Did anyone hear the woman defending Charlie Hebdo on R4 Today?

[Icantthinkofabettername]

I read about the awful attack on the teacher in France last night. It is just horrific an no one should face that risk.

However, the spokesperson on the Today programme was spectacularly missing the point. She was defending freedom of speech and advocating children being taught about satire.

In my view, there is nothing groundbreaking about using satire to perpetuate the prevailing view and the view of the elite in society, particularly when groups on the lowest rungs of that society feel it is directed at them.

Much in the same way that Trump uses 'Freedom of Speech' and defending 'Liberty' to sanction the oppression of already oppressed members of society.

I don't know what the answer is, terrorism cannot suceed as a tool for change. However, what Charlie Hebdo stood for cannot continue to be blindly defended, without seeing it for what it was.

@Coronawireless

“Free speech has to be without consequence”

It’s not though, because we don’t live in la-la land.

What exactly is your point? Do you even know?

Freedom of speech has "consequences" (beheadings, for example) when mad people want to terrorise others into shutting up and so violently take away ALL their freedoms at once.

And your response to this is that we should give up on freedom of speech? Is that really what you think the solution should be?

What if that's not enough? When do we start saying no? What else should we give to the terrorists? What else will they start demanding?

"La-la land" ffs. A place where teachers can teach without being worried about being murdered. Yes how unrealistic and laughable of people to think that's the society we live in and want to keep living in.

Uh please don;t turn this into another trans thread.

@Coronawireless

So do you support freedom of speech for transgender people? Or not?

Erm... well given that transgender people are people and I've stated many times that I believe that everyone has a right to free speech, then you could probably work that out for yourself, couldn't you?

Why, do you not believe trans people should have freedom of speech? You don't think teachers should, or journalists, so I guess I'm a little surprised to hear you defending free speech for trans people. But go you! I support this.

@warrsan

Uh please don;t turn this into another trans thread.

Yeah, agreed. I think the No Outsiders thing has been discussed in detail on FWR.

@nostaples

'Lots of people find depictions of gay couple offensive, including muslims. Should that be banned?'

You perhaps missed the furore beginning in Birmingham, where large groups of Muslim parents objected to children being given literature which explained that some families have two dads or two mums.

Nope. I hope none of them end up having gay children.

Where did I say we should give up freedom of speech? I just pointed out that it has consequences. (As seen in France recently)

You’re the one who doesn’t want transgender issues taught at primary schools.

@Coranawireless are you being deliberately disingenuous?

Of course speech and actions might have of all sorts have consequences, which may or may not be intended.

None of that devalues the importance of free speech.

Of course, it is up to the individual to judge the wisdom of what they do and do not say. And it is up to the individual to judge whether to agree, disagree, challenge or ignore what they hear.

None of that undermines the importance of free speech.

Teaching about free speech or anything else anyone might choose to say should not get you beheaded.

I'm not interested in the trans element of the 'No Outsiders'. I'm interested in the fact that once again a group of Muslim people took it upon themselves to decide what should and should not be permissible to teach in a Western democracy.

@nostaples
That group of Muslim people have a right to voice their dislike of what is being taught.
You don’t like it but it’s called “free speech”.

@Coronawireless

Where did I say we should give up freedom of speech? I just pointed out that it has consequences. (As seen in France recently)

You’re the one who doesn’t want transgender issues taught at primary schools.

Now you're just making things up!

To clarify. This is the crux of my disagreement with you: your victim blaming. You see the beheading of the teacher as consequence of him teaching. You say "free speech has consequences" as though this is some kind of risk he took that led to his death. So instead of focusing the blame on the actual murderer, or the people who incited that murder, you are continually refocusing the attention on what the victim did or didn't do, and acting as though the murder was some kind of act of nature that the victim triggered by exercising his freedom of speech.

The fact is that free speech does not have consequences. If it has consequences, it is not free. That is why in the states, it is enshrined in the constitution that a person has a right to the FREE expression of their beliefs. That's what the 'freedom' in 'freedom of speech' is. Freedom from consequences. Not from disagreement or dislike, not free from people marching up and down your street with placards even. Not freedom from other beliefs and ideas, but freedom from material consequences, such as violence or imprisonment.

