The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published cartoons mocking the Islamic prophet Mohammed. The magazine’s website is at CharlieHebdo.fr. It was very slow to load when I tried it, and although I did eventually find the front page I could not see the actual caricatures.
My opinion has not changed since I contributed a “Mohammed emoticon” (((:~(> to Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. I said then and I say now,
I take no pleasure from violating other people’s taboos. It is not polite and I wish to be polite. In ordinary circumstances if I want to do something that will annoy others I am willing to put up with moderate inconvenience in order to do it out of their sight. These are not ordinary circumstances. People are being threatened, harassed and sometimes murdered by fanatical Muslims for exercising free speech. The media and academia, fearless defenders of free speech so long as there was nothing to fear, have by and large caved in. So maybe it is time for ordinary people to step up. Lots of them. Spread the risk.
Obviously Charlie Hebdo itself stands proud where most other newspapers and magazines in the Western world cringe. If other journals had been as brave no one would have to be that brave.
A slight edit (he needs his bomb)…
Q):~(>
I heard about this, on the Radio 4 news at 22:00; Charlie Hebdo was described as “libertarian” and “anti-religious”.
My first thought was “they really ought to consider producing an English-language edition; they’d probably be raking it in, if they did”.
Other sites are under DoS attack (see The Register)
This *may* explain the slow loading.
If other journals had been as brave no one would have to be that brave.
That’s the money quote for me Natalie.
But the MSM are gutless punks who will say… Of course there must be Free Speech, but…
Then moan in editorials and pundit columns, about not stirring the wasps nest. Why be offensive to these people? You know that it drives them into a murderous frenzy.
Well fuck that! If they don’t have something to drive themselves into a frenzy, they are perfectly capable of manufacturing the offence themselves (the Imam who accused a Downs Syndrome Christian Pakistani girl of 15 of burning the Q’uran, has now been arrested for fitting her up by planting pages in her schoolbag)
Let’s all be as offensive, derisory and satirical as we like to any religion or indeed any other target that we’d like to have a pop at. If a nudge in the ribs and a hearty piss taking chuckle elicits riots and murder, then Blessed be the Pisstakers! And more reviled will be the Religion of “Peace” in the eyes of the World.
Ah, but back in the realpolitik world, the American Assistant Attorney General seems to want amendments to the First Amendment. Either that or he is thick as a plank, or being a weasley piece of shit, or both.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0wwv9l6W8yc#!
Use this link for the cartoons:
http://www.bivouac-id.com/billets/les-nouvelles-caricatures-de-charlie-hebdo/
It’s the “out of their sight” bit in your opinion piece that is so changed. When some politician or Imam wants to gin up the mob, they go looking for insult. They even added worse to the Danish cartoons before beginning their campaign, which, like this one, followed months after the original publication. Come the agreed Friday, it’s rev ’em up at the mosque.
Thanks for the link, Dom. They’ve been difficult to find. I just wish I had translations of the captions; my French is essentially non-existent.
Let’s all be as offensive, derisory and satirical as we like to any religion or indeed any other target that we’d like to have a pop at. If a nudge in the ribs and a hearty piss taking chuckle elicits riots and murder, then Blessed be the Pisstakers! And more reviled will be the Religion of “Peace” in the eyes of the World.
Absolutely, RAB! I couldn’t have said it better myself. There’s little in this world more deserving of ridicule than organized religion, and no religion more deserving of it than Islam.
The Jawa Report has a sample of these latest ‘toons. http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/213642.php
A good post and some good comments.
A good post and some good comments.
We should burn a bacon-wrapped page of the Koran daily on YouTube until the rioting mobs have burned down their own countries in protest and died inhaling the fumes of the American flags they’re burning.