Je suis Charlie

[Florestan]

Murdering people for whatever reason is bad enough, but murdering people for what they think, believe, write or draw is particularly odious.

Vive la Liberté!

[vandermolen]

I thought about posting about this myself. My daughter is a young journalist, so this has a particular resonance for me. So sad about this. I guess that massacres happen in Iraq and Syria all the time but they do not get so much coverage in the West. Maybe, from a British point of view, it is because France is close to us so we relate more to Europeans. I have had a number of interesting conversations with my work colleagues about this today. It is like a massacre at the offices of the British satirical magazine 'Private Eye' which I read on a regular basis.

[Florestan]

I guess that massacres happen in Iraq and Syria all the time but they do not get so much coverage in the West.

That is true, unfortunately. The Western media are outraged (rightly so, of course) when several of them are killed, but they don´t make much of a fuss about hundreds being killed who are not Americans or Europeans. For instance, tens of thousands of Christians in Iraq and Pakistan live under constant threat of being killed or chased away from their homes (both instances amply documented) because of their religion, yet no noticeable cry of protest has been heard, nor any noticeable number of people taking to the streets have been seen, in the Western world.

Yet this is not less of an incentive to take a stand against fanaticism and bigotry wherever they might manifest themselves. On the contrary. In matters political and social the journalists of Charlie Hebdo probably stood in almost complete opposition to what I stand for --- but that ¨almost¨ covers the single most important thing they and I had in common: committment to freedom of speech in particular, and to freedom in general.

May God forgive their trespasses and comfort their families!

[mc ukrneal]

That is true, unfortunately. The Western media are outraged (rightly so, of course) when several of them are killed, but they don´t make much of a fuss about hundreds being killed who are not Americans or Europeans. For instance, tens of thousands of Christians in Iraq and Pakistan live under constant threat of being killed or chased away from their homes (both instances amply documented) because of their religion, yet no noticeable cry of protest has been heard, nor any noticeable number of people taking to the streets have been seen, in the Western world.

Yet this is not less of an incentive to take a stand against fanaticism and bigotry wherever they might manifest themselves. On the contrary. In matters political and social the journalists of Charlie Hebdo probably stood in almost complete opposition to what I stand for --- but that ¨almost¨ covers the single most important thing they and I had in common: committment to freedom of speech in particular, and to freedom in general.

May God forgive their trespasses and comfort their families!

Actually, it always seems to me that this is all they report - all the tragedies in those parts of the world. It is depressing.

[Cosi bel do]

Your messages go right to my heart. Since I heard of it shortly after the events, this has been a very gloomy, sad day. This has been a tragic, appalling, revolting moment in the life of democracy in France. There have been shocking attacks, those of Toulouse in 2012, the series of bomb attacks in 1995... You can't compare such horrifying events but the attack against Charlie Hebdo is catastrophic.

I have read and loved this journal since I was a teenager. It is a unique piece of journalism, nothing compares to it. The harshest satirical pictures, sometimes very (sexually for instance) graphic, are placed next to book reviews, to articles on economy, on movies... This might sound like the New Yorker, but it has nothing of its elegant, formal attitude. Charlie Hebdo is scandalous, it wants to be scandalous. It is the incarnation of freedom of expression because it always decided to test its limits to the extreme. Which is why when these men and women were attacked, they were in everyone else's place.

Among the dead were two monuments of French political cartoon : Cabu and Wolinski, who, along with the "Professeur" Choron, Cavanna, Gébé, Topor, Reiser and a few others, created first Hara Kiri in 1961 and, after the journal was twice banned by the authorities, Charlie Hebdo in 1969. It was the incarnation of all the ideas that were arising in the aftermath of the 1968 uprisings... All those guys, I don't think two of them could have agreed with each other on any political or religious matter, but they resolved that by creating this journal, where you could read, week after week, all kinds of different ideas. The only constant targets were religious extremists, the far right, and the financial-capitalitic milieu. But Charlie's only weapons were hilarious cartoons and clever ideas.
Charb was the current managing editor, and also author of numerous provocative cartoons. Riss, also dead today, was another talented artist from this newer generation, of approximately the same age than the journal itself.
Bernard Maris is another well known name among the victims. He was one of the economists I admire the most, a respected professor and author and, at the same time, one of the joint owners of Charlie Hebdo, publishing every week a column as "Oncle Bernard". He was probably one of the most humane economists I've heard, always putting men and women at the center of his thinking. The level of the economic debate is very low in the French media, sadly he was frequently the only non-classical economist invited, but also the only real economist (with a PhD in economy, when most other people debating economy on French TV are just journalists pretending they know anything about economy).

This is a tragic and shocking event, and, also, a very, very sad day for all those who simply love this journal and admire those who make it.

Cabu (1938-2014)



[Sarkozy:] "Our pockets are empty"

Wolinski (1934-2014)



"Our daughter, engaged with a jewish, one-eyed, lame nigger !
- Jesus! Mary!
- Darling, be kind, don't tell them right now that you're a communist..."

Charb (1967-2014)



"But WHO really wants the British in the EU?"

Tignous (1957-2014)



"Marine Le Pen has de-demonized the Front National
- Hello kids!"

Bernard Maris (1946-2014)



"Ce que nous croyions être la mondialisation heureuse n'était que la démesure de l'argent fou et de sa pulsion destructrice."
"What we believed would be a happy globalization was nothing but the hubris of the money madness and its destructive impulse."

Some of their recent front pages :



"Valérie Trierweiler feels better"



"DSK: a conspiracy
- I am paid by the UMP [Sarkozy's party]"



"Hollande, make us cum
- I'm gonna crack your ass"
[The viagra-like pill reads "austerity"]

[vandermolen]

Discobolus,

Very moving post. Thank you.

[Cosi bel do]

And bad news seem not to end... Among the victims is also Honoré, who had a really unique style, and whose cartoons and portraits were usually associated with Oncle Bernard's columns...

Honoré (1941-2014)



"War on the poor.
- Begging, wandering, mocking cops, sitting in stairwells...
- We're good for prison!"

[pjme]

It is a very sad day - as a student I loved Harakiri ( the magazine from which Charlie hebdo originated). Wolinski (now brutally murdered) and (somewhat later) especially Reiser made me laugh by being so outrageously "bête et mèchant" .






But yes...: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jan/07/55m-people-displaced-over-first-half-of-2014-says-un-refugee-agency

What a sad, depressing day.

[Cato]

Murdering people for whatever reason is bad enough, but murdering people for what they think, believe, write or draw is particularly odious.

Vive la Liberté!

Amen!

I thought about posting about this myself. My daughter is a young journalist, so this has a particular resonance for me. So sad about this. I guess that massacres happen in Iraq and Syria all the time but they do not get so much coverage in the West. Maybe, from a British point of view, it is because France is close to us so we relate more to Europeans. I have had a number of interesting conversations with my work colleagues about this today. It is like a massacre at the offices of the British satirical magazine 'Private Eye' which I read on a regular basis.

Amen again!

Freedom of Thought/Freedom of Religion/Freedom of Speech/etc. eventually became part of the Western Tradition and of Christianity, but only after a great and at times violent struggle.   

I am reminded of some famous predictions from the 1990's c. 20 years ago:

Francis Fukuyama and his claim of The End of History come to mind at such times.  With the collapse of Communism in Europe (but only partially in China), he foresaw the triumph of "liberal democracies" and general peace and prosperity.  The only problems would be small brushfires and the rise of Nietzschean "last men," i.e. a society of general mediocrity and timorousness because of the lack of life-or-death challenges.

Benjamin Barber in Jihad vs. McWorld was much more pessimistic, foreseeing what we are now experiencing,  jihad, and "McWorld" i.e. the rise of crony capitalist governments, where international corporations buy politicians to benefit their interests.  Neither trend is interested in democracy, or protecting basic rights.

Samuel Huntington in The Clash of Civilizations foresaw "the West versus the rest" with the latter being those civilizations not sharing the positive developments of the Reformation, Renaissance, and Enlightenment.

Anthony Blankley followed Huntington with The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations? in which he criticized cowardly  politicians for not protecting our basic freedoms, and willing to give them away in a show of "tolerance" or as a way to prevent violence.

It is disconcerting to see where these predictions were correct, and heartening to see where they were wrong.  In general, I am optimistic that things will improve, but history does show that sometimes they do become worse.

[Ken B]

Charlie Hebdo was not bombed for mocking Brits, or the UMP, or crony capitalists.  Not for mocking DSK or French antisemites. They were bombed for mocking Islam and Mohammed. For blaspheming. And they will achieve their aims if we do not forthrightly defend and assert the right to do just that.

My avatar is a 14th century Persian picture of Mohammed.

[Ken B]

Vox has a series of covers with comments. Kudos.

http://www.vox.com/2015/1/7/7507883/charlie-hebdo-explained-covers

[Ken B]

"Je ne suis pas Charlie." http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/07/catholic-league-president-bill-donohue-o

Just the first of a flood of mitigations, excuses, and weaseling we will see from religious leaders I predict.

[kishnevi]

Some cartoons published today in the wake if the massacre
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/heartbreaking-cartoons-from-artists-in-response-to-the-ch?s=mobile

[Abuelo Igor]

This reminds me of an argument I had last year with a colleague after I brought up the subject of "Charlie Hebdo" and the Muhammad cartoons. Her opinion was that the cartoons shouldn't have been allowed out of respect for religion. I couldn't believe her advocacy of censorship and the implication that the fanatics were right to be offended. I don't know what she might think today, but I feel very bad.

[Ken B]

This reminds me of an argument I had last year with a colleague after I brought up the subject of "Charlie Hebdo" and the Muhammad cartoons. Her opinion was that the cartoons shouldn't have been allowed out of respect for religion. I couldn't believe her advocacy of censorship and the implication that the fanatics were right to be offended. I don't know what she might think today, but I feel very bad.

Bad how? You don't mean that you think she was right after all?

[snyprrr]

surely a mussaad/see-aye-yay job


you WILL notice in the vid of the cop on the group that the "head shot" hits the pavement a few feet from cop's head, dust coming up from the pavement where the bullet hit. Whatever else happened, the cop was NOT shot in the head--- it looks like the perp purposely shots beyond the cop's head. LOOK FOR YOURSELVES


WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO GET ANDREW PAEDO OFF THE FRONT PAGE? TERRRRRRORRRROISMO!!!!!!!!!!


Show me the bodies. Sorry, I don't believe the media just because they say something. I NEED to see the "proof" Just like those "beheading" vids fade to black right as the expensive special effects were about to take place.


The muzzies are being fed to you as the Emanuel Goldstein of this era.



Where oh where did these poor youths get all that fancy firepower??? Weren't the "losers" Just asking where they got that fancy fancy firepower....



So, there has NEVER been a staged event to make the populace think a certain way?



Netanyahu Nov. 2014: "France will be sorry it want a palestinian state."





Epstein,... Prince Andrew,... underage girls,... WHOOPS!!!_ here come the muzzie terrors--- nothing to see, move along

[snyprrr]

ISLAM IS A JEWISH FRONT GROUP.

[Abuelo Igor]

Bad how? You don't mean that you think she was right after all?

I feel bad that a group of people that stand for a lot of things I hold dear have been brutally killed, and I feel bad that there are people out there, like my colleague, who, adding insult to injury, will even say that "they brought it on themselves". With such attitudes, we might as well give up and offer our arms to be chained.

[jochanaan]

I stand with Voltaire on this: I may not like or agree with much that Charlie Hebdo said or the way they drew it, but I will defend to my last breath their right to draw and say it.  Yesterday's attack was indeed terrible and reprehensible, but as the world's cartoonists drew, from this one attack will be born innumerable more satirical cartoonists.

[Ken B]

And, on cue, a defence

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/01/07/islam-allah-muslims-shariah-anjem-choudary-editorials-debates/21417461/