Charlie Hebdo attack, Paris, FR

Well both.

I find their lawyers complaints that Roussel's comments were venomous, as though they were wholly inappropriate to be ironic. And blaming Nouvel Obs for publishing the opinion piece because it was written so soon after the attack.

He represented a small paper which allegedly lived for freedom of expression and freedom of speech. But he complains that one of the paper's founding members found Charb's behaviour and leadership to have led the staff to their deaths, by continually pushing a particular line, to be something that should not be said.

Yet the paper itself had no issue in posting images that were just as equally offensive about Muslims in general.

It reeked of 'we are for freedom of speech, but just do not criticise us, because that is poor form'.

And the issue with Maurice Sinet is an other example of hypocrisy from Charlie Hebdo.

Glenn Greenwald wrote a very thought provoking piece on the hypocrisy and the double standard surrounding Charlie Hebdo and free speech in general in the West. One line that stood out was:

Defending free speech is always easy when you like the content of the ideas being targeted, or aren’t part of (or actively dislike) the group being maligned.​

Maurice Sinet was charged with anti-semitism for his satire in Charlie Hebdo, because he joked that Jean Sarkozy was converting to Judaism to advance his career and financial prospects when he married a Jewish heiress. He was also fired for his anti-semitism. Yet grossly offensive cartoons about Muslims, not just Mohammed, but Muslims and at times even Muslim victims of Islamic radicals was deemed acceptable? For example, Greenwald notes:

Some of the cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo were not just offensive but bigoted, such as the one mocking the African sex slaves of Boko Haram as welfare queens (left). Others went far beyond maligning violence by extremists acting in the name of Islam, or even merely depicting Mohammed with degrading imagery (above, right), and instead contained a stream of mockery toward Muslims generally, who in France are not remotely powerful but are largely a marginalized and targeted immigrant population.

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This level of bigoted opinions is acceptable. That was the cartoon that depicted women and girls who had been kidnapped by Boko Haram and held as sex slaves. And these women were depicted as being welfare queens because that is the racist ideology often spouted by racists.. That black women are welfare queens. And here they were depicting women who are victims of Islamic terrorism as being welfare queens because they are black.

And yet, a cartoon depicting a non-Jewish son of a former President converting to Judaism when he married so that it helped boost his career and financial prospects (buying into the anti-semitic stereotypes of Jews) saw Sinet fired and charged with anti-semitism. That was not acceptable. That pushed beyond the line of acceptability. But an overtly racist cartoon about even victims of Islamic terrorism? Well, that is acceptable, isn't it? And so were the others.

In fact, people crawled out of all the woodwork demanding that it be respected and how we should support it. As Greenwald notes, the reason for that is because the target of Hebdo's attacks were Muslims and Islam.

To see how true that is, consider the fact that Charlie Hebdo – the “equal opportunity” offenders and defenders of all types of offensive speech –fired one of their writers in 2009 for writing a sentence some said was anti-Semitic (the writer was then charged with a hate crime offense, and won a judgment against the magazine for unfair termination). Does that sound like “equal opportunity” offending?

Nor is it the case that threatening violence in response to offensive ideas is the exclusive province of extremists claiming to act in the name of Islam. Terrence McNally’s 1998 play “Corpus Christi,” depicting Jesus as gay, wasrepeatedly cancelled by theaters due to bomb threats. Larry Flynt wasparalyzed by an evangelical white supremacist who objected to Hustler‘s pornographic depiction of inter-racial couples. The Dixie Chicks weredeluged with death threats and needed massive security after they publicly criticized George Bush for the Iraq War, which finally forced them to apologize out of fear. Violence spurred by Jewish and Christian fanaticism is legion, from abortion doctors being murdered to gay bars being bombed to a 45-year-old brutal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza due in part to the religious belief (common in both the U.S. and Israel) that God decreed they shall own all the land. And that’s all independent of the systematic state violence in the west sustained, at least in part, by religioussectarianism.

