal punditry à la PBS & NPR is too watered-down and “reasonable” for my taste (though I’m sure Mr. Shields sounds like a raving Marxist to half the country), and Brooks says a lot of stuff that I think is wrong wrong wrong – but you are right, “dumb” is a bad rap.
Yeah, perhaps sometimes too lily-livered, but no-way dumb.
He has to navigate carefully so as not to offend corporate sponsors.
He is not dumb – but he’s out of his depth most of the time.
Mark Sheilds is a decent debater in clashes with the PBS candidate of the right. He went through quite a few opponents on the Nightly News over the years. I almost always agree with him.
Je suis Charlie.
You can put it on my tombstone.
You’re such a flirt, trying to inflame the passions of the Islamists!
b&
Good idea Torbjörn. Now, with desktop printing, you can easily make your own tombstone.
I would be happy to make Torbjörn a runic memorial! Provided it is limestone… (I was a stonemason in a former life, & in another I studied runology…)
You studied Ancient Runes – at Hogwarts?
Sub
I just had the misfortune of reading a piece entitled “As a muslim, I’m fed up with the hypocrisy of free speech fundamentalists.” by someone named Mehdi Hasan who is the political director of Huff Po UK. He gets just about everything wrong and shows his complete ignorance of the message CH is conveying. He even uses the “they drew a cartoon of a French polititian as a monkey” trope.
Well, Mr Hasan, I’m happy to be called a “Free speach fundamentalist.
Soy Charie.
(Sorry, couldn’t link for some reason.)
I think this may be what you refer to.
It is a pathetic bit of apologetic drivel.
Just what you’d expect from Hasan. He’s called for censorship of journalists in the past if they criticize Islam.
He has also called non-Muslims “cattle” and “people of no intelligence”.
This is the link and the comments section is worth a read through, they’re mostly more intelligent.
That person offends me but I won’t kill him.
Exactly!
The mourning is over and the daily routine is back.
The new edition of CH shows Muhammad and so the Imans and muslim leaders around the world explain, that the prophet and all Muslims over have been insulted once more.
No hypocrisis anymore, but plain honesty. They show their true face again.
Je suis Charlie.
Charlie ne fait pas du surf.
Excellent!!
Non, Charlie ne surf jamais;-)
Not sure how you get the ungrammatical Charlie don’t surf into français…
I had the same thought but went with my high school textbook Français anyway since that’s all of got (plus, whatever Google Translate can feed me).
here are some links (in German only, sorry):
http://www.freenet.de/nachrichten/topnews/tuerkei-sperrt-internetseiten-mit-mohammedkarikatur_4694326_533312.html
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/charlie-hebdo-titelbild-mit-mohammed-veraergert-muslime-a-1013008.html
http://www.stern.de/politik/ausland/-newsticker-zum-terror-in-frankreich-belgische-kioskbesitzer-erhalten-drohbriefe-tuerkei-verbietet-charlie-hebdo-titelbild-2166154.html
Neither CNN nor NYT will publish images of Muhammad, but both link to the new Charlie Hebdo cover. CNN and NYT are struggling to appear as protecting the feelings of their more sensitive readers and viewers. They give the appearance of shielding Muslims from offensive material, but then they direct the more sinful readers and viewers like me to click a link. Should I feel shame? It sort of reminds me of the old video stores that had a back room with a beaded curtain entrance to the smut. CNN and NYT are afraid to offend, but I have to wonder if moderate and extremist Muslims will forgive them for linking the offending image on the new Charlie Hebdo cover.
Oh, they are both fine offending. They offend me, as an atheist, all the time with their religion-pandering.
But we’re not a threat to them. Atheists aren’t likely to bomb their offices.
The NYT excuse was far more venal than ‘afraid of bombing.’ The exec. went out of his way to say that he’d discussed the danger with many employees and they were all in favor of republishing the cartoons and taking the risk…but that he chose not to because it might offend some of their muslim readers.
So there was no safety concern here; just a concern for market share/ratings/distribution.
Oh, I know that this “no offense” is what the NYTimes excuse is. But I don’t believe it because they have no trouble offending other less violent groups.
