11 dead in French satirical magazine shooting

[Malthus]

Not sure what to make of this article, since I don't know much about French politics, but worth a read as it's from someone close to the events of yesterday:

Agnès Poirier

Published: 08 January 2015

I was reading a review of the French writer Michel Houellebecq's latest novel, Submission (Soumission) yesterday morning when an intriguing picture popped up on my computer screen. Fellow journalists seemed to have taken refuge on the rooftop of their offices at Charlie Hebdo. Taken refuge from what? Fire? Flooding? I went back to the Houellebecq review. Submission depicts life in an imaginary France, in 2022: a French Islamist has just won the presidential elections with the backing of the liberal Left and Right. France is refounded as an Islamist Republic.

Then another picture came up on my screen: two armed men in a street of the 11th arrondissement of Paris, near my office. Black-clad and wearing balaclavas, they were shooting at policemen in front of Charlie Hebdo's offices. Houellebecq and his controversial fiction would have to wait.
......

Now France has a big problem on its hands. To be blunt, France has had a problem for 25 years. Successive French governments of both Left and Right have undermined key French republican values — above all secularism — and let the poison of sectarianism creep in. Call it appeasement — and appeasement never yields any results. For years, the French and their governments thought they could somehow buy peace by closing their eyes to the resurgence of fundamentalism of all kinds (Muslim but Jewish and Catholic too) and refusing to speak plainly.

During his presidency, Nicolas Sarkozy came up with a law banning the full veil, to no effect: by then it was already too late for this. With the largest Muslim community (six million people) as well as the largest Jewish community (600,000) in the Western world, the French should have known better.

When the far-Right Front National suddenly proved to be one of the very few political parties in France actually to speak plainly of Islamism, we all buried our heads in the sand, refusing even to debate it. That was a terrible mistake. Marine le Pen's party came first in the European elections last May and now sets the terms of the debate. She almost has a monopoly on the subject, because French democrats haven't had the courage to rise to her challenge on the subject. Charlie Hebdo's cartoonists were the only ones to see clearly and to say it loudly with their cartoons. Now they are dead.

In fact, the space for calm and intelligent public debate in France has shrunk considerably in the past decade or so, stuck as we are between the hysterical but politically astute far-Right and the blind liberal Left and Right, who accuse everyone of religionphobia as soon as the word Muslim, Jew or Catholic is uttered. The French should remember their ugly 16th-century Wars of Religion, and their huge achievement in separating the State from the Church in 1905, the modern basis of the principle of secularism so central to French democracy.

What way forward for France now? We have to go back to the Republic's generous and inclusive basics — and show the door to everyone who doesn't accept them. We should read Voltaire again too: "intolerance cannot be tolerated".

If you do tolerate it, you reap war in your street and your most outspoken and talented writers and artists need around-the-clock police protection. Michel Houellebecq was given such protection just two hours after Charlie Hebdo's attack.

The French must wake up: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité are not just beautiful words carved on old buildings. It is a daily fight. It may even be a war.

Agnès C Poirier is a French political commentator

Full article here:

http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/agns-poirier-now-france-faces-a-daily-battle-for-libert-egalit-and-fraternit-9964903.html

France has a problem with Jewish fundamentalism now? 

Strikes me that France has a problem with a sizable Muslim ethnic minority whose young are largely unemployed, living in ghettos, overrepresented in jails, and pissed off - and so ripe for extremism of any sort. Just so happens the flavour of the day is Islamicism. 

Loudly trumpeting "secularism" isn't going to solve this problem. Even assuming the dissafected minority buys it - will this not just mean picking up a secularist flavour of extremism? You will still have a big minority living in ghettos and pissed off - only now, not religious.

[mongers]

310 post in just 11 hours, who knew languish wasn't dying. 

All it takes is a horrible tragedy to make us spring into life. Sort of like vultures. 

Yes, and a fittingly Languish turn of phrase as well.

