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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day But then I too am supporting Charlie Hebdo not because I like Charlie Hebdo or the idiot lefties who wrote for it, but because I oppose seeing said idiots murdered because they dared to express themselves. The attack on Charlie Hebdo was an attack on western civilisation itself, nothing less. The merits of the victims or their publication scarcely merits a mention to be honest. If ever there was a moment to go full blast Voltaire, this is it.
– Perry de Havilland
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There was a post on this site some time ago about how our natural allies in the fight against Islamic fanatics were in many countries the Marxists (see certain Kurdish groups for practical proof of this).* So long as its advocates are also democratic (and there are democratic Marxists in the world, for all they try to build state systems up when in power) any point of view which allows that other points of view may validly exist and challenge it is preferable to totalitarian beliefs based on a particular text. Charlie Hebdo clearly believed in freedom to upset others, and therefore in at least some form of freedom overall – this is all we need to know to support them against those who believe their belief trumps all else.
*Ironically in the 1980s there was an equally valid case that the Islamisists (not so virulent) were the natural allies against the Marxists (of the Soviet variety) – no ideology is itself automatically worse than any other (and I suppose a totalitarian libertarian state, should such be conceivable, would need opposing as well).
Perry – agreed.
Watchman – only a small minority of Iraqi Kurds are Marxists (over the border in Turkey and Syria things may be different – I do not know).
In the West most Marxists (and leftists in general) are still in a de facto alliance with the Islamists – on the old “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” idea.
The idea is false – the leftists who think they can use the Islamists to help to destroy what is left with what is left of Western civilisation, are really being manipulated by the people who they think they control.
Marxists, including the one in the Oval office, tend to make the mistake of thinking that all religious people are stupid – just “pawns” like the people in the pews at Holy Trinity in Chicago all those years….
However, some Islamists are actually highly intelligent – far more intelligent than the “liberal” elite who seek to use them as a battering ram to help to destroy what is left of the West.
Indeed. I’ll buy a copy on my way home this evening, if there are any left. Reports are they are selling out fast.
You know this debate about whether it’s okay for journalists and editors to chicken out of publishing material that might get them attacked? (Eg. samizdata.net/2015/01/the-editors-of-the-independent-explains.) Well, here’s another way of looking at the profession.
There are thousands and thousands of graduates with BAs being churned out each year who want to be journalists, plus many more thousands without degrees. But there are few openings in the field these days. So who gets hired? It’s supposed to be this terrible condundrum, with all sorts of societal implications.
But here’s my idea. Instead of hiring the independently wealthy applicant because they’ll work for free for a year, or the son or daughter of an old University chum, or the left-wing propagandist because they churn out endless copy filled with apposite (albeit mostly made-up) quotes, hire the one with balls. Hire the one who doesn’t want a safe, comfortable middle-class life where nasty men don’t ever threaten you and who doesn’t worry about whether their grand piano gets scratched, but who has the cojones to publish and be damned. If he’s not working he’s in the bar, and he doesn’t care if he and his fellow barflys get gunned down while in a drunken stupor. He might be left-wing, or he might be right-wing, but the one thing he’s not is lily-livered. That’ll whittle down your short-list pretty fast. And make him or her editor while you’re at it.
And no, writing articles denouncing America/the religious right/the patriarchy doesn’t cut it as brave any more.
Life in Great Britain under Cameron:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/oxford-university-press-bans-mention-pork-pigs-books-avoid-offending-muslims-jews-1483378
Love the added part about Jews.
Cal, you do know who does the hiring at these outfits and who owns them, right?
Yeah, it was just a fantasy about a world long gone.
Absolutely correct, Perry. Absolutely correct.
Opposed to Islam – you’re a Fascist says al-Reuters”
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/01/13/charlie-hebdo-fallout-specters-of-fascist-past-haunt-europes-new-nationalism/
And barely a week later,
Now, Dieudonne is an arsehole. Even more of an arsehole than the Lefties at Charlie Hebdo. The Nazi salute is part of his act. But you can’t get all defiant and hold marches over the Charlie’s freedom of speech then turn around and arrest him for a bloody Facebook post.
Oh, and he’s banned from entering the UK.
