If Christians could get past stoning people for whatever reason (per the old testament), I would hope that at some point Muslims can get past the whole images of Muhammad thing. While I refuse to let my life revolve around what people want to believe in, it’s publish or perish.
The BBC wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment to reprint Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” or that controversial dung-covered Virgin Mary. It hasn’t been the norm to kowtow to “religious fairy tales” in ages. Only to fairy tales sacred to Muslims. The Pope doesn’t issue fatwas.
If I were an editor, I probably WOULDN’T have published the cartoons (which, as Shodan said, were mostly stupid and offensive without being clever or isightful)… but any publication that publishes cartoons thta insult Christians has a duty not to wimp out now.
This.
I agree that typically, I would only publish them if they were good satirical cartoons - but this week, Charlie Hebdo gets a pass for not being at the top of their game. “You can’t kill freedom of expression” is the most on-point message at the moment. Publishers everywhere have a duty to not wimp out on that (regardless of their stance on Christianity, which is not even close to the point, at the moment.)
It is truly shocking to me that any Western publisher would refrain from publishing the current Charlie Hedbo cover. If I was in fact a publisher, I would put out a special issue with every damn Mohammed cartoon I could lay hands on. I have no problem being a dick when the situation calls for it. The time for being polite about this issue is over, imo.
Not in this one that the OP linked to.
“Mohammed” is also the most popular name in the world, so just saying “I’m Mohammed” doesn’t imply you’re referring to the prophet. Do these cartoons ever say “I’m the Prophet Mohammed”?
Oh yeah, consider me in the “print for free speech” camp. And yes, if some Nazis or Klansmen were brutally killed in a terrorist attack over what they’ve published, I’d reprint that too. No one has the right to not be offended or to violently retaliate for said offense, and sending would be killers a message is worth the PR hit that publishing swastikas and burning crosses would incur. Offensive speech is the only speech that needs protected.
Not that crude cartoons of Mohammed are even remotely comparable to the decades of genocide and violence Nazi and Klan propaganda represents.
Yes, because I hate religion. It’s not race, or anything else involuntary (and harmless), it’s a choice. I don’t have to respect your taste in music, so I shouldn’t have to respect your taste in superstition.
What about good old Larry Flynt? He was shot for publishing nasty spread-crotch shots in his Hustler porn mags (while walking with his lawyer while actually being prosecuted for obscenity, if I recall correctly). He didn’t die, but he was very seriously injured.
Flood the world with spread-crotch shots from Hustler, very widely seen as demeaning? Or merely support his right to do so free from being shot at, without publishing them yourself?
It is offensively anti-religious to many, but that’s why I want them published everywhere. Nobody has the right not to be offended, especially about superstition.
No, being overly disrespectful is the best part!
Me too.
Just so. I do support his right to do so, just the same as Charlie Hebdo’s, and Westboro Baptist’s, and the Muslim Brotherhood’s, and the Klan’s.
But if it’s my newspaper we’re talking about, that’s my speech. As I said, per my understanding of the duties of journalism, I would redistribute specifically offensive material if it was necessary to cover the story, not otherwise. If a further “message” needs sending, I can write (or assign) my own editorials.
I was going to add “Yes - Because fuck 'em if they can’t take a joke” but thought it prudent not to give ISIS any reason to hack me.
You wouldn’t, other than being told that it’s meant to be Mohammed. Not a big deal to you or me maybe but still enough to seriously piss people off.
They’re French and trying to make a point, probably best not to think about it too much.
The latter, like say the BBC article.
Well, of course you can’t see it with him holding that “Je suis Charlie” placard up in front of him like that.
Picked #1, which kind of sums up my thoughts on Charlie’s couv’ but also kind of doesn’t.
Here’s the thing : Charlie got shot up by a bunch of cunts who figured Islam justified what they did. In doing so, they murdered another Muslim and ensured the entire French Muslim community would face public opprobrium for a long, long while (and it was already so easy to be a Muslim in France, too !).
In the wake of these events, thousands upon thousands of Muslims, in France and elsewhere, have condemned the attacks, have expressed sympathy and mourning, have marched, have tweeted and blogged and facebooked that they, and their own understanding of Islam, wasn’t about that, was in fact about the opposite of that. They continue to do so on the Internet, in their schools, in their workplaces, in their cities even as they are taken to task by the hateful, the ignorant and those looking for pointless fights.
And yet whoever took over *Charlie *chose to respond with a slap in their collective faces and a cartoon that says “Fuck you, we won’t forgive any of you just because you say Je Suis Charlie like everyone else is. You all bear the guilt. Oh, and here’s Muhammad because we know y’all hate when we do that”.
That’s not particularly clever.
*Especially *when it was such a golden opportunity to riff on their most famous cover, the one that earned them state censorship the day De Gaulle died - simple white letters on plain black background, “Balles tragiques à Charlie - 12 morts”. That would have been clever. I would have bought it on the spot, for the wit alone.
The moment a civilization descends into tyranny is the moment when free speech is abolished. To the extent that we have free speech is the extent that we’re free.
It seems to me that lots of people are missing something here. Wouldn’t this whole episode be properly called an assault on free speech only if the state was in some way involved in stopping Charlie Hebdo from publishing, or punished them after the fact (with death or anything else)?
Really, what we’re opposing here is terrorism of a particular variety.
It is the most important cartoon published in the past 50 years, if not ever.
To not publish it is to deny its importance out of fear.
Not to mention, it was tasteful and conciliatory.
I think you’re confusing the concept of free speech with the First Amendment. In the US, only the government can violate the First Amendment, because the First is specifically a check on what the government is allowed to do. When the Klan was running wild, and any black person who spoke up about it got killed, it was not a violation of the First Amendment. It was, however, an attack on the concept of free speech.
*Does *the situation call for it, though? There are over a billion Muslims in the world. 99% of them have never killed anyone. Is it justifiable to insult them, because of the actions of a tiny handful of people who happen to share one characteristic with them? The terrorists were also black - would you publish a cartoon calling them niggers? If not, why not? Why is being a dick to millions of innocent Muslims more acceptable than being a dick to millions of innocent blacks?
Because they have been doing it for a decade, and have been equal toward all religions in their ridicule.
If a magazine had similarly published satirical cartoons making fun of niggers, wetbacks, towelheads, krauts, chinks, kikes, in equal measure, then you can’t have one group cry foul as being “picked on.” They’re just a bunch of butthurt nannies.
Not to mention, free speech is free speech, and Charlie Hebdo owes it to no one to censor their freedom of expression.
That’s lovely, but it has virtually nothing to do with what I wrote.
I think you have misunderstood the “Je suis Charlie” + “tout est pardonne” cartoon. In English, it translates to Mohammad holding up the “I am (with) Charlie” (i.e. “I support Charlie”) placard, while the caption reads “all is forgiven”.
On one level, this cartoon can be seen as an attempt to reclaim Muhammad/Islam, and its supposed message of peace, love, universal brotherhood of mankind blah blah blah… in the face of a brutal attack from followers of a murderous philosophy. There is a deep sense of irony here. On another level, the fact that they are again publishing a cartoon of Mohammed (the “provocation” for the attacks), shows defiance in the face some really nasty odds. Finally, they have avoided any suggestion of a retaliation on the local Muslim population.
Taken together, the cartoon says: “We will continue to say what we want, when we want, and where we want, so do your worst. Our message is one of peace and reconciliation – like you keep preaching. Try beating us on that!”. Charlie Hebdo is sending out a uniquely powerful message. I’d say it’s the best possible response that they could have made and more power to them for that.