[Martinus]

Not sure what to make of this article, since I don't know much about French politics, but worth a read as it's from someone close to the events of yesterday:

Agnès Poirier

Published: 08 January 2015

I was reading a review of the French writer Michel Houellebecq's latest novel, Submission (Soumission) yesterday morning when an intriguing picture popped up on my computer screen. Fellow journalists seemed to have taken refuge on the rooftop of their offices at Charlie Hebdo. Taken refuge from what? Fire? Flooding? I went back to the Houellebecq review. Submission depicts life in an imaginary France, in 2022: a French Islamist has just won the presidential elections with the backing of the liberal Left and Right. France is refounded as an Islamist Republic.

Then another picture came up on my screen: two armed men in a street of the 11th arrondissement of Paris, near my office. Black-clad and wearing balaclavas, they were shooting at policemen in front of Charlie Hebdo's offices. Houellebecq and his controversial fiction would have to wait.
......

Now France has a big problem on its hands. To be blunt, France has had a problem for 25 years. Successive French governments of both Left and Right have undermined key French republican values — above all secularism — and let the poison of sectarianism creep in. Call it appeasement — and appeasement never yields any results. For years, the French and their governments thought they could somehow buy peace by closing their eyes to the resurgence of fundamentalism of all kinds (Muslim but Jewish and Catholic too) and refusing to speak plainly.

During his presidency, Nicolas Sarkozy came up with a law banning the full veil, to no effect: by then it was already too late for this. With the largest Muslim community (six million people) as well as the largest Jewish community (600,000) in the Western world, the French should have known better.

When the far-Right Front National suddenly proved to be one of the very few political parties in France actually to speak plainly of Islamism, we all buried our heads in the sand, refusing even to debate it. That was a terrible mistake. Marine le Pen's party came first in the European elections last May and now sets the terms of the debate. She almost has a monopoly on the subject, because French democrats haven't had the courage to rise to her challenge on the subject. Charlie Hebdo's cartoonists were the only ones to see clearly and to say it loudly with their cartoons. Now they are dead.

In fact, the space for calm and intelligent public debate in France has shrunk considerably in the past decade or so, stuck as we are between the hysterical but politically astute far-Right and the blind liberal Left and Right, who accuse everyone of religionphobia as soon as the word Muslim, Jew or Catholic is uttered. The French should remember their ugly 16th-century Wars of Religion, and their huge achievement in separating the State from the Church in 1905, the modern basis of the principle of secularism so central to French democracy.

What way forward for France now? We have to go back to the Republic's generous and inclusive basics — and show the door to everyone who doesn't accept them. We should read Voltaire again too: "intolerance cannot be tolerated".

If you do tolerate it, you reap war in your street and your most outspoken and talented writers and artists need around-the-clock police protection. Michel Houellebecq was given such protection just two hours after Charlie Hebdo's attack.

The French must wake up: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité are not just beautiful words carved on old buildings. It is a daily fight. It may even be a war.

Agnès C Poirier is a French political commentator

Full article here:

http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/agns-poirier-now-france-faces-a-daily-battle-for-libert-egalit-and-fraternit-9964903.html

[Liep]

The conspirationalists are out in force claiming that the terrorists had a sense of humour. Before the attack they hacked Hebdo's twitter account and posted "Meilleurs vœux, au fait. (Happy New Years, by the way)" and this now disputed Honoré comic:


Happy New Years to Al-Baghdadi as well
"And especially good health"

As a response to this comic by Charb:


Still no attack on France
"Wait! We still have to the end of January to wish you a happy new years."

[Martinus]

London preacher who called for gays to be killed defends Paris Charlie Hebdo shootings

A London preacher who previously called for gay people to be stoned to death has written an article defending the murder of 12 people in Paris yesterday at the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Yesterday, gunmen killed twelve people, after attacking the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical French magazine that famously published a cartoon of a gay Muslim kiss.

Responding today, USA Today published an opinion article by London preacher Anjem Choudary who defends the murder, and appears to blame the French Government for "allowing" the magazine to publish them images, "thereby placing the sanctity of its citizens at risk?"

