I don’t think Henri Roussel is suggesting Charlie or any publication has to tip toe around issues. Journalism can be aggressive without deliberately trying to offend. Its a fuzzy line that editors observe every day. Keeping that balance between aggressive and still fair journalism is difficult.
Pictures of Jesus don’t upset Christians. You know that. They are in every church. Muslims forbid any any pictures of Mohammad.
Insulting photos of Jesus would piss people off but nothing like it does Muslims to see any drawings of Mohammad .
And any depiction of a human being, and even animals. At what point do we say I’m sorry but your beliefs are yours, and we’re not going to sculpt reality to your liking?
I’ve got gigabytes of pics of my family, sheer blasphemy!
Fine if it makes you happy the cartoons aren’t racist. You won the thread.
Now, can we please get back on topic? A cofounder and writer for Charlie is saying the previous editor went too far. That they shouldn’t have just ignored the bombings.
Thats a valid point he’s making. People have to learn from mistakes so they aren’t repeated. Charlie needs to adjust course. Get back on the right side of the ethical line.
People on both sides of the “ethical line” shouldn’t be killed. Nazis marched in a Jewish suburb of Chicago and no one killed them, for example. The Klan still has marches, no one kills them. I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of Charlie Hebdo (from the little I’ve seen it’s not my cup of tea) but it isn’t as bad as the Klan or the Nazis, I can say that without a doubt. So, no, neither I, you, or terrorists get to be be the judge of what’s offensive and/or off limits. (to the extent they want to kill people) They are perfectly free to boycott, protest, object in a variety of ways. So, I disagree that “Charlie needs to adjust course.”
But where do you draw the line when dealing with religious fundies? You can’t print a drawing of an animal? Anyone somewhere is offended by something, I guess I’m asking you where is the line?
I agree with you many of the covers are trying to intentionally be offensive, I’m not even sure I support intentionally being offensive but do believe it should be legal 100%.
But at what point do you say I don’t care what offends you?
Exercising your right to free speech when it is in the form of mocking violent screwheads takes nads. Mocking non-violent people is easy. One question, though. What is gained by mocking the violent screw-heads?
I’m not sure either. Every paper’s owners and editors have to define how they cover news and what they feel is tasteful and acceptable.
For example, I really like the memorial cover Charlie did this week. The prophet crying. I think its an amazing drawing that symbolizes the grief felt all over the world. I’d like to think a lot of Muslims understands the intent of the drawing. Their grief at what happened is symbolized too. Of course the hard line fundamentalists aren’t happy. They never will be.
Now it’s gone beyond cartoons and other drawings to words.
The Oxford University Press has written guidelines that its authors should not include the words “pig” or “pork” in books for children, so that no one is offended.
The entire purpose of our 1st Amendment is to protect the “speech” that “goes too far.” Why would we need to protect someone who’s saying “have a nice day”? Nobody would think of stopping that speech, but to protect offensive speech is the entire point. If we are prevented from expressing an opinion that offends anyone, what’s left to protect?
Point of order – Those guidelines have been in place for many years already, and apply only to educational materials, mostly for the teaching of English as a foreign language. They were put in place because a single set of books is going to be used all over the world, and unfortunately, in that case, it will be necessary to adapt to the strictest set of rules (that is, the ones put in place by the Saudi Arabian government and other Gulf countries, which are a big chunk of the market for those books).
I do not like this a bit, but I can understand OUP’s position there. The alternative would be to print different versions of their textbooks for different markets, and that might well be prohibitively expensive.
Piece written by an OUP official:
I have to say that she should have come clean and said, clearly, that the reasons for this are not educational, but purely monetary. That is the bottom line after all.
CH did nothing that put innocent lives in danger. It is evidence of how successful the Islamists have been in shifting the debate on free speech that you conclude CH brought the massacre on itself.
is an example of expecting the real world to conform to your ideal world. In the real world, you must recognize that there are people whose answer to mockery is violence. It may be morally wrong, or even insane, by your lights…but there they are and that’s what they do. Mocking such people carries risk of injury or death. It has always been this way. Look how many of the great satirists of the past published under false names for exactly that reason. As I noted earlier, mocking non-violent people is easy (and safe). Mocking violent screw-heads? Not so much. I’d still like to know, what does mocking the violent screw-heads accomplish such that it is worth risking their (morally wrong/insane) retaliations?
Just because a violent act (be it murder, rape, or anything else) is unjustified, that does not mean that it must also be unanticipated. The CH staffers getting murdered is tragic and outrageous but it is not terribly surprising. And saying as much is not victim blaming.
