To conflate/confuse Page 3 and Charlie Hebdo?

[Babycham1979]

AIBU to think that there's a major irony in that many of the people vocally celebrating the end of Page 3 are the same that were cynically claiming 'Je suis Charlie' last week?

Surely it's the height of hypocrisy to claim in one breath that Charlie Hebdo should be allowed to publish Mo cartoons, but that the Sun shouldn't be allowed to publish Page 3? What about freedom of speech; the right to offend; pluralism; Enlightenment values and everything else the same people were banging on about last week?

For what it's worth I support Charlie Hebdo's stance, and I think Page 3 is a tawdry, mildly-sexist anachronism. However, I see a logical inconsistency here!

Is it (yet another) case of the likes of Harman only representing the views and interests of bourgeois European women?

CaffeLatteIceCream

Although I think it's worth bearing in mind the whole "where's the harm?" issue.

Cartoons about someone who has been dead for 1400 years hurts precisely no one. People's "feelings" on the matter are their business.

Parading young, half naked women in a newspaper on a daily basis as wank fodder is quite damaging to women in many measurable ways...which shouldn't need to be explained to anyone in this website.

But don't both of those examples shape perceptions of a large group of people, which then affect the way members of those groups are treated in society?

The article I linked above includes this passage:

"Further, the portrayal of people of color, as well as Muslims of all races, has been consistently and overwhelming negative in Charlie Hebdo cartoons. Reading Charlie Hebdo cartoons and covers in the aggregate, a reader is given the uniform and barely-concealed message that Muslims are categorically bad, violent, irrational people. This characterization indulges and indeed furthers some of the widest and most basic stereotypes of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims. "

Stereotyping a huge group of people is never a good thing. There has been violence (reported very quietly) against ordinary Muslims attacked just because they were Muslim. To me the anti-Muslim sentiment around today really worries me -- have we learnt nothing from the 20th century?

I think you are rather naive if you think they've stopped putting naked breasts on p3 because people are offended, it will have been a business decision because they have realised it's likely to put more people off buying the paper than those it would encourage.

There's no grey area, HoVis. The minute you create one you are basically suggesting a self-imposed blasphemy law.

What harm does it actually do any Muslim (or Christian, or Hindu) to have their beliefs "lampooned"?

None.

They need to grow a backbone and accept, whether they like or not, that their beliefs are not precious and venerated to an awful lot of other people.

That's life.

This whole "Oh, I don't think they should have killed anyone but...." attitude is providing a handy set of skirts for murderous loons to hide behind. "See? See? We are offended, and we have the right to be...all these white Europeans agree with us!".

If they are offended...tough shit.

They could, you know, just try not taking any notice.

No Muslim was "lampooned", HoVis.

An ideology was. There's a huge difference.

And your quote is ridiculous. Race?

Could I change race if I converted to Islam?

Nope. That's because it's not a race, it's a religion. Criticism of it is not a race issue and I have no time whatsoever with people who try to pretend that it is.

Caffelatte, can you see that all your arguments can be equally applied to tits on Page 3?

How many people on here have actually seen Charlie Hebdo? It is far more sexually explicit than The Sun. Anyone thinking it is just a French version of Private Eye should have a look at a few copies.

Yes, Babycham. As I said, maybe you could argue hypocrisy - but I see nothing wrong with objecting to the content of one publication but being fine with another. It's what we do. We are multi-faceted.

The issue boils down to how you voice your objections. Not that you are objecting at all.

Free Speech does not mean "put up and shut up".

CaffeLatte

The article I quoted from and linked above (and below) has a brief discussion of the use of the term 'racism' in this context. In brief it says readers are welcome to replace 'bigotry' with 'racism' when referring to Islamophobia.

I didn't actually claim it was a race issue - just that I think it is very problematic to represent in a negative and derogatory way a large group that is already a minority who are suffering due to prejudice against them.

Also, I think there is a very important distinction to be made between the majority of Muslims who are offended by the Charlie Hebdo cartoons and the criminals who murdered artists at Charlie Hebdo.

No one has succeeded in banning page 3 though. Murdoch has made a commercial decision and no government or pressure group has forced this; times have simply changed.

I'm also not talking about the 'harm' to the people being offended, in the moment they are being offended. I am talking about the ways that the cartoons perpetuate a negative vision of an entire group of people based on a shared characteristic - a negative vision which causes some people to treat people who possess that shared characteristic unfairly or even violently.

I never liked page 3 or the Sun in general (Hillsborough) so I don't buy it.

This being, as far as I can tell, much the same definition of 'harm' as the justification for getting rid of Page 3 -- because it perpetuates negative stereotypes.

Sorry - forgot to link. Here is the Vox article: www.vox.com/2015/1/12/7518349/charlie-hebdo-racist

I find Charlie Hebdo offensive for the same reason that many of you on here find The Sun offensive. I certainly wouldn't want my children to see it - not because of it's cartoons of the Prophet, but because of its extremely offensive sexually explicit cartoons. It is one of the reasons I wasn't happy to say Je Suis Charlie last week. I absolutely abhore the terrorist response of course it should go without saying, but I wouldn't buy the magazine. Do I think it should be banned - no of course not I don't have to buy it. Would it be hypocritical if I then called for Page 3 to be banned, yes I think it probably would.

There is no contradiction in my disliking the Sun and my support for freedom to publish offending crap. If it's an actual lie as in the case of Hillsborough then it's a legal problem.

Islamophobia is an invented, meaningless word designed to shame people into shutting up about one particular religion.

Criticising Islam is no more "bigoted" or "racist" than criticising Christianity or Scientology.

Bigotry and racism are crimes against people. A religion is an idea...not a person.

Do Muslims face racism? Certainly. And we have race hate laws to deal with that. Do they face prejudice because of their religion? Certainly, and we have laws to deal with that too.

They do not need their own special hate crime simply because they cannot bear to hear what other people think of their beliefs.

Imagine...Christianophobia? No one is allowed to mock Adam & Eve or Jesus because Christians don't like it.

Ludicrous.

Funnyossity I agree.

Caffe

I'm not saying that 'people shouldn't be allowed to mock Islam'. What I'm trying to say is that we should think very hard - as the OP points out - about why some forms of 'offence' against certain groups seem to be unacceptable whilst others are seen as ok.

As you yourself implied with your argument r.e. Page 3, representing a group of people in a certain way leads to that group being viewed and treated differently, sometimes to their personal or physical detriment.

In the aftermath of Charlie Hebdo, mosques in France have been attacked. When a Christian extremist killed 92 people in Norway in 2011, were churches attacked? No.

The media has a very powerful part to play in disseminating ideas, and I think that the media should be criticised when it disseminates ideas which create influential negative stereotypes about groups of people which can lead to further fear and violence.

In other words, the attack - carried out by individuals who should and hopefully will be brought to justice for their crimes - and the issue of ordinary Muslims being offended or indeed affected by negative stereotypes of Muslims, are entirely separate issues.

As for the meaninglessness of Islamaphobia last year, a pregnant woman wearing a veil was attacked in France. When she said she was pregnant, her attackers kicked her in the stomach, and she lost the baby. During the attack they 'shouted anti-Islamic taunts at her'. A completely innocent woman was attacked simply because of her religion how is that not a form of bigotry?

My son's girlfriend is a