He writes: "Muslims consider the honor of the Prophet Muhammad to be dearer to them than that of their parents or even themselves. To defend it is considered to be an obligation upon them. The strict punishment if found guilty of this crime under sharia (Islamic law) is capital punishment implementable by an Islamic State. This is because the Messenger Muhammad said, "Whoever insults a Prophet kill him."

"However, because the honor of the Prophet is something which all Muslims want to defend, many will take the law into their own hands, as we often see."

He continues: "Why in this case did the French government allow the magazine Charlie Hebdo to continue to provoke Muslims, thereby placing the sanctity of its citizens at risk?"

Speaking in an interview with Fox News, Choudhary was challenged on his views, and asked whether he still thinks gay people should be put to death, as well as adulterers.

He responded to say he thought those found guilty of "sodomy", and where there are four witnesses, should be stoned to death under Shariah law, which he said should be implemented worldwide.

Another islamophobe who doesn't understand that Islam is a religion of peace, it seems.

Also, wtf USA Today? 

[Martinus]

Full article:

Why did France allow the tabloid to provoke Muslims?

Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone. Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people's desires.

Although Muslims may not agree about the idea of freedom of expression, even non-Muslims who espouse it say it comes with responsibilities. In an increasingly unstable and insecure world, the potential consequences of insulting the Messenger Muhammad are known to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Muslims consider the honor of the Prophet Muhammad to be dearer to them than that of their parents or even themselves. To defend it is considered to be an obligation upon them. The strict punishment if found guilty of this crime under sharia (Islamic law) is capital punishment implementable by an Islamic State. This is because the Messenger Muhammad said, "Whoever insults a Prophet kill him."

However, because the honor of the Prophet is something which all Muslims want to defend, many will take the law into their own hands, as we often see.

Within liberal democracies, freedom of expression has curtailments, such as laws against incitement and hatred.

The truth is that Western governments are content to sacrifice liberties and freedoms when being complicit to torture and rendition — or when restricting the freedom of movement of Muslims, under the guise of protecting national security.

So why in this case did the French government allow the magazine Charlie Hebdo to continue to provoke Muslims, thereby placing the sanctity of its citizens at risk?

It is time that the sanctity of a Prophet revered by up to one-quarter of the world's population was protected.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/01/07/islam-allah-muslims-shariah-anjem-choudary-editorials-debates/21417461/

[Malthus]

I like this guy's analysis:

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/the-blasphemy-we-need/?_r=1

Summary:

1) The right to blaspheme (and otherwise give offense) is essential to the liberal order.

2) There is no duty to blaspheme, a society's liberty is not proportional to the quantity of blasphemy it produces, and under many circumstances the choice to give offense (religious and otherwise) can be reasonably criticized as pointlessly antagonizing, needlessly cruel, or simply stupid.

3) The legitimacy and wisdom of such criticism is generally inversely proportional to the level of mortal danger that the blasphemer brings upon himself.

[Iormlund]

Strikes me that France has a problem with a sizable Muslim ethnic minority whose young are largely unemployed, living in ghettos, overrepresented in jails, and pissed off - and so ripe for extremism of any sort. Just so happens the flavour of the day is Islamicism. 

Loudly trumpeting "secularism" isn't going to solve this problem. Even assuming the dissafected minority buys it - will this not just mean picking up a secularist flavour of extremism? You will still have a big minority living in ghettos and pissed off - only now, not religious.

Poverty alone is rarely enough to engender violence. There are plenty of populations poorer than said French minorities, which abstain from committing terrorist acts.

Strong ideological support is pretty much essential for a terrorist. Whether it is religious, nationalistic or political.

[Martinus]

And then there are idiots like Howard Dean:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/01/08/howard-dean-paris-attackers-not-muslim-terrorists/

Arrogant counter-factual insistence like this from politically correct mainstream politicians is one of the reasons people embrace populist parties like the National Front in France or the Tea Party in the US.

[Duque de Bragança]

From France 24 liveblog

Expert on BFMTV says gunmen not pros. Went to wrong address, dropped identity card AND "Commandos don't drive a Citroen C3".

The ID card dropped allowed the quick identification. As for the Citroën bit, well I'm a bit more skeptical, it's easier to blend in with...

[Iormlund]

Not if you're male.

[Martinus]

Strikes me that France has a problem with a sizable Muslim ethnic minority whose young are largely unemployed, living in ghettos, overrepresented in jails, and pissed off - and so ripe for extremism of any sort. Just so happens the flavour of the day is Islamicism. 

Loudly trumpeting "secularism" isn't going to solve this problem. Even assuming the dissafected minority buys it - will this not just mean picking up a secularist flavour of extremism? You will still have a big minority living in ghettos and pissed off - only now, not religious.

Poverty alone is rarely enough to engender violence. There are plenty of populations poorer than said French minorities, which abstain from committing terrorist acts.

Strong ideological support is pretty much essential for a terrorist. Whether it is religious, nationalistic or political.

Yup. The "Malthus side" keep accusing the "Viking side" that when a white Christian commits mass murder, noone treats it as something related to his religion or ethnicity. But on the flip side, noone is trying to explain or excuse the crime by poverty or unemployment.

[Warspite]

From France 24 liveblog

Expert on BFMTV says gunmen not pros. Went to wrong address, dropped identity card AND "Commandos don't drive a Citroen C3".

The ID card dropped allowed the quick identification. As for the Citroën bit, well I'm a bit more skeptical, it's easier to blend in with...

What did he think they were going to tun up in? A Lamborghini? These aren't Qataris, for god's sake.

[Malthus]

Strikes me that France has a problem with a sizable Muslim ethnic minority whose young are largely unemployed, living in ghettos, overrepresented in jails, and pissed off - and so ripe for extremism of any sort. Just so happens the flavour of the day is Islamicism. 

Loudly trumpeting "secularism" isn't going to solve this problem. Even assuming the dissafected minority buys it - will this not just mean picking up a secularist flavour of extremism? You will still have a big minority living in ghettos and pissed off - only now, not religious.

Poverty alone is rarely enough to engender violence. There are plenty of populations poorer than said French minorities, which abstain from committing terrorist acts.

Strong ideological support is pretty much essential for a terrorist. Whether it is religious, nationalistic or political.

Poverty alone, no.

Poverty plus a sense of exclusion from mainstream society - closer.

Poverty plus a sense of exclusion from mainstream society plus some sort of ideological rallying cry - closer still.

Point being that, when one has a population that does not consider itself part of the mainstream, you have the breeding ground that makes it more likely that violence will happen - one far more ready to be receptive to the message of ideological nutcases.

Ridicule, repression or sweet reason will not persuade such people to reject the message of ideological nutcases, because it is not reason that persuaded them to accept the message in the first place. All ridicule or repression can do, once such a situation has been established, if feed the sense of seperation that made that population pissed off in the first place. It is likely to make them *more* receptive to ideological nutcases, not *less*.

This is why I thought legal restrictions on (say) veil-wearing were stupid. All that will achive is make veil-wearing a sign of bravery, and those punished for doing it into heroes, inspiring more fundies.

The same, BTW, lack of success in ostensible objects afflicts terrorism: this terrorism is not likely to intimidate non-fundies into not publishing (well, it may intimidate some, but overall, not). Rather, it will piss off the non-fundies into publishing *more*, as it makes those who publish in the face of the threat heroes - regardless of the worth of their cartoons or whatever. Publishing a cartoon showing Mohammed with a missile up his bare, hairy ass will now be a sign of bravery, not gaucherie.

There is this difference though: overall, fundie nutters *want* there to be more conflict, while the rest of us want *less* conflict. That's the reason behind the unreason of terrorism. A terrorist laughs every time someone in the West is encouraged by his acts to become a Grallon.

[Warspite]

And if we recall communist terrorism in Europe in the post-war period, wasn't it designed precisely to spur the capitalist state into revealing its true fascist character? In other words, the object of terror can often be to incite and inflame through propaganda of the deed.