The New York Times‘ David Brooks today claims that anti-Christian bias is so widespread in America – which has never elected a non-Christian president – that “the University of Illinois fired a professor who taught the Roman Catholic view on homosexuality.” He forgot to mention that the very same university just terminated its tenure contract with Professor Steven Salaita over tweets he posted during the Israeli attack on Gaza that the university judged to be excessively vituperative of Jewish leaders, and that the journalist Chris Hedges was just disinvited to speak at the University of Pennsylvania for the Thought Crime of drawing similarities between Israel and ISIS.

That is a real taboo – a repressed idea – as powerful and absolute as any in the United States, so much so that Brooks won’t even acknowledge its existence. It’s certainly more of a taboo in the U.S. than criticizing Muslims and Islam, criticism which is so frequently heard in mainstream circles –including the U.S. Congress – that one barely notices it any more.​

I would say the double standards apply through so many layers.

Which is why I find Charlie Hebdo's lawyers complaining about the audacity of someone criticising one of the dead for his role in the lead up to what happened, to be ironic and hypocritical. Richard Malka should come to accept that Charb's argument about Muslims apply equally to Charlie Hebdo. Charlie Hebdo was not sacred to everyone and it and its previous editor is open to criticism like everything and everyone else. If it was good for Mohammed, then it should also be good for Charb.

 

Don't get me wrong, some of their cartoons were insightful and funny. But some were downright disgusting, like the overtly racist cover they did about the girls who were kidnapped and sold into slavery by the radical Islamic group. The commentary that they were welfare queens went directly to their race.

My point is that they threw so many stones and offended others so broadly, that they should not complain when their own delicate sensibilities are offended. After all, this is free speech and freedom of expression. Their lawyers complaints about what Roussel said and to express anger and disgust that another paper gave Roussel the voice to express his opinion on the matter is as though he wanted Roussel's voice to be silenced, because it was too offensive to speak badly of the dead.

They cannot keep harping on about freedom of expression and then demand and expect that others be silenced because what those others are saying are expressing an opinion that offends them. Hence why Greenwald's comments were so apt:

Defending free speech is always easy when you like the content of the ideas being targeted, or aren’t part of (or actively dislike) the group being maligned.​

Charlie Hebdo was all about defending free speech. Supposedly. But they were all about free speech when it supported their ideals and when it maligned a group they loved to malign. They did not support free speech when what was being said was not to their liking or when it maligned them. If no one is sacred in satire and freedom of expression, then that includes them and those who just died.

It should be noted that free speech and freedom of expression goes both ways.

And it may have just placed them in a very uncomfortable position. The French Government has a history of curbing freedom of expression and even free speech. From shutting down newspapers (like Charlie Hebdo's predecessor for speaking badly of a dead President), to even curbing the right of dressing as one wants to dress. But this latest issue and horrific crime has opened up a lot of cans of worms. And it has also raised a lot of questions in Europe. If we are all Charlie, if we are all about freedom to express our opinions, then when is it going too far? And the far right groups are trying to use it to their advantage in their racist and bigoted ideology being marched all around Europe. It also raises the questions discussed by Greenwald. In the last week, the leader of one very far right political group in Germany, PEGIDA, stood down after an image of him doing an expression of Hitler was leaked to the media after he posted it and disgusting comments about refugees on facebook.

Lutz Bachmann apologised for Facebook comments he made in which he reportedly called refugees "animals" and "scumbags".

He did not mention the photo of him with Hitler-style hair and moustache.​

But here is the kicker.. A spokesperson for PEGIDA responded and declared that the photo was a "joke" and "satire, which is every citizen's right".

It does not even need to be mentioned that the very notion of a far right political group supposedly joking about Hitler in Germany is not a prospect that many Germans find funny. Especially when he titled the photo with "I'm back".

And this isn't the first time the now former PEGIDA leader courted this type of controversy. He also once posted a photo of the KKK with a slogan "Three Ks a day keeps the minorities away."..

But their defense that this is satire and every one's right is an interesting one. Should it be? That is a question that Europe will have to find the answer to very very quickly.

