I’m with you on this. Nothing could possibly justify the shooting rampage, needless to say. But satire is a tricky business. It has a very different flavor when directed against the powerful in a society as opposed to when it is directed against the powerless. In the latter case, it comes across as dumb mockery or bullying. I don’t think Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons are identical to the racist portrayals of Obama, but there is certainly an analogy.
As I said: No one believes the short skirt provokes a rape. The feign that in order to defend a football player or good ole’ boy. It’s an excuse. No one believes it though.
Is the person saying there is no “right” to satirize?
Having Sambo cartoons of Obama would be protected speech. It still would be open to criticism.
Not knowing much at all about the magazine here (helpful piece), I can’t say much about the quality of its satire.
Religion is open to criticism and satire. There are various ways to do that. Good intentions done badly can be counterproductive. That seems to be the point of a few comments here.
I think the leadership of the Islamic nations that took those actions against Norway and Denmark works within that value set, yes. And I think that it is at the leadership of those nations - at least in part - that such satire was aimed.
More, I think that it is important to engage in that sort of satire, to stand up and say ‘I’m not afraid of your threats’. Terrorists, by definition, seek to sow terror. If your response to their attempts is to mock them, then they have failed. If your response is to back off from ‘provocation’ or ‘inflammatory speech’, then they have succeeded.
The editor and staff of Charlie Hebdo chose not to let them succeed. They showed, and continue to show, no signs of not accepting ‘that part of it’. They’d been firebombed already, and did not stop. Clearly, they felt it worth the risk.
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I would say violence is counter productive to religion.
It’s very easy to defend the right to engage in inoffensive speech. But if offensive expression isn’t given equal protection, there is no real freedom of speech.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying I don’t much care what Charlie Hebdo published. Nothing they could print could justify mass murder.
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Below is an ethnically, culturally, religiously, philosophically and politically correct cartoon which, one hopes, will not offend anyone… And so THIS is obviously the way to go so that all’s right with the world.
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Hope you enjoyed it.
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Depends.
Incitement to riot, incitement to commit mass murder… that can arguably be constricted legally (and if need be through counterforce).
Free speech is not an absolute… even here in the United States the 1st amendment doesn’t exempt one for the impact the clichéd example of screaming fire in a movie theatre causes.
Going even further, oes broadcasting in a radio program to lead the Hutu to begin a genocide against their Tusi countrymen fall within a “free speech” argument/protection?
It doesn’t depend at all. My point is that regardless of what you publish, no one has the right to murder you for those words.
I agree entirely.
What I was positing earlier is that when these religious extremists resort to violence, it is actually counterproductive to their goals of “defending” their faith, not that satire (however crude, etc) is counterproductive to popping the gas-bag ballon that somehow region is sacrosanct (pun noted) from mocking, satirization, etc.
As horrific as these attacks and death are, they validate exactly the problem of religion being somehow “above” criticism.
I posit that this attack should only serve to increase the effort to mock and “attack” such religious convictions. To put it more simply…
If you have to kill someone to advance your religious belief… your belief sucks and is utterly bankrupt.
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In the spirit of “what you need to know…”
Islam is a political ideology/movement as well as a religion. From the very beginning and ever since it has played a kind of shell game: it emphasized its religiosity when it wanted to advance itself politically, and it used politics (coercive force) when it wanted to advance itself religiously.
In the west, the founders of Religions are generally respected and usually revered even if they are not religions widely practiced in the west. But in the west, politicians and political movements are and must be lampooned. The system of politics, cutting politicians and their movements down to size does not work without it. Muslims wonder how we can have democracy and peaceful handover of power, this is one of the institutions that frames our systems and allows for all of that.
This is another case of political Islam using the religiosity of Mohammed to advance itself politically. Note the Iman in France, as a religious leader, but not political, called the killed journalist “martyrs for liberty.” - A case where a religious Islam disavows the political Islam.
The political side of Islam should not be dismissed or underestimated. The Islamic calendar, for instance, does not begin with Mohammed’s birth, or the date of his first revelations, but instead the date when he moved to Medina, which is when Mohammed ascended to political power and Islam began to grow as a result.
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Any religion so fragile that it cannot survive ridicule does not deserve to survive.
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Define ‘counterproductive’?
I mean, it sounds crass, and callous, and heartless to say it, but if the satire continues, then it was the attackers whose efforts were counterproductive: they will have demonstrated that violence does not achieve their goals.
To be blunt, nobody sane wants to be a martyr. I doubt conscientious objectors really wanted to go to jail for avoiding the Vietnam draft. I doubt people wanted to be attacked by dogs, hit with firehoses, beaten, and arrested in the 60s. I doubt people wanted to be beaten, abused, or cut down en masse during the push for Indian independence. But they faced that, and endured it, and the willingness of people to endure that abuse and keep pushing for The Cause (though obviously, not in individual cases where such activities would’ve been posthumous) in the face of that hardship only served to make the message stronger, and the justness of their cause more evident.
Adhering to one’s principles comes at a cost. Richard seems to think the folks at Charlie Hebdo were blithely unaware of it. Considering the previous attack that didn’t dissuade them, I kinda think they knew exactly what might happen, and chose their principles over their comfort.
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Poke a hornet’s nest. Get stung by hornets. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself. You can say the hornets are wrong for reacting like that to being poked, or you can say it’s our right to poke hornets. But regardless, you still shouldn’t poke a hornet’s nest because you’ll get stung.
I have the right to insult anyone. That doesn’t mean I should do it, or act surprised when they react badly to being insulted. That’s why the main thing you should do is treat people with respect and do the right thing. Not because they’re threatening you, but because it’s how you want people to treat you. How is that so difficult? Anyone can be enraged to attack you if you provoke them enough. Doesn’t mean you should do it. The desire to do the things we’re told not to do is supposed to wane as we mature. That’s obviously not the case with everyone.
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This is why separation of church and state is a must. And why the attempts to mix and conflate them by Christians, Muslims, Jews (or any other religious peoples) must be derailed.
The Koran says it’s wrong to kill? News to me…
Yep, the “pokers” (the Islamic terrorist) are certainly poking a hornets nest. They are doing more harm to their religion than any cartoon ever could. This attacks expose the utter bankruptcy of these religious freaks.
Yes.
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If one would – like a hornet – mindlessly carry out an act of violence as retribution for a provocation, then the greatest insult one receives is self-inflicted. People have the option to choose how they react to this kind of thing. I believe the concept of agency is highly mythologized and overinflated, and yet, there is no frame in which I would say that someone does not have the choice to respond.