Gunmen attack offices of French satirical magazine

[RavynousHunter]

"If she didn't dress like a HOARRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, then she wouldn't have been raped."  <-- Bill Donahue's bullshit distilled into its base form.

[ironbite]

.............WHAT THE FUCK IS HE SAYING!?

Ironbite-wow...the double think just....wow.

[SCarpelan]

Something worth reading. Claiming that the religious fervor against the satire had no part in the attacker's motives isn't accurate IMO but we must see that there is probably a greater strategical motive behind the violence. It's extremely important that the reaction to the violence will not serve the terrorists' agenda.

http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/sharpening-contradictions-satirists.html

The problem for a terrorist group like al-Qaeda is that its recruitment pool is Muslims, but most Muslims are not interested in terrorism. Most Muslims are not even interested in politics, much less political Islam.
...
Al-Qaeda wants to mentally colonize French Muslims, but faces a wall of disinterest. But if it can get non-Muslim French to be beastly to ethnic Muslims on the grounds that they are Muslims, it can start creating a common political identity around grievance against discrimination.

[WatermelonRat]

Apparently they got into the building by threatening a young woman's daughter unless she gave them the access codes. And I thought I couldn't hate these guys any more.

[guizonde]

Apparently they got into the building by threatening a young woman's daughter unless she gave them the access codes. And I thought I couldn't hate these guys any more.

a bit of gallows humor, but somebody must've told them the pen is mightier than the sword, and they though "challenge accepted".

[WatermelonRat]

Now I'm reading that one of the police officers killed was Muslim.

[Ultimate Paragon]

Now I'm reading that one of the police officers killed was Muslim.

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say the Islamophobes will ignore that inconvenient fact.

[guizonde]

Now I'm reading that one of the police officers killed was Muslim.

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say the Islamophobes will ignore that inconvenient fact.

in france, islamophobes will just say "good riddance, one less to worry about". yeah, it's sad.

[guizonde]

it's not racist. it's meant to shock. you should have seen their cartoons about the pedophile scandals. some are tasteless, but it's gallows humor. then again, humor is different in france. when i see most american cartoons, i find them polite, trite, even.

their motto is "we can laugh about everything. including you, including us. now buzz off, we've got people to offend".

that's what satire means in france.

besides, free speech was attacked. do you call out racism in the bad jokes thread? imagine if the bad jokes thread was a newspaper, you're not far off the mark.

[SCarpelan]

it's not racist. it's meant to shock. you should have seen their cartoons about the pedophile scandals. some are tasteless, but it's gallows humor. then again, humor is different in france. when i see most american cartoons, i find them polite, trite, even.

In this case, I'm not buying this excuse. If a satirical image uses and thus strengthens racist representations of a group then it's racist satire. It still is and should be protected by free speech but the racist element should be called out and not be ignored as "only" humour.

Edit: humour and it's influence is a complex thing and a context where the satire is presented also matters. Spreading racist imagery even with a satirical, edgy motive to general population where you have no control who sees it will spread racism. Presenting such imagery or jokes in a group where you know people will recognize the racism and laugh at the edginess without taking the racist element seriously does not spread it.

[mellenORL]

Remember this?



http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/new_yorker_obama_terrorist_cover_/

[Beezlebub]

Relevant: According to my sources (Wikipedia) the magazine has been tried for hate speech. It was acquitted, however.

[LeTipex]

I don't know how to react to that. I have trouble processing it, and I have no appropriate reaction. I went to the march yesterday evening, held up a pen along with something like 15 000 people. It felt appropriate.

I don't alway agree with Charlie Heb. It's funny sometimes, interesting occasionally, offensive and problematic too. But damn is that disproportionate and horrific. It touches a lot of us close to home : we always found things that seemed unpleasant and wrong in Charlie Hebdo, but I think that most of us also found some gems there.

[guizonde]

Relevant: According to my sources (Wikipedia) the magazine has been tried for hate speech. It was acquitted, however.

of course it was. please check out their ancestor, hara-kiri. totally relevant to the discussion, here is hara-kiri's last headline regarding charles de gaulles death (you know, a french hero, so big no-no attacking him too soon)

In November 1970, following the death of Charles de Gaulle at his home in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, the weekly Hara-Kiri Hebdo bore the headline « Bal tragique à Colombey : 1 mort » (En: "Tragic ball in Colombey: 1 death").

The choice of the title refers to a tragedy of the same month: a fire at a discothèque where 146 people were killed. As a result, the magazine was immediately and permanently banned from sale to minors and publicity by the minister of the interior Raymond Marcellin.

these guys pushed the limits of politically correct. why? because someone had to. they weren't racist, they were misanthropists. to boot, they never attacked islam (they don't give a damn about that religion, or any other for that matter). charb (main editor and one of the victims) went on record to say that they attacked bigots, the terrorists, the fundies, the idiots who game the system, etc. when called racist and hearing that they'd never attack a bishop for example, he showed journalists a pile of journals where the cover were the pedophile scandals.

if you think about saying that i'm biased (and i'll give you that i may be a bit biased, seeing as how it hits at home), i've never truly enjoyed this journal. hell, i much prefer the canard enchaîné who targets more the political class. if there's one thing about charlie hebdo i don't like is that by smacking everyone it dilutes the punch and the effect. whereas in the canard calling the french president a lazy fatass once per issue hits harder, kind of like conservation of damage.

flamewar aside, even if these guys were morally dubious, there still remains the fact that a terrorist attack killed journalists, policemen, and that no later than this morning, the death toll continued to climb to include a third police officer during the manhunt. the french muslim community is floored, and the imams of france have called the terrorists demons.

i totally agree with letipex, although i'd say that i found charlie interesting because it was so offensive for the sake of joking about inappropriate things.

edit to add: i hate being right: the anti-muslim vandalism has started. http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2015/01/08/01016-20150108ARTFIG00116-serie-d-actes-anti-musulmans-au-lendemain-de-l-attentat-contre-charlie-hebdo.php

sorry about the french article.

[LeTipex]

Yeah, I'll Ride With You will need to happen there, too.

It does. The hashtag is #voyageavecmoi.