Paul,
It might help to be accurate. President Obama is clearly not a Marxist, even if he is pretty clearly a socialist and certainly a statist. Although no doubt he (like many of us) has familiarity with Marx and Engel’s work, I don’t see him implementing anything that could be seen as a Marxist programme. You can be socialist and statist without being Marxist you know.
And the only Syrian Kurd faction actively (successfully) opposing ISIS are indeed Marxists.
As for Marxists stupidly making mistakes about people’s intelligence due to their assumptions – was that not in itself an assumption of other people’s stupidity. I know plenty of Marxists and ex-Marxists (I went to fun universities…) and none of them would assume religion made someone stupid – several in fact (wrongly) assumed because I was right wing (to use their conception) and able to put together a coherent argument that I must be religious (if there is a weakness in Marxist thinking, it is the assumption that you have to have a belief system behind you to be able to think coherently – and even that is not universal). I worry that sort of thinking is either trying to make your political opponents something you want (simple and easily manipulated, whilst Islam is a huge threat through having intelligent people) or some form of transferrence of your own views of others. Neither of these help with addressing issues or debating with others – it is better (and certainly politer, a value often forgotten) to assume your political oponents are as clever as you, and that their mistakes are errors not stupidity. Or do you really believe you are better than those who do not think like you – in which case, how would you differ from a member of ISIS?
Er… for all his many flaws (and we all have them) I do not recall in years of knowing Paul him ever beheading anyone, selling a slave or causing an insurrection. Obviously these are minor issues and I assume he shall rectify these failures rapidly.
I think Sam Duncan’s comment on this thread, timed at 4.43pm on 14 January, should be a Samizdata Quote Of The Day.
Watchman, it is not at all unusual for a politician to implement policies which do not directly arise from his ideology – this can very plausibly applied to Obama. One could argue that he correctly assumed that coming into the WH and nationalizing the entire US economy outright was less than practical.
As to Paul’s point about the Left vs Islam, I suggest that you read his comment again, because he never implied that all Marxists treat Islam the way he described. He described a general attitude, and to me at least it does not sound far fetched at all.
Re : Watchman et al
On the question of a clever Islamist: I would nominate Medhi Hassan. Having clearly through a number of speeches, interviews etc. clearly shoeing he’s an Islamist clearly driven by an Islamic takeover of the west, he has tapdanced the line of legality with great skill to avoid having his collar felt. He’s just left HuffPo UK to join Al-Jazeera US.
We on the nominal “right” should have seen that evil shit hounded from the public square.
I entirely agree with Perry. Voltaire and all that. I think pretty much everyone does. It is hardly an act of courage, hardly a standing out from the crowd to condemn those monsters.
However, I wonder how common a real advocacy of the principle is, or how much the jeering crowd is jeering out of a more generalized dislike the Islamic terror campaign. For example, here in the USA we have those horrible people from the Westboro baptist church who protest soldiers’ funerals and say things like “God loves dead soldiers”, and “This is payback for your sodomy.” If a grieving father at the funeral lost it and took a baseball bat to those people, perhaps killing a few of them, I wonder how many would so strongly cheer for the Westboro baptist folks. I wonder how many would advocate throwing the grieving father to ravenous dogs, as many would of the Charlie Hebdo massacre Jihadis?
It is fair to say that what Charlie Hebdo said about Muslims was pretty extreme, just as what the Westboro folks do.
Again, I know how I want to feel about the two situations, but I am inclined to think that I would be rather more sympathetic to the dad than the Islamist nut jobs. Perhaps more because I can relate to the offense he would feel, and I care not one whit about Muhammad. But I don’t want to feel that way, I want to passionately advocate for free speech whatever it is, resisted not with bullets but with more speech.
Again, I totally, 100% agree with Perry, and I know he is a passionate advocate for freedom of speech, even speech that he hates. However, I wonder about the baying masses. Are they really only passionate about speech that they like, or at least don’t really dislike? Me? I think that is scary.
Frank Orr
There is something to what you are saying but I think a most of the difference is simply that Charlie Hebdo wasn’t taunting Muslims as they left a Mosque let alone taunting Muslims at a funeral.
How sympathetic would you be if Westbro just published a magazine full of their crazy nonsense and the father of a dead soldier read it then hunted down the church members responsible? That would be a much closer analogy.