Violence doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it. They have no trouble offending less violent groups because they don’t think that will affect their sales as much as offending muslims will.
And why would that be? I suspect they have far more atheist readers than Muslim ones. But they don’t worry much about offending them.
Maybe they don’t cancel their supscriptions when they get offended. Squeaky wheels get the oil.
I’m mostly okay with that. For example, I’m very thankful when bloggers and webpage writers (ahem) present NSFW material in a separate link or ‘below the fold.’ And like Jerry, I sometimes get annoyed when people post whole pics instead of links. As long as you make it really easy for me to get to the subject/image/thing you are covering, you have, in a pragmatic sense, covered it.
Don’t get me wrong; I think it’s ethically praiseworthy when people republish the CH covers. I’m especially impressed with the Jesuits who republished CH’s anti-Catholic covers as a sign that when they support freedom of the press, they mean even the press against themselves. But if someone includes a link to the covers, well, that’s pretty fine by me too.
What bothers me most is that The New York Times executive editor, Dean Baquet, seemed to wash his hands of the offending image and instead pass it on to other news sources to publish. Baquet says the decision was his alone. The primary reason for providing the link was to avoid offending. It seems to me that Baquet shirked responsibility and passed an image that was not “fit to print” to other sites and yet NTY is considered and wishes to remain the “newspaper of record.”
The NYT explanation for why they didn’t publish bothers me too. I didn’t know they had linked to the cartoon before, but now that I know that, I have to say that okay action done for the wrong reason gets them no partial credit.
Nicholas @2
That is not the least bit ‘inarguable’. I argue that satire of deeply held beliefs is not morally objectionable at all. Sometimes satire is the best way to make people realize the ridiculous beliefs they may hold.
I can make a valid and moral decision to satire Scientology, Astrology, or ‘Dr’ Mercola all I want, or even Catholicism. It isn’t gratuitously, as I have a valid moral reason to do so.
You can satire Pagans, Wiccans, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, all you want. I would hope the only method people would use to silence you is the strength of their arguments, and not a call for others to enforce silence upon you by force, legal or physical.
Perhaps, Nicholas, you should review history and the satire used by such stalwarts as Ben Franklin. Then please attempt to argue that satire of deeply held beliefs is morally objectionable with objective facts (not ‘but I feel insulted’). I, myself, will be on the side of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the US forefathers as written in the US Constitution and 1st Amendment.
You will be on the side of theocrats and dictators.
Isn’t satirizing the FSM a meta-satire?
Indeed it is.
Still possible and morally acceptable. It may not be effective however.
France, passed a law – the Gayssot Act- making it illegal to question the Holocaust. Yet, France ruled that to extend the Gayssot Act to the Armenian Genocide is unconstitutional because it would violate freedom of speech.
So, we’re all about freedom of speech…except when we’re not.
There’s an estimated one million Turks or people of Turkish decent living in France, with an estimated 20,000 immigrants arriving each year. Of course, they have a big “problem” with anyone claiming that there was an “Armenian holocaust” (although it was well documented). Some have twisted it so far as to claim that it was the Armenians who were committing genocide on the Turks!
Since this is the last post on the subject, here’s an oldie but a goodie: the Onion’s perspective on defense of free speech. Spoiler: text has some profanity.
LOL – SOME profanity??
very funny;-)
I’m so done with Charlie.
What’s the point?
I’m so done with people who make a point of pointing out what’s the point.
I’m so done with people who complain about being so done about something that’s pointless.
Good for you BillyJoe. 🙂
Seems the Middle East is angry at the latest CH cartoon.
A lawyer in Turkey is quoted as saying,
Oh well, CH didn’t stop even though they were attacked. You can’t stop the signal!
In a way, I’m glad to see that reaction.
The Islamic world is showing its true colors in a way that is going to make its barbarity undeniable to nearly everybody in the West.
Charlie Hebdo just forgave Islam for murdering a dozen of their family, and the Islamic world is responding with outrage and more threats of violence.
I hope this will cause more Westerners to not only realize that Islam is beyond the pale, but to publicly say so and hopefully shame more Muslims into rejecting their hateful superstition and embracing the peace of civilization.
b&
“The Islamic world is showing its true colors”.
