Je Suis Charlie - The Bear and Badger

[Deleted User]

It's obviously us against them innit? Pen vs Sword vs Poverty vs Capitalism vs Drone strikes vs whatever

As much as I hate Muslims, and I really do, it's simply not a patch on how much I hate Christians. I'm still deciding on whether I hate Jews the worst - I really really hate them. I pretty much hate Americans full stop, whatever they believe. And seriously can't fucking stand Buddhists.

As much as I hate Muslims I can't seriously blame an entire section of society simply because of a thick idiot or two.

Yossarian

Edit: even our own B&B is running scared. You all may have to quote this post to see why.

Dark Soldier

SpaceGazelle wrote:

As much as I hate Muslims I can't seriously blame an entire section of society simply because of a thick idiot or two.

EvilRedEye

OMG YOSS WHAT HAVE YOU DONE

Bollockoff

Bollockoff

Brooks

We've dealt with this in the news thread. The mag sucks in a bunch of ways; freedom of speech is at much less risk than Muslims or really just anyone brown being further shat on by reactionaries. Je suis Brooks.

WorKid

Je suis Esteban.

Yossarian

Joe Sacco responds:

joesaccoonsatire1200.jpg?w=700&h=1011

Gremill

That's class.

Kow

Somebody with some sense. Sacco that is, not Yoss, obviously.

Yossarian

Obviously.

Brooks

I'm well up for reading Sacco's Bumf volume that happened just last year.

GurtTractor

Has there been some new major Sacco?

Kow

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/09/solidarity-charlie-hebdo-cartoons/

IanHamlett

Remember the Danish cartoon thing and that Dutch documentary maker? Look at twitter when something like this happens or look at some stats about what muslims support.

These actions are from a handful of young, poor, muslims and that shouldn't tar all the young or poor or muslims. But I don't think it helps anyone to pretend that there isn't a problem with with the religion.

Brooks

I think there'd be a problem with any young religion coming to global popularity during the modern and post-modern era, and trying to mature in parts of the world that were constantly under territorial meddling and the major currents of nationalism for a lot of that time and to this day. Christianity and its schisms were mostly settled by the end of the 1600s.

mistercrayon

There's an element of local government at play here. It is not surprising to me that a hotbed of radical activity that is the middle east is full of the most undemocratic and shirty governments. The governemnt of these regions I think have deflected the anger of their people and somehow focused it towards the west.

Essentially i think it is incidental that these people are Muslim because the wider issue relates more to nationalistic grievence which happens to be in countries with a lot of Muslims.

Completely hypothetical and throwing ideas.

davyK

Just seems to me that religious leaders and/or leaders of states merged with religion, in this case Islamic ones (for want of a better phrase), are using the weak minded for their own ends.

Has always been the case.

[Deleted User]

I am shocked France's burqa ban hasn't come up yet.

Je Suis Charlie appears to be about defending freedom of expression even if people disagree with it.

Why is that fit for cartoons and not religious clothing?

Kow

Irish government I see supporting Charlie and freedom of speech. Funny that Dermot Morgan was banned off the radio there for lampooning politicians, as they considered it offensive to themselves. Spain too rallying around freedom of speech when the same institution, only a couple of years ago banned a cartoon from a satirical magazine for making fun of Prince Felipe.

Banned from being published in the magazine or any other media, including television. They even wanted the magazine shut down.

But we have to uphold freedom to insult Muslims, even promote it. Some double standards going on here.

JonB

The thing to always remember about the rise of political Islam is that it's the result of programmatic annihilation of progressive popular politics in the region. Democracy and independence movements crushed by the West using the excuse of the Cold War, often by fostering what were previously relatively minor extremist forces.

It's also worth bearing in mind that this form of Islam represented by groups like ISIS has never really existed in history before. It's a very modern phenomenon. It's not that Islam never developed, more that its regressive remainders have been empowered by outside forces, and created this bastardisation, rather than disappearing into history.

mistercrayon

I'm reading Simon singh's code book and there's a chapter about how the ancient Islamic peoples developed all sorts of new technology through the aggressive pursuit of all knowledge. It's difficult to imagine how that society is the proto version of one which in significant chunks fosters siege mentality.

Bollockoff

It's been brought up here before. Without the Arabs, most ancient Greek writings would be forever lost. No Homer no philosophy no Pythagoras. And those contributed heavily to the enlightenment.

Also the dons of astronomy since sea and desert navigation is the same thing. Optics therefore was also a field they helped pioneer.

Bollockoff

I wonder how other Islamic countries view the UAE.

Kow

I doubt they have much problem with the union of agriculture engineers.

Bollockoff

They literally don't grow anything? Is the entire country really built on oil revenue? I know nothing but that seems terrible long term.

IanHamlett

It's a bastard that a couple of dicks can dominate the news for a week but 100 dead Palestinian kids barely gets a mention. That doesn't mean islam is off the hook. I forget what the stats were but an alarming number of uk muslims sympathised with the Jul 7th bombers. Way too many think honour killings are fair play. Arranged marriages, stoning adulterers, punishing rape victims, these things are mainstream in some places.

I'm sure most religions were like that when they were 700 years old but it doesn't feel right that kind of behaviour having an overlap with the internet.

Blue Swirl

You have the right to free speech, as long as you're not dumb enough to actually use it.

Regarding the comic above, it does seem to me a massive slice of victim blaming. "If she didn't want to be raped, officer, she shouldn't have been wearing a short skirt."/"If they didn't want to be murdered as blasphemers, they shouldn't have made jokes about my religion." Deliberately provoking someone is a dick move, yes, but it shouldn't be a fucking death sentence. You don't think a magazine is funny? Don't buy it. Problem solved. I wouldn't laugh at a picture of a stereotypical Jew counting money (way to invoke Godwin's Law, Joe Sacco), nor would I laugh at a picture of a Muslim holding a bomb. But -and this is important- I wouldn't go out and murder someone who did draw such a picture.

Anywho. People are dead, and you can't undo that. Whether they insulted Mohammad, took the piss out of a politician, or drew a black man falling out of a tree with a banana, they didn't deserve death. To round up, here's a few pictures from the internets what I stole with quotes from people who're much smarter than me.

LarryDavid

It doesn't excuse terrorism but our totally fraudulent war in Iraq and other recent Middle Eastern meddlings probably helped radicalise UK Muslims as much as anything else, giving them the view that the London/Paris attacks were justified in some way.

Cameron climbing on the bandwagon and marching in aid of free-speech was lol-worthy.

Facewon

JonB wrote:

The thing to always remember about the rise of political Islam is that it's the result of programmatic annihilation of progressive popular politics in the region. Democracy and independence movements crushed by the West using the excuse of the Cold War, often by fostering what were previously relatively minor extremist forces.

It's also worth bearing in mind that this form of Islam represented by groups like ISIS has never really existed in history before. It's a very modern phenomenon. It's not that Islam never developed, more that its regressive remainders have been empowered by outside forces, and created this bastardisation, rather than disappearing into history.

This. Been a lot of excellent writing re the double standard over the last few days.

False Flag Mossad blaming also, apparently, but I only caught a brief wiff of that particular lunacy.

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