Attempts to Explain the Charlie Hebdo Attack Are Reductive

Here is an interesting article:

http://www.alternet.org/world/all-attempts-explain-charlie-hebdo-attack-are-reductive


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Akkarin wrote: Muslims do not form a monolithic community; nor does their religion define their politics – indeed they are the people most likely to be killed by Islamic extremists.

If muhammad came back...
-I'm the prophet, loonie!
-Shut up, infidel!

Here's an except from Return of Kings, written by the infamous Roosh V:

"1. Prime Minister of England David Cameron said he will “never give up” on the value of free speech.

We stand absolutely united with the French people against terrorism and against this threat to our values – free speech, the rule of law, democracy. It’s absolutely essential we defend those values today and every day.

Free speech? He’s leader of a country where citizens have been jailed on multiple occasions for making “racist” comments online and where one man went to jail on “‘suspicion” of “racial harassment.” They will soon prolong the penalty for being an “internet troll” to two years from six months. That doesn’t sound like free speech to me.

2. German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a statement.

This abhorrent act is not just an attack on the life of French citizens and the internal security of France. It also represents an attack on freedom of opinion and of the press, a core element of our free and democratic culture.”

Freedom of opinion? Her remarks come not even two days after she attacked anti-immigration protesters in Germany as being “xenophobic” and having “hatred in their hearts.” The German police blocked the protesters from their planned route in Cologne while allowing pro-immigration protesters through. And isn’t Germany a country where you can go to jail for disputing the official World War 2 story? That doesn’t sound like freedom of opinion to me.

3. President Barack Obama made his statement.

The fact that this was an attack on journalists, attack on our free press, also underscores the degree to which these terrorists fear freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Freedom of the press? He leads an administration that wants to jail reporter James Risen while labeling another journalist as “co-conspirator.” The New York Times, a pro-Obama mouthpiece, declared that his administration “has prosecuted more whistle-blowers for leaks and gone after more journalists than any of its predecessors” and a report by the Committee To Protect Journalists stated that Obama “has instead presided over an unprecedented campaign to contain leaks and to control media coverage of government operations.” That doesn’t sound like freedom of the press to me."

Star Forge - while I agree that there is hypocrisy evident in each of the statements you have chosen to highlight, I also believe you are guilty of the very same reductive attempts to explain a very complex issue that is evident in the original post.

One cannot take an individual quote out of context, or three, for that matter, and then use them as evidence in a wider and much more complex conversation. That is reductive. To imply that these world leaders are against free speech and free press based on single quotes and exceptional examples of action taken by law enforcement without direct involvement of these said leaders is not only incorrect, but irresponsible.

The entire point of this thread is to illustrate that all of these issues are far too complex to reduce them to a single sound byte and then point fingers or place blame. There is no "good" and "evil" here. There is no "freedom" either. There is just a murky mess of humanity that has no easy answer.

Senan wrote: Star Forge - while I agree that there is hypocrisy evident in each of the statements you have chosen to highlight, I also believe you are guilty of the very same reductive attempts to explain a very complex issue that is evident in the original post.

One cannot take an individual quote out of context, or three, for that matter, and then use them as evidence in a wider and much more complex conversation. That is reductive. To imply that these world leaders are against free speech and free press based on single quotes and exceptional examples of action taken by law enforcement without direct involvement of these said leaders is not only incorrect, but irresponsible.

The entire point of this thread is to illustrate that all of these issues are far too complex to reduce them to a single sound byte and then point fingers or place blame. There is no "good" and "evil" here. There is no "freedom" either. There is just a murky mess of humanity that has no easy answer.

I get what you mean, but my post was more of a "side note," so no offense taken.

My feelings on the matter? I'm not informed enough to really have a say. I choose to remain ignorant on certain things. I don't watch or read news. Hell, I don't even have a TV, I don't use a computer as a substitute, and I haven't read a newspaper in a years.

From what I know of Islam- I explored Islam for a few years, and considered myself a Muslim for a good while. The problem westerners have in understanding Islam (and I say this as a white guy from the US who by no means is an authority on Islam) is that they don't know anything about it. Islam is as universal as Christianity. Even if we're not taking converts into account (for instance, a white Englishman or American who became Muslim), you will find that Islam is the majority religion in at least a few countries in every continent, aside from the Americas (and of course, Australia and Antarctica...). Most people aren't aware that it is the majority religion in three countries that are situated well within Europe- Albania, Kosovo, and Bosnia, and even more, if you count Turkey and the Caucasus as "Europe."