Hippoes are EVIL!!!!
Let’s see if Perry really believes in Free Speech!!!
Perry: What does Claire Berlinski have to say about Charlie Hebdo? She was on her way there and arrived shortly after the murders. Might be worth you calling her.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend”
Stephen Glover comes over all sanctimonious today in the Daily Mail about what an awful magazine Charlie Hebdo was, as though that was of any importance.
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize – Voltaire
I think Dieudonne knows very well what the score is, and is playing on it. Voltaire’s statement is even more interesting when applied to the United States.
Fraser Orr: not even close. “Westboro Baptist” is actually a racket; they confront people in grief and abuse them as hard as they can, hoping to provoke a violent reaction so they can sue for damages. Charlie Hebdo made a rather mild joke regarding the hypersensitivity of Moslem fanatics.
One goes to extremes to provoke people who have done nothing. The other takes the piss out of people who are shoving their “sensitivities” in everyone’s face.
I’m with Rich re Fraser Orr’s point, but that is not the main point either – that, as I see it, being the fact that the murderers of the Charlie Hebdo staff are acting in an organized, premeditated and systematic way. Furthermore, they are offshoots of a global, if loosely organized, movement. That is the very anti-thesis of a grieving father at a funeral. And it’s not anything like customary for grieving fathers to bring baseball bats to funerals either. This is totally and entirely different.
Alisa – as with Paul I think you are confusing socialist and Marxist, which are different if interrelated philosophies. And ‘tend to’ is more than just implying a few. I do agree that many on the left think they can use Islamicism incidentally (working on the basis that once people are educated they will abandon the religion in the main – despite the fact the left tend to be anathema to proper education), but I do not think they are any stupider than the Islamic idiots.
Overall my objection was to Paul’s tone I suppose – an almost totalitarian statement of what is correct and what is wrong with others, that (with slightly different groups identified) by equally at home coming from the mouth of a Marxist or an Islamisist. It might just be writing style, but I find this assuming your views are correct and making clear errors of fact (or, to be fair, over hyperbolic statements) whilst doing so to be a problem whatever the political views involved. It implies there is right and wrong views for everyone, rather than for the individual. And that to me is the point – Charlie Hebdo may have generally had political beliefs that I can argue against effectively (the world is pretty good evidence against socialism) but as with the original comment.
NickM – I was not suggesting that Paul wants to be an Islamicist, but rather that he wants to see them as a great threat. I’d say in a British context that Marxist and their ilk are actually the greater threat to freedom though.
@Alisa
> This is totally and entirely different.
It is different, but not entirely different. In both cases there was an expression of extremely offensive(*) free speech leading to violence. Perhaps your argument is that the Westboro creeps were vastly more offensive, but that is really my point. Is there a point at which the offensiveness of the free speech becomes so high that it can’t be allowed any more? A point at which violence is justified? A point at which censorship is justified?
Saying that the Westboro guys are more offensive doesn’t really answer this question except in the affirmative. And I suspect we all want to answer in the negative.
Again, I entirely agree with Perry’s point. But I guess my point is that it is easy to condemn violence against people saying things we don’t find offensive, and after all, I doubt many of us found the relevant cartoons offensive. So this outpouring of advocacy of free speech I don’t think means much except to say it is an easy case. The newspapers refusing to republish the cartoons is very troubling, and a real indication that “the terrorists are winning.”
I am also baffled by the follow up edition of Charlie Hebdo. “Tout est pardonné” seems a strange response indeed from a magazine known for its no punches pulled approach. Actually to me the cartoon is rather offensive. The idea that Muhammad would hold a sign saying “Je suis Charlie” an expression that has come to mean “I have solidarity with no holds barred free speech” seems so utterly inappropriate in the hands of this man, especially at this time. Perhaps a better response would be him running off crying to his mommy when someone said something mean about him. The headline was such that I didn’t want to buy the magazine. But I guess they can say what they like, and I didn’t read the story itself.
(*) Offensive here meaning “offensive to the hearer”.
This had me in stitches
http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/1626/1385/original.jpg
PeterT, that is indeed a hoot. I’m saving it.
Fraser, I agree with Rich Rostrom’s characterization of the distinction between the Westboro Baptist loons and Islamic fanatics; there is clearly a difference between in-your-face actions specifically intended to provoke a violent response and mere ink on the page of a magazine you don’t have to buy or read. However, I also agree with what I think you’re saying, that if we’re truly “going full-blast Voltaire” we should accept that the Westboro people have a right to be as offensive as they like. And guess what? The US courts have said exactly that. They have to remain a reasonable distance away from the ceremony (we do have a recognized “fighting words” exception to unfettered free speech) but they can still protest. Which is as it should be. “Taking offense” is something you do within yourself, not something someone else does to you. And I do not recognize that anyone has any “right” not to be offended.
TWG: Great Voltaire quote. Thanks.
Fraser, you will have noticed that while supporting Rich’s point (which deals with the speakers’ half of the attacked-free-speech equation), I made one of my own that I see as far more important to the vast difference between the two cases, and that is the attackers’ half of it. Feel free to address that, if you like.
Watchman, I’ll leave it to Paul to try and figure out what on earth your problem with his comment may be, other than his tone (whatever that is).
@Alisa. I get your point. Would you be more sympathetic to the gunmen or less supportive of CH right of free speech if the gunman had been a rogue catholic utterly offended by the disgraceful portrayal of Jesus? Surely it is the act of violence we condemn, and it is made no worse or better by the manner of its birth or growth?
We might recognize that for the bat wielding father that there are mitigating circumstances that might excuse him, or perhaps might even make us encourage him. However, such mitigating circumstances are very much in the eye of the beholder. For many Muslims the provocation of CH could hardly have been larger. To have their beloved prophet mocked in ways designed to be most provocative as possible, and to have that display on every newsstand in France is to push many Muslims to the same limit as the “God hates faggots”.
To be clear, and I’ll say it again, I totally agree with Perry. My question is not whether we condemn the CH attackers, we do; it is not whether they have any mitigation, they do not; rather it is whether we are passionate enough in our advocacy of free speech to truly defend to the death the right to say things that we hate with every fiber of our being. Are we Voltaire, or situationally Voltaire?
Here’s a blast from the past that may amuse:
“If blasphemy is the issue, we submit that a religious dictator inciting murder is blasphemy against the sanctity of human life. It is said that Rushdie’s book impugns the faith of believers. So does science. It is said that the book is offensive to the values of the Ayatollah’s followers. So is the United States of America.“
Fraser:
My support of the right to free speech for everyone is universal without exception (although I may have to clarify what is meant by ‘the right to free speech’). My problem with your analogy is that free speech is not the issue – violence is. Free speech is only a secondary factor, as it supposedly served as trigger or excuse for said violence. But violence is still the main issue. And violence committed by an offshoot of a global organization motivated by a violent and intolerant ideology, is materially different from violence committed by a grieving father to an offensive jerk at his son’s funeral.
Islamists are “triggered” by all kinds of things: free speech, scantily clad women, homosexuality, Judaism and Christianity – anything that does not conform to their ideology, really. So yes, we do cherish our freedoms – the freedom of speech, the freedom to dress in any way we like, the freedom of religion and so on – but none of these are the real issues that make Islamism so problematic. What makes it so problematic is the willingness on the part of its adherents to use violence every time the deem something as non-Islamic. It’s the don’t-blame-the-victim thing, although I’m sure that was not your intention at all.
Re – Alisa,
And the intolerance is a multi headed Hydra. The OIC is using the UN to get a global law passed against blasphemy. The OUP instructs its authors not to use pigs, sausages etc. in their books. They are fucking relentless and we are weak in our response.
Just in case this hasn’t been linked to yet:
http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/15/sky-news-really-doesnt-want-to-show-the#comment
Watchman.
Barack Obama mentor a s child was family friend Frank Marshall Davis (a card carrying member of the Communist Party – he is called by the name “Frank” in Mr Obama book “Dreams From My Father”).
Barack Obama was an active Marxist whilst at Occidental university.
Barack Obama was an active Marxist whilst at Columbia – going to the 1983 conference, and other conference and sitting at the feet of Francis Fox Piven and others.
The “Cloward and Piven” tactic – expand the number of people dependent on government till “capitalism” collapses.
Whilst in Chicago (although he actually met Comrade Bill Ayers before – in the New York City years, they lived close to each other and went to the same conferences) Barack Obama went to a “Liberation Theology” (specifically “Black Liberation Theology” – standard Frankfurt School front organisation) “church” – Holy Trinity (Rev Wright and co) for twenty years.
Mr Obama was also active with the Comrades – although both Barack and Michelle did have the reputation of being a bit too interested in personal profit, rather than selflessly serving “the cause”.
When did Barack Obama STOP being a Marxist?
After the book “Dreams From My Father” (whether Barack really wrote it or not) is clearly not a nonMarxist socialist work.
Take the section on Indonesia – Barack pretends that there was no Communist threat in Indonesia (sneering at the “smart boys in the CIA”).
Actually Indonesia in 1966 had the largest Communist party in the non Communist world – and had just launched a armed coup attempt (killing several army generals).
The armed coup failed – and the Communists were slaughtered in heaps all over Indonesia, most by the very peasants they had planned to enslave (the Communists were busy murdering tens of millions of peasants in China in the period).
Why would a non Marxist write in Frankfurt School style?
Why would he produce (or approve) an agitprop book such as “Dreams From My Father”?
American socialism is overwhelming Marxist in ideology.
What do you think the origins of “Political Correctness” and “Critical Theory” are?
They are Marxist – Frankfurt School and other.
Mr Obama is NOT a follower of Adolf Hitler or other non Marxist socialist thinkers.
Mr Obama is a part of the mainstream university and media crowd.
And they have been, in thought, dominated by Marxist ideas for decades.
The destruction of American society is not an accident.
It is not the unintended consequence of well meaning policies.
People like the Mayor of New York City – or the President of the United States, no exactly what they are doing – and what the consequences will be.
The United States is not dying a natural death – America is being murdered.
Although the complaint from the hard core Comrades is that it is all taking too long.
They want America to die NOW, today.
That is why they, for example, put their arms in buckets and have cement poured on them (some really do this).
To make it harder for them to removed from the roads – so they can hold up emergency services and kill people.
They are not happy with Obama’s gradual approach to destroying America (fearing that he and Michelle want to personally profit and have the end come after their own time).
They, the hardcore Comrades, want America dead NOW.
But just because Mr Obama is not a hardcore Comrade does not mean he is not a Comrade.
He is, and always has been.
The OIC is using the UN to get a global law passed against blasphemy. The OUP instructs its authors not to use pigs, sausages etc. in their books. They are fucking relentless and we are weak in our response.
Alisa: Quite right, main point and supporting discussion. And most especially, “…[F]ree speech is not the issue – violence is.”
. . .
Being the victim of violence ought not provide the victim with cover for his own attacks on the very outlook and values of the society that tolerates him and indeed has come to celebrate him (to whatever degree).
[By the way — even I can privately ROFLMAO at some unacceptably nasty skewering of a target; but as a rule I will not support the perp with my money or my commendation (I might however be persuaded to change my views, which would change my behaviour in that regard). Whether this makes me a “hypocrite” in someone’s sight depends on his definition.]
. . .
Is the Sith a Marxist? Well, yes, as his own pronouncements show. “You didn’t build that,” so forth. Is his main object of reverence Marx or Marxism? I’ve always thought it was Obama. But he’s certainly a “cultural Marxist” in the sense that his native culture is Marxist, and that it shows. And his agenda is clearly Marxist.
Not all Marxists are Marxist-Leninists.
Is he Muslim? Well, to some degree he’s culturally Muslim, and it may be (and likely is) that he identifies to some extent with some variety of Islam; even if he doesn’t worship Allah. I am not Christian, but I do feel myself a part of the Christian world, and I do “identify” in part with Christianity. So people may have noticed that I find it necessary to defend Christian beliefs or traditions from time to time. (Actually the same is true of Judaism, except that I haven’t spent enough time and attention in the home of my spiritual grandparents to feel sure of myself on most of its beliefs and traditions.)
. . .
To say that anything we have ever seen in a posting of any sort by Paul Marks makes him a political or philosophical or spiritual or any sort of relative of ISIS is preposterous.
And Paul’s elucidation of January 16, 2015 at 10:54 am, above, of the reasons for judging the Sith to be a Marxist is a masterpiece of conciseness, accuracy, and power.