Dispiriting phone-in on BBC. Every muslim caller (all born in the UK) had a similar viewpoint. “The deaths are regrettable but they brought it on themselves”
At least Jihadist Joe is back on twitter.
Well said, Ben!
As I mentioned in a reply to comment #2, the same person who claims to be speaking for “billions of Muslims” (the real number is 1.8 billion – it’s not plural yet) object to the radicals as acting on behalf of the whole.
A Turkish court also just outlawed the comic’s latest cover. At the same time, one of the main Turkish papers published excerpts from the magazine (not the cover, but evidently some of the inside pages they did publish had tiny pics of the cover in different contexts; probably like the Jesus n’ Mo cartoon where figures are reading it) and an editorial saying they saw nothing wrong with the “all is forgiven” message. They got death threats for that.
I’m glad the Turkish journalists get it. Sounds like the courts and many of the populace don’t.
This is nothing unusual. Muslims are the main victims of Islam.
The Daily Cartoonist has posted a downloadable .pdf document version of the current issue of Charlie. I don’t speak or read French, so trying to read it won’t do me much good. However, those of you who do might appreciate a chance to score a copy.
Hard copies of the magazine have, according to the site, have hit as high as US$400.00 on ebay, and that new subscriptions being sold on Amazon probably won’t include the current issue.
There’s an intemperate but passionate denunciation of the CH grave-pissers by John Dolan, who suggests Anglo hatred of the French played a part:
http://pando.com/2015/01/13/charlie-hebdo-unmournable-frenchies/
Kenan Malik, one of the sanest political commentators on the planet, also wrote an excellent response to the attacks:
https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2015/01/08/je-suis-charlie-its-a-bit-late/
It’s an immense relief to hear of the vindication of Charlie Hebdo’s staff. Knowledge of their cartoons’ context will help disarm those who try to commit posthumous character assassination.
Well first, Je suis Charlie.
But in a sense Brooks is right: the Charlie cartoonists were (and are) braver then most of us, myself included. I have Mohammed images up as my avatar on a site I frequent, and have mailed them to friends etc, etc. I posted the cover with part of the Gettysburg address as commentary. But the chances I will be singled out are small. For Luz, not so small. It’s boasting to say “Je suis Charlie”, but I will live with the immodesty to make a point. J’aspire à être Charlie.
I personally find the Charlie Hebdo cartoons rather unfunny, in very bad taste bordering on vulgar, not to mention quite awful esthetically. There is no doubt in my mind that they can be considered offensive.
It doesn’t make a bit of a difference.
Je suis Charlie.
So, my goal in life was to put an end to PZ Myers.
There was no back-up or no support.
Thank you, guys.
This may be the last post on the CH murders, but it seems that a new wave of self censorship is on the way. The Telegraph is reporting that ‘The Oxford University Press has warned its writers not to mention pigs, sausages or pork-related words in children’s books, in an apparent bid to avoid offending Jews and Muslims.’ Completely ludicrous.
I suppose every cloud has a silver lining – no more parables about the prodigal son or the Gaderene swine.
Here is what the pope had to say about it:
“You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith,” Pope Francis said during a Jan. 15 press conference held en-route to the Philippines. If you do, he said, you “can expect a punch.”
Source: catholicnewsagency.com
Pretty disgusting.
Jon Stewart had a spot on the Poop’s visit to the Phillipines necessitating the cops wearing diapers because of their long shifts…
I love this. Looked up/clicked the Ward Churchill link. Zug. That thing.
A word we should start using about the jihadist and sharia movement is “feudal”. Government enforcing religiously founded rules about how you live and how you interact, with lots of executions,torture and mutilations (thieves hands cut off) is something we’ve had in European “culture”. But we stopped doing it. These things in Muslim countries are part of the *social* system, as much as they’re part of religion. We can have any opinion we want about other people’s social systems. We always do. Doing so is intrinsic to the idea of human rights.
The idea others religion is absolutely off limits for comment is part of European et al society where religion is personal and does not decree social rules. The Christian Right tries to. And we all trash them for it!
So we should criticize feudal societies,even when they claim the feudalism is part of a religion.
Beautifully, beautifully stated! Should be widely disseminated.