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To the poster who just tried to flame this thread (not you CK), be wary. I am not in the mood for bullshit. And learn to read. I did not say they were to blame for what happened to them. Far from it. What I did say is that their attempts to curb freedom of expression and free speech of the press because it maligned them is hypocritical when they were always so quick to malign others. The point the poster clearly missed is that such freedom of expression and free speech in the press goes both ways. They should not try to curb free speech and freedom of expression because it offends them. "Je suis Charlie" is about freedom of expression. Not about freedom of expression for only when you say what I want to hear. Sometimes such freedom of expression in the press will say things people do not want to hear or that offends them. Hence the irony of their complaint that another paper printed a letter that criticised Charb's managing of the paper and that did lay the blame on him for having forced the staff to go too far repeatedly.

 

GeoffP

Since you have clearly wanted our ban from talking to each other be lifted if your repeated barbs in a bid to attract attention and now directly responding to me, is anything to go by..

You clearly did not understand what I said.

I was posting what and how the media are addressing this issue.

Why should Charlie Hebdo be immune from criticism from others? Was Roussel's comments in poor taste? Certainly. But it needs to be said that Hebdo made their money off poor taste. So should they be complaining that a founding member offended them?

Should they be suggesting that no paper should publish criticisms of Hebdo in light of what happened? Freedom of expression goes both ways. If they see no fault in offending the delicate sensibilities of others, then they should see and find no fault in others offending their delicate sensibilities and offering their opinions.

I do not agree with Roussel's commentary. No one should be killed for expressing an opinion. Did Charb push the line and push his staff to push that line to be overtly offensive? Certainly. I do not believe that it justifies or excuses what happened to them, nor do I believe he is to blame for what happened. Roussel seems to believe it does and blames Charb for what happened. The question here is whether Roussel should be allowed to express those opinions in the media? Does freedom of expression stretch that far? Hebdo's long time lawyer found Roussel's comments to be offensive and was angry that someone had given him the right and an ability to express such an opinion in the media. Charlie Hebdo's whole existence was based around saying what people dared not say, wasn't it?

I think he is right to his opinion as much as Charb was right to his opinions about Islamic fundamentalism and religion in general. Both are freedom of expression.

France and Europe in general will have to struggle with the question of what amounts to going too far. Many of Hebdo's comments and comics were racist, bigoted, anti-semitic, sexist. But when is it going too far? Was it going too far to attack girls who were kidnapped and held as sex slaves by declaring them to be welfare queens because they are black? That was allowed. Was it going too far to portray a Jew giving a Nazi SS soldier a deep open mouth kiss in its commentary against homophobia? That was allowed. Was it too far to portray Catholic cardinals giving each other anal sex in a daisy chain? That was allowed. Was it going too far to portray a naked Mohammed with a star shining out of his backside and liquid of some sort dripping from his penis? That was allowed. All of this was deemed and fought for under the guise of freedom of expression. Yet they are complaining when a founding member blamed one of their own for what happened in light of the violent responses they had been getting? That that should not be allowed?

Roussel believes Charb shares the blame. I think his opinion is abhorrent personally. I think blaming him for what happened is a low and disgusting act that provides an excuse to those who seek to murder. But the question remains, should he be allowed to express that opinion?

Charlie Hebdo do not think so. Which makes it all a bit hypocritical, don't you think?

So what things should not be said? What things should be sacred and protected?

If black children being kidnapped and held as sex slaves is not sacred, why should opinions about Charb be sacred and protected? Are both not victims? Charb had no issue in attacking the victims of what is still a horrific assault on basic human rights and dignity. Why should Charb now be held as sacred and not criticised by those who wish to criticise him? Why is one acceptable and the other is not? Which is why I find Hebdo's lawyers to be somewhat hypocritical. If nothing was sacred before under the guise of freedom of expression, why are things suddenly sacred now. Hence why Greenwald's comment was so pertinent.

As I said, this is something Europe will have to wrestle with as it fights Islamic terrorism and far right groups that are seeking to turn Europe into a whites only enclave. The far right are already trying to capitalise on this new found freedom of expression to hide their racist and violent ideology across Europe. Jews, Muslims and non-whites will suffer for it. Hence why this is something Europe will have to face sooner rather than later.

Now, I would suggest you stick to our agreement and 1) stop speaking to me, 2) stop with the barbs and attempts to flame by directly misrepresenting what I have said.