Do you understand that as a principle? Your argument is against free speech because you believe that there have to be or naturally just will be "consequences" to speech. So people should 'think before they speak' and not 'abuse' their free speech - by which you presumably mean they should not say anything which might bring about "consequences."

In other words, it's all about what the victim says, and if you don't want to be murdered then you won't say things that murderers don't like. It's victim blaming and it's obviously arguing against free speech. You think we should give it up or accept the "consequences".

But I never said anyone should be beheaded for it or that it should be banned.

Ok - I might not have made myself clear.
I do support free speech.
There should not be any punitive consequences for it.

The OPs original point was that the privilege shouldn’t be abused by using it to deliberately offend or provoke or disrespect. And I agree.

Now, goodnight!

@Coronawireless

But I never said anyone should be beheaded for it or that it should be banned.

You compared the teacher to a hate preacher. You talked about him 'goading' people and 'abusing' his free speech. You said he should have thought before he spoke. You act as though you don't even understand your own arguments, but you must realise your comments have been victim blaming.

No outsiders was rather timely as it happens, reflecting real life in London zoo.
www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo/news/some-penguins-are-gay-get-over-it

@Coronawireless they certainly had the right to protest but in that scenario it was dangerously close to a protest against free speech. Telling parents that if they allow their children to go into the school then they will burn in Hell is a level of intimidation that is against free speech and against education.

One of the protestors, Afsar, also displayed the same sort of faulty, hypocritical logic that we're seeing from some posters here too, for example, 'Just because I think a gay relationship is not a valid moral relationship does not mean I am homophobic.”

A bit like 'just because I am not against free speech does not mean I think it's OK to criticise Islam'

It is fundamentalist religion by people who are either ok with being hypocrites or who genuinely see themselves as liberal and tolerant, even though they are not.

No staples, you are clearly not very familiar with what is in the no outsiders material or how it was developed, given you were asking me about what was objected to within the last couple of hours.

If no outsiders material is being used in school they will have to modify the previous lesson plans to fit with the new guidelines. Just because a charity exists it doesn’t mean material produced by it is appropriate for school use.

There are multiple threads discussing the contents.

Parents do have a right to be consulted about sex and relationship education before the topic is taught to their children and primary schools are supposed to teach sex and relationship education in partnership with parents. Schools can’t decide not to consult simply because the parents are Muslim.

Charities being allowed to take any material they feel like into schools is not a freedom of speech issue. It has pretty much nothing to do with what happened in France.

@stairway

Nostaples in relation to Muslims suffering the most from these terror attacks it’s because France acts on a policy of collective punishment. Therefore the whole Muslim community is effectively punished despite it having nothing to do with them. An example is Macron is now trying to shut down an organisation in France set up to deal with islamophobia and racist attacks on Muslims. Interestingly enough the attack on the Muslim women in Paris is not being considered a hate crime despite the language used by the attackers. Just an example of double standards and hypocrisy in France.

The CCIF are being investigated because the father told Muslims to complain about the showing of the cartoon to them as 'Islamophobia'.

Of the organisation are not culpable of encouraging extremist ideas (I.e that showing a cartoon = Islamophobia) then nothing will happen to them. That seems fair to me.

www.la-croix.com/France/Francois-Xavier-Bellamy-Lislamophobie-tue-ceux-sont-accuses-2020-10-18-1201120101

"Samuel Paty died from being accused of Islamophobia. This term and the permanent suspicions it raises lead to censorship, threats, then violence and set back our model of society. I am therefore waiting for the government to commit to a rapid dissolution of the CCIF, the Collective against Islamophobia in France, which is playing a strategy of deleterious intimidation."

Also, saying Muslims suffer the most from these attacks is highly fucking ridiculous when someone has been beheaded.

In any case - if Muslims believe this to be true - why aren't they doing more to prevent the attacks in the first place by rooting out extremist teachings of their own religion?

@Purplesphere

There is brutal retaliation from extremists - not Muslims. Yet Muslims suffer the consequences of said retaliation within society.