Islam, in terms of worship and practice, is much less varied than Christianity. It is a pretty iconoclastic religion. Go into a Mosque. The only decorations consist of floral and geometric patterns, as well as calligraphy. No icons, no human figures at all. Some Muslims do venerate relics, but there are other Muslims who oppose this. It's broader than Sunni or Shiite. Both of those contain a wide array of schools of jurisprudence that are often violently opposed to each other. How do you think a Wahhabi Muslim would feel about a relatively "moderate" Muslim from Turkey?

Who is a Muslim? A Saudi Sharia judge/scholar, or an Albanian who drinks enthusiastically?

If I was asked to explain this issue, I would say that Europe or "the West" is completely unprepared for Islam, and vice-versa.

In much of the West, religion is not truly a serious force. Even here in America, the "religious right's" power has waned considerably, for instance, the recent introduction of gay marriage in Alabama, and the failure of the religious right to stop it (yes, I know there's been a backlash and some protest, but they ultimately failed to stop it). In Europe, Christianity is pretty much dead, except for in the Orthodox countries, and a few remaining pockets of Catholicism, like Poland. Many Europeans (and Americans, for that matter) consider it an alien concept that anybody would take religion seriously. Christianity gets bashed left and right in the media and in public discourse, and there's not much response. There's been a few, very few, incidents of religiously motivated violence over abortion, but that too is a relic of a few decades ago. So, naturally, a troll/shocker publication like Charlie Hebdo would feel fairly secure in doing what they did.

Likewise, look at it from the Muslim perspective. The guys who did this reacted in a way that was natural to them (but by no means to all Muslims). I'm not justifying it, but there you have it. On a side note, there is a lot more religious tolerance in many Muslim countries that one might think (I lived for a few years in Malaysia as a non-Muslim and had far less issues than a gay man in the South during the Reagan years). In fact, the US-led usurpation of the Arab world in recent years ended much of this tolerance by directly or indirectly allowing folks like ISIS to rise up.

I believe in tolerance. I believe in freedom of religion. I believe in totally unrestricted free speech. But I also believe in responsibility. Let's take the issue of homosexuality, or "LGBT," as kids today are saying. I'm an Orthodox Christian. I don't think I need to explain what my religion has to say about it, and neither will I apologize for it. I go with it, because my faith is important to me, and I make no apologies. At the same time, gay marriage (or lack thereof) is not an issue for me. It doesn't bother me that people are gay. I demand respect for anybody who's not harming others. At the same time, I demand that others respect my beliefs. I don't want infiltrators to come in my church and try to change our doctrine (we have been good at staving this off, unlike protestants and Catholics). I don't want to be called a bigot or "homophobe" or any of that, as I am not pushing my religion on anybody, especially not the political sphere. And trust me, when I'm standing in Divine Liturgy, homosexuality is the last thing on my mind, and I can say the same for virtually all Orthodox believers.

What I see in the Charlie Hebdo incident is two equally intolerant philosophies. The philosophy of the killers is pretty apparent, but what about the people behind the publication? These are the same sort of people who would label me as a vile "homophobe" and bigot. "Tolerance" is all too often "my way (secular left-wing social values) or the highway." Remember that Charlie Hebdo fired an employee for anti-Semitism not too long ago.

Ultimately, I must defend the right of this publication, and others like it, to print stuff like this. I think that they were assholes, and were in a way asking for what was coming to them, but I must defend the right to free speech. Likewise, I demand that my right to free speech, free thought, and religion be respected.

There is a difference between "can" and "should." I believe they have the right to print what they did, but I also believe that they should not have. I support the right to bear arms as laid out in the US constitution, but I do not own 30 military-style rifles with thousands of rounds of ammunition, and leave them laying out in my living room floor with the door unlocked.

I support tolerance, and I also support responsibility.

The whole thing reminds me of the Satanic Verses, and so onto an interesting article by Christopher Hitchin's in 2009;

"Assassins of the Mind - When Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa on novelist Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses, it was the opening shot in a war on cultural freedom. Two decades later, the violence continues, and Muslim fundamentalists have gained a new advantage: media self-censorship."

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2009/02/hitchens200902

That doesn’t sound like freedom of the press to me

... but IMO, like freedom of the press should not be fatal for the writer - it also should not be fatal for the subject... and so in matters of operational security I can support a government having restrictions on press coverage where secrecy has some nature of real risk involved. I think those are very different issues, one of 'free expression of self opinion' versus 'free expression of someone elses private information'.

The only thing I really think its "where is Charlie ?" ... Loll
Yeah it make me think of this popular books I played when I was young.
What are they that dumb that they need to chip it... oh well
Me? I finish all the books... :whistle: