Senate Terror attacks in Europe

This tragedy would never have happened in the U.S., because we don't have a functioning leftist media.

 

Don't worry, we've our right-wing media to supply the necessary islamophobia.

 

Jello, I guess I don't entirely see your point. These were thinkers and artists. They asked, every day, for their professional output to be the topic of substantive, meaningful, intellectual engagement. They wanted to challenge readers and drive debate. That's what it means to work in the media, most especially something like a satirical magazine. They certainly didn't expect for their work to be declared sacrosanct and beyond all criticism. Do you seriously mean to say that no one can ever say anything about the publication again, because of this event? How do you mean they can "never be separated?"

I think your comments about timing are accurate. I'd likewise agree with you and many other users that his characterizations of the employees themselves--rather than their professional output--was reductive and inappropriate. Even on a strictly professional level, Chyntuck has provided some important, positive points. Whenever we get to examine their legacy, we'll have to consider those alongside the Muhammad cartoons that Vivec points out were inflammatory, and arguably bullying of a French minority group that already sees a number of punitive causeless censures at the hands of the national government.

JTS: Vivec has been quite consistent in linking his comments here to some earlier ones by other users on the topic of Muhammad cartoons. Why resort to arm chair psychology about what his "real" motivation is? Assuming someone is being disingenuous with you or enacting some weird secret agenda doesn't really help move the conversation forward. Especially since the things worth criticizing about his post are that way regardless of why he said them. I wouldn't be so certain that you know exactly what he's thinking.

 

I'm not going to play the consistency game, Wocky. Especially not with you.

I think Kiki is right when he says this thread is about the brutal Hebdo murders, not Vivec.

I'm sorry for the personal comments, Sean, they were unnecessary no matter how abominable I found your position.

Let's move on.

 

I'm sorry for derailing the thread. I looked up a whole bunch of their cartoons after reading the news and posted my impression of them. Probably should have left it for another thread.

I agree to move on.

 

Au contraire! I believe we will rally around our French brothers, the ones who aren't Muslim, and possibly even finally put the "french" back in our freedom fries after all these years. I'm ready to take that kind of a bold initiative to show our solidarity.

 

Has the NRA weighed in yet?

 

This wouldn't have happened if every cartoonist had a Mossberg 500 under their drawing desks.

 

The Charlie Hebdo murders

All latest updates​

Death to satire

The worst terrorist attack on French soil in 50 years. Its target: cartoonists





Jan 7th 2015 | Europe




IT WAS the sort of attack that the French government had dreaded for months. Only in December, Manuel Valls, the prime minister, declared gravely that France had “never faced a greater terrorist threat”. On January 7th armed gunmen burst into the Paris offices ofCharlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper known for its defiant publication of satirical cartoons about Islam, and shot dead ten people. Two police officers were also killed. President François Hollande, who arrived swiftly at the scene, was in no doubt: it was “a terrorist attack” of “extreme barbarity”. It was also the worst terrorist attack on French soil for over 50 years.

The choice of target was not random. Charlie Hebdo has prided itself over the years in putting free speech above political correctness. In 2006 it reprinted cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, which caused consternation in some quarters when they were first published by a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. Five years later Charlie Hebdo published an entire edition it provocatively entitled “Charia Hebdo”, which it said was “edited” by the Prophet. On the night before publication, its Paris offices were firebombed.

Since then, the paper’s offices and some of its cartoonists have been under police protection. But this was not enough to stop the two gunmen, armed with semi-automatic weapons, forcing their way in and shooting dead the journalists, including Stéphane Charbonnier (known as Charb), its editor and a well-known cartoonist. One of the dead policeman was thought to be his bodyguard. Bernard Maris, an economist at the Bank of France visiting the paper, was also killed.

French politicians on the left and the right expressed outrage at the attack. Mr Hollande cleared his diary to visit the scene and hold an emergency security meeting. Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-right opposition leader and former president, called it an “abject act” and an “attack on our democracy”. Hassen Chalghoumi, the imam of Drancy and a Muslim moderate, said of the killers that “their barbary has nothing to do with Islam.”

With the gunmen still on the run, and France’s terror alert raised to its highest level, questions turned to why and how this deadly attack came about. France is no stranger to terrorism, much of it in the post-war period linked to the bloody war of Algerian independence and its aftermath. In 1995, eight people were killed in an attack on the RER suburban underground, and two more died in a similar attack the following year. More recently France has tightened security after being singled out as a target by al-Qaeda on various pretexts, including its introduction five years ago of a ban on the “burqa”, a face-covering veil, and its military interventions against jihadist incursions in the African Sahel.
Analysts reckon that this attack, however, is of a different nature. Recent fears have concentrated on French citizens who have returned from jihadist training in Syria and Iraq. The government estimates that about 1,000 Frenchmen have either left to fight for Islamic State, have already returned, or are on their way back. Last autumn, the government tightened its anti-terrorism legislation in an attempt to curb this trend. But it has remained keenly aware that a possible attack by home-grown jihadists could take place at any moment.


Across the rest of Europe, the reaction was a mixture of shock and a sickening familiarity. Like Mr Chaghoumi, moderate Muslims expressed disgust at what they saw as a perversion of their religion. National leaders expressed solidarity with the French people. Anti-Islam populists moved to exploit anxieties over Muslim radicalism. (“This is war”,tweeted the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders.) The murders have plunged the continent back into a long-running conflict over freedom of expression, religious sensibilities and violent Muslim radicalism—with today’s attack putting France at the epicentre of that battle.

The above is for anyone tempted to believe Vivec has a shred of a clue what he's talking about in this thread. He doesn't, and I suspect when he finds out his own anus betrayed him to post from his account he's going to be cross.

 

Besides the fact that we're beyond that conversation, I honestly I don't see how that article influences anything at all, Ender.

 

Topical:
https://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2015/01/reforming-islam

Reforming Islam

Where change comes from





Jan 7th 2015, 17:05 BY B.C.






WHEN news came of today's appalling terrorist attack in Paris, I was in the middle of drafting an Erasmus post with some thoughts on the question: can we expect Islam to undergo its own version of the Reformation, or to produce its own Martin Luther? The subject is addressed, in quite an intelligent way, in the latest issue of Foreign Policy, an American journal, and it is a topical one because various modern figures, from the Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen to Egypt's military ruler Abdel Fattah al-Sisi have been described, however improbably, as Muslim answers to Martin Luther.
Today's ghastly events in France make the question even more pressing, because some people will undoubtedly say: this is proof, if proof were needed, that Islam is incorrigibly and by its very nature violent, intolerant and incapable of accepting the liberal ideal of free speech. And if that view gains traction, many Muslims will in turn conclude that in the face of such unremitting hostility, there is no point in even trying to explain their faith to others or seeking accommodation with their neighbours. So the stakes are very high.
Nick Danforth, the Foreign Policy writer, does a decent job of deconstructing the “Luther” question and showing how posing it reflects a linear, Anglo-Protestant view of history. According to this view there is a single-file march towards secular modernity, with reforming Protestants out in front, Catholics being dragged along a bit reluctantly, and Muslims far behind. “For most of American history, it would have been self-evident to the majority of American Protestants that the celebrated separation of church and state in the United States became possible because the Protestant Reformation tamed the Vatican in the 16th century.” You don't have to be a Protestant to argue for this sort of view; you could say, as many do, that the Reformation's real merit was that it reduced the importance of religion in general, and ushered in a more rational world. In fact, the article counter-argues, every religion has it own trajectory and its own way of negotiating the boundary between revealed truth and changing reality; it's not helpful to imagine a single track along which people travel at different speeds.
Here are some of my own thoughts on the subject. They have to do not with the merits, attractiveness or truth-claims of any religion, but with the way that religions in general work.
Martin Luther raised his voice against the abuse of clerical power by the Catholic authorities of his time: the ways in which sacraments (in other words, rituals which require a priest) were manipulated for cynical or venal purposes, doctrines were distorted, and ordinary people denied the opportunity to seek religious truth for themselves. He spoke with the authority of a well trained Catholic monk, versed in the Bible and in early church history. He wasn't rejecting all religious authority, or the idea of a sacrament as a ritual in which God was present; if he had taken that uncompromising view, he probably wouldn't have found many followers.
In my experience, Muslims' first response to Luther's protests is usually something like: the abuses that he addressed are never likely to arise in Islam, because Islam has no equivalent of sacraments or priests who come between man and God and monopolise certain rituals. Islam has imams or prayer leaders, but no bishops or father-confessors. (Shia Islam does have a tradition of powerful clerics, but the power they now enjoy in Iran is, arguably, a historical aberration.)
At the same time, many Muslims would stress that the "reform" or "renewal" of their religion, in the sense of cutting away unwanted accretions and getting back to Islam's original inspiration, has been a recurring theme in their history; and they would probably agree that some reform is badly needed now. But it's worth stressing that in neither Christianity, Islam, Judaism nor any other major religion can "reform" be equated with moderation or emollience. A stripped-down, minimalist religion can be more violent and intolerant than an elaborate one; just ask Oliver Cromwell or the Pakistani Taliban.
At this point, many non-Muslims might say, "we don't really care whether Islam is elaborate or stripped-down, we only care whether its followers can be persuaded to renounce terrorism, beheadings, and the pursuit of political power." Well, passionate arguments against all these things are being heard within the world of Islam, although they get less publicity than the violent voices. Look, for example, at the personally courageous stance of Hamza Yusuf, an American-born scholar with a wide following in the Islamic heart-land, in denunciation of Islamic State, its aims and methods. In recent weeks some 300,000 people have used the internet to hear him condemn, in rigorously Islamic terms, the claim of IS to be authentic representatives of the Sunni creed. His voice comes from deep inside scholarly, traditional Islam, just as Luther's came from deep inside sacramental, episcopal Christianity—and many people are listening.

Islam will not be scolded, scorned or aerially bombed into reforming by outsiders; it is deeply immune to external pressure. But it can and will change from within, as the founding texts and traditions are reread and refracted by successive generations. Nobody can predict which way that change will go—and there is not just one, single historical path along which it will or won't progress.

I'm going to have a read of the essay in question, because it's accurate to claim it is a Western-centric view of Islam that a reformation is needed to iron out the propensity for radicals to use political Islam as a means to justify their ends. Vivec, you can basically dismiss it out of hand since you're already a noted and complex political scholar.

 

I'm so angry my English is going to be bad and I may be incoherent, so bear with me. I'm too out of it to take part in an intelligent debate, but I just really, really need to write this.

Vivec. What on earth is utterly WRONG with you? Charlie Hebdo was in no way an Islamophobe media: it was denouncing islamist extremism! You know, like those guy who flew planes in the WTC, amongst other atrocities? Muslims and Islamists are not the same!
And it's far from the only thing Charlie Hebdo was denouncing. They were the irreverent voice that pointed out the things nobody else wanted to say... And they did it in a fun way. There were about fun, above all. About disrespect too, but every democracy needs a healthy dose of disrespect if it wants to remain a democracy...

What happened in unfair. Some extremists with assault riffles attacked a bunch of guys with pens and humour as their only weapons. How brave of them.

Even if you don't think it's important, please respect the pain of several thousands of people... Our freedom of speech and opinion was attacked. A part of our culture. Cartoonists, and journalists, everybody knew - even if not everybody loved them. Remember that there is no such thing as the Second Amendment in our country, and that plenty of us have never seen a firearm in our lives. Charlie Hebdo was real. Shootings are in the movies, not in real life...
... I can't believe I'm using the past tense to talk about Charlie...

 

Welcome back Frank.

 

Twinnie

Nous sommes désolés. Vivec ne comprend très bien l'Europe.

We also had a recent attack in Australia by people misappropriating Islam and attacking our values; I understand how you feel. Il est naturel d'être en colère.

Not a native English speaker Jaypes. Don't be that guy.

 

Ender, I read French, just so you know.

Twinnie, calm yourself. I agreed with David to move on but that won't happen if you start hurling insults at me.

 

Oh you speak French? Well, I'm quite sure I rival only your parents in being this <makes gesture> proud of you Vivec.

 

Here's what Richard Dawkins had to say about the attacks on Twitter:

No, all religions are NOT equally violent. Some have never been violent, some gave it up centuries ago. One religion conspicuously didn’t.

 

**** off.

EDIT: at Ender, not you shane

 

Oh, Richard Dawkins. Scholar known for his nuanced, informed views on religion and especially Islam.

 

Eh I don't buy the criticism of Harris/Dawkins/the late Hitchens as being racist. It's something the shallow left came up with when it suits them, because they are uncomfortable with an ideological critique of an ideology that's majority non-white in ethnicity. So they cry racism and let slip the dogs of "your argument is invalidated because I'm suggesting it's motivated by skin colour" despite anything close to a suggestion skin colour matters.

If we call Christianity a bigoted, oppressive regime responsible for war, violence, intolerance and the repugnant treatment of women and gays over time, it's widely seen as accurate mostly because Christianity is largely a white religion in the popular conscience.

Say the same of Islam? RACISM.

It's idiotic, but equally it's coming from minds that are easily dismissed as tiny and pretentious.

I'm half-way through this essay: http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/02/islam-will-not-have-its-own-reformation/

Interesting so far.

 

Okay, why are we acting as though solidly-a-product-of-his-day-including-violent-anti-Semitism-and-pro-feudalism Martin Luther was some sort of Bringer of Enlightenment to Christianity? (I can't read the article because it's behind a registration wall and I don't want to take the time for that.)

 

The foreign policy one?

 

I'm reading it just fine.

Ender Sai yes he means the FP one. Just click close on the regi wall Darth Guy