Anyone else think Charlie Hebdo were provocative?

It's a great example of complete lack of introspection and perspective on the west's part to be relieving CH entirely of all fault.

The attacks were a tragedy and a outrageous crime, and nothing will absolve the gunmen, and I don;t believe anyone is actually trying to.

It's just a sad observation that Islamic extremism is such a hot-button issue in the west that renders wide-scale abuse and all round ****ty attitudes towards Muslims as okay when if CH was attacking any other easily identifiable group through no fault of there own and stereotyping/generalising, people would be wagging fingers.

the murky business of true free speech

You just did with your subtle victim-blaming.

Err, Charlie Hebdo did precisely that (although I would take issue at your term "attack") and nothing happened. You're being grossly hyperbolic by saying it's an "attack" when they basically drew a cartoon of a long-dead historical figure and published it in their (then) obscure publication.

"Hurr-dfurr you victim blame, me win my retarded argument."

No friend, no you don't.

We all have right to free speech, we also have responsibilities to abuse it to hate speech. This responsibility is actually enshrined in our law books.

You can't accuse me of victim blaming when I am suggesting people stop making Muslims across the board victims of xenophobic abuse because some other Muslims did a bad thing. They are responsible for their criminal life taking, not all Muslims everywhere.



No, they did it to offend, and they suffered the consequences. Murder is murder, but if you antagonise you should expected someone eventually to snap and strike out.

Again I don't care for Islam myself and murder is an outrageous response to antagonism, but the French themselves have the concept of 'crimes of passion' in their laws so they of all people should understand that people who are antagonised can resort to criminal acts. Still a crime, but recognizably different to unprovoked.


The problem is that people aren't dealing with the actual issue of some murders here. It was very quickly turned into an echo-chamber across the world for anti-Muslim tripe, and about free speech. Well if people want to discuss free speech they need to face the uncomfortable fact that CH pushed the limits of it and shirked responsibility to not provoke responses. Because as an entity CH were effectively fishing. Trolling, that much maligned abuse of freedom of speech.




In summary, yes murders bad, being an offensive **** trying to provoke people is also bad.

You want to discuss the murders? Cool okay, four losers shot up easy targets and killed innocent people and now there are a good few families grieving for the lost, and Paris feels a little less safe this week.

Oh wait discussion over, because after that everyone starts congratulating themselves on how enlightened and free they are (to abuse a broad group of people based on a label, congratulations you've really advanced the cause of western liberal ideals today).

FYI, the Panorama documentary conveyed concern about non-violent extremism, NOT non-violent Muslims. Stop making things up.

What on earth are you talking about woman. You are plucking straws

These are the same thing when you give examples of conservative Muslims then say "even though theyre non-violent and aren't doing anything illegal , we disagree with their thinking and should change this via government legislation. " The government aren't allowed to tell you what to believe, what ideals to hold etc That's not their place. This is all so arbitrary. It's encroaching on freedoms OR DOES THIS NOT APPLY TO MUSLIms?

So in a nutshell, a non violent Muslim is still considered a potential enemy of the state because of thought crimes. These muzzies can't do anything right