There is then free speech made as a consequence of the actions of said extremist , where Islam is depicted as a backwards religion with evil followers - once again Muslims suffer the consequences of said free speech caused by extremists within society.

Ah, the good ok’ ‘no true Muslim’ fallacy.

I’m sick of it.

Islam isn’t inherently good and peaceful. It isn’t inherently anything
It’s a book It is not a sentient being.

People can use this book for good, or evil, or anything in between.

You sticking your head in the sand and saying not, but these are no real Muslims, real Muslim wouldn’t do this’ is pathetic, seeing as these people are doing what they do in the name of Islam, with the scriptures to hand to prove it.

I am a Christian (well I was baptised and went to a church school).
Christianity isn’t inherently anything either.

People have used it to commit atrocities, as well as some beautiful and amazing things.

Christians are being slaughtered by Muslims in the Middle East. Solely because they are Christians. You’re acting like Muslims are this monolith of peace and love.
Some Muslims are murderous psychopaths, and no amount of wishing on your behalf will change that. No amount of ‘they’re not real Muslims’will later the fact.
At the end of the day they’re people, like anyone else. You treating them like a sacred caste doesn’t help anyone

If you can tell us a fool proof way to distinguish what mosques are teaching Islam correctly and which ones are teaching extremism you’d be doing everyone a massive favour. But you can’t. Because it’s. Owners near as black and white as your making it out to be

@nostaples

'Yet Muslims suffer the consequences of said retaliation within society.'

What do you mean? It is a Muslim who has killed a teacher for promoting free speech but you seem to be saying that Muslims are the victims IN THIS PARTICULAR INSTANCE. It makes no sense.

'There is then free speech made as a consequence of the actions of said extremist , where Islam is depicted as a backwards religion with evil followers - once again Muslims suffer the consequences of said free speech caused by extremists within society.'

It would be wrong, as you say, to depict all Muslims as backward as a consequence of this particular act of brutality but this particular act WAS backwards and evil. It is right and proper that it is seen as such. It is not freedom of speech that is the problem here.

It reminds me of the type of person who when they heard about the Manchester bombings said things like ‘oh, how awful, now there’s going to be revenge attacks on Muslims’ I think it’s telling that their first concern is to dismiss the attack that has just happened, to focus on a potential attack that hasn’t happened.

These potential Muslim victims are far more important to them than the bombing of little western girls who just want to see their favourite singer.

Retaliation is more of a concern to them than teachers being beheaded in the streets.

It’s very telling

@Stripesnomore those are red herrings. The Muslim council of Britain said there was nothing offensive in the materials. You have been unable to point to anything specific that you think is controversial. Muslim groups were explicitly protesting about their children being taught that there are homosexual families or that there are gay people full stop. Homophobia among Muslims is well known and well documented. I have friends who will not come out to their families because they think they will be disowned and possibly attacked as being anti-Islamic.

The connection is actually being anti- free speech (but often couching this as 'I agree with free speech but it must not be abused' which is the line we've seen spun on this thread) and espousing and promoting values and beliefs that are not conducive to a 21st century, diverse democracy.

I said it in another thread also, that radical Islam is a far-right ideology. The same reason young Muslims get radicalised is the same why young white men are radicalised into neo-nazism. Both are far right.
Whereas most people on this thread I suspect would class themselves as left leaning, liberal and progressive

This is why multiculturalism just doesn’t work.

There is no way for it to work. How can all of these opposing ideologies coexist peacefully?

And who decides what is ‘worthy of respect’ and what isn’t?

It’s a big mess.

@LouiseBelchersBunnyEars

I said it in another thread also, that radical Islam is a far-right ideology. The same reason young Muslims get radicalised is the same why young white men are radicalised into neo-nazism. Both are far right. Whereas most people on this thread I suspect would class themselves as left leaning, liberal and progressive

This is why multiculturalism just doesn’t work.

There is no way for it to work. How can all of these opposing ideologies coexist peacefully?

And who decides what is ‘worthy of respect’ and what isn’t?

It’s a big mess.

I agree

@LouiseBelchersBunnyEars excellent post wholeheartedly agree