Why I'm not Charlie and never will be

I don't just mean insulting, in terms of muslims in France it's bigger than just an insult.

But that was a really bad way for me to word it say I say well done, you caught me out.

Oh for Christ's sake people, Charlie Hebdo is not a person. You're just making yourself look stupid by saying this, and it invalidates your whole argument. This thread is just so full of ignorance.



France is a secular Republic - which means that we consider religion to be a part of our own private lives, that we should not be displaying in public institutions. It's not just about religion, the same applies to political opinions. We just like the idea that publicly, you should not be seen as a Muslim, Christian, Jew, leftist, conservative, racist, environmentalist, but as a French citizen.



But they didn't only mock beliefs - they also mocked politicians, political movements, artists, the media, old people, young people, arabic people, chinese people, white people, black people... They weren't only there to make people laugh, they actually tried to make people more tolerant and open-minded by teaching them to be critical about absolutely everything. Those people that believe that Charlie Hebdo's drawings were only there to make people laugh haven't understood a thing: it is first and firemost a progressive, left-wing, antiracist, anti-extremist newspaper which makes people think. But of course, when it comes to religion people are so narrow-minded that they can't be just a tad bit critical about what they believe in.



In France, the far-right party "National Front" is currently on the rise, and there have been some racist acts recently - among which anti-gay marriage demonstrators endoctrinated their own children to give a banana to our black Minister of Justice, calling her a "monkey". Basically, they're not making fun of her, but of these racist people.

Please people, before you say something just try to understand what you're criticising. Charlie Hebdo was not racist, antisemitic or islamophobic; it was preaching tolerance and fighting against extremisms.

"Journal engagé, de gauche, antireligieux, surtout athée, laïque, militant parfois" as Charb' said. We're all Charlie.

On one hand, you're absolutely correct. On the other hand, if you want people on your side, be respectful. Be polite. Be an English Gentleman.

And on the third hand, got rep for it.

If you are depending Charlie, or doing this whole trend about 'I'm Charlie', you are basically depending antisemitism, racism, Islamophoba, bigotry and xenophobia.


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Charlie Hebdo isn't a person. Shows just how informed you are.

Oh for Christ's sake people, Charlie Hebdo is not a person. You're just making yourself look stupid by saying this, and it invalidates your whole argument. This thread is just so full of ignorance.



France is a secular Republic - which means that we consider religion to be a part of our own private lives, that we should not be displaying in public institutions. It's not just about religion, the same applies to political opinions. We just like the idea that publicly, you should not be seen as a Muslim, Christian, Jew, leftist, conservative, racist, environmentalist, but as a French citizen.



But they didn't only mock beliefs - they also mocked politicians, political movements, artists, the media, old people, young people, arabic people, chinese people, white people, black people... They weren't only there to make people laugh, they actually tried to make people more tolerant and open-minded by teaching them to be critical about absolutely everything. Those people that believe that Charlie Hebdo's drawings were only there to make people laugh haven't understood a thing: it is first and firemost a progressive, left-wing, antiracist, anti-extremist newspaper which makes people think. But of course, when it comes to religion people are so narrow-minded that they can't be just a tad bit critical about what they believe in.



In France, the far-right party "National Front" is currently on the rise, and there have been some racist acts recently - among which anti-gay marriage demonstrators endoctrinated their own children to give a banana to our black Minister of Justice, calling her a "monkey". Basically, they're not making fun of her, but of these racist people.

Please people, before you say something just try to understand what you're criticising. Charlie Hebdo was not racist, antisemitic or islamophobic; it was preaching tolerance and fighting against extremisms.

"Journal engagé, de gauche, antireligieux, surtout athée, laïque, militant parfois" as Charb' said. We're all Charlie.

Yes, it can indeed be divisive. But so what? Cartoons don't cause violence; beliefs rooted in 6th century desert myths do.

Mockery of religion is essential, though. Totalitarian religion seeks to dominate others by appealing to divine supremacy. If you can mock religion by taking its core texts and ruthlessly satirising its flaws and inconsistencies, you completely undermine the notion of them being divinely warranted. Mockery of religion is utterly key.

Right so we should not display political opinions? But it's okay to mock political opinions? Oh right yes. That's so much better.

Yes I know it wasn't only religion. I know the whole defense making people more tolerant with the critique. However, it's offensive to sensitive subjects and disrespectful.

Now, if Charlie's allowed to use the freedom of speech defense for this, then you should be allowed to make fun of anything right? so the holocaust for example, it's okay to draw satirical cartoons mocking that? After all it only restricts our freedom of expression if we aren't allowed, right?

"Cartoons don't cause violence" hours after the attack bullets were fired at a prayer room in a Mosque in France, as well as other acts of vandalism, and a pig's head was left outside of another Mosque with a direct threat. So I'd say that cartoons cause violence in this case.

You can hate Islam or whatever but I doubt that you actively and publicly ridicule Islam in a way which is beyond just disrespect, or wouldn't create any sort of debate.

Back to the original point, I believe in freedom of speech and expression, but that does not mean that I'm willing to advocate the publications. Which is why I'm not going to affiliate myself by saying "I am Charlie Hebdo".

This doesn't make sense.
She said that France doesn't allow political opinions or something. I answered "Right so we should not display political opinions? But it's okay to mock political opinions?" because I think it's absurd to not allow you to say something, but allow you to criticize it.

So what? Objecting to freedom of expression is offensive and disrespectful - do you not see your own pitfall?
Well free speech will never be 100% a good thing. I'm not disrespecting free speech, i'm disrespecting disrespect.


Absolutely. The holocaust is fair game. Anything is fair game for satire - why is that difficult to appreciate?

I don't agree with the racial elements embedded within the satire. The same way that I don't agree with the acts of certain individuals behind the terror.

It becomes the problem when the media generalise; not everybody in Islam hold extremist views, it's an unfair portrayal.

But again, I'm not condoning the events in France at all.

Please do share your causal link with us. How exactly has the drawing of cartoons caused people to die? Show your working.



What constitutes 'beyond just disrespect'?



Debatable that you do indeed support freedom of speech & expression. If you don't actively advocate the *right* (and quite arguably, the duty) of Charlie Hebdo to publish the cartoons, you're an enemy of free expression.

In terms of my casual link, I'd quite like to point out that you said "cartoons do not cause violence". I did not say that cartoons caused death, they don't.

"Beyond just disrespect" in my opinion is attacking something objective with no intent other than damage. As far as my understanding the word respect means acknowledging the feelings and wishes of others. Disrespect being a disregard of those feelings and wishes. So isn't it logical that "beyond" disrespect would be an outright attack as well as disregard? I think this is a sort of trivial thing to quote but I'm open to your interpretations of any of my posts.

In my opinion advocating free-speech is as simple as not attacking it. Advocating ALL of Charlie Hebdo's publications would also arguably make me an Islamophobe as well as generally religiously intolerant.

I know friends people who don't like Islam for whatever reason, but they don't at the very least draw pictures of Mohammad. I mean come on, if you want to argue that Islam is a religion of hate and violence, is that in any way relevant at all? That creates no meaningful debate and just inflames.

Generally, the issues that Charlie Hebdo raises (such as homophobia in Islam) are totally justified, but I struggle to see how they actually help solve anything. Exercising your freedom of speech to the utmost extremes does nothing meaningful apart from keeping the limits wide. So yes I would definitely say that I advocate the right and the duty for the cartoons to be published, but I will 100% refuse to affiliate myself with the publications because of their content. Isn't that fair?

I have no idea of the context of the cartoon about the Rabaa massacre but the one with the politician as a monkey does indeed seem to be pretty disgusting.

However, I think you're missing the point of #JeSuisCharlie. One of the perks of living in a democratic society is that we are (or ought to be) able to say and think whatever we want, but the price we have to pay is that we need to allow others to say and think what *they* want, no matter how unsavoury those things might be. I'm a leftist atheist and I despise most religions and I despise organisations like UKIP and the BNP, but I believe they should be allowed to exist and that they should be able to say what they want because that guarantees my freedom to do the same.

So #JeSuisCharlie doesn't mean that you agree with every cartoon that has ever been published in Charlie Hebdo - I mean, they're a publication that sets out to mock pretty much every group there is after all - rather, it means that you support the right of such publications to exist and are against violence being used to suppress freedom of speech.

See, that's why we have something known as "juridical institutions", which condemn racist people and defend those that did nothing wrong. That's also why Charlie Hebdo was never condemned while Minute (the newspaper which said that our Black Justice minister "a la banane" - a French phrase involving bananas) was.

Why is it worse to be racist and mock a race than to mock somebody for their religion? Genuine question here. Is it because you can't help what Race you're born into and religion is a conscience choice? well if that's the case, then the only option is to stop being religious just to stop being mocked. Surely it's worse then to mock religion than race? Perhaps those who mock religion should be condemned like racist people then since a majority of those religious people did nothing wrong either.

I'm not saying this exactly, it's just a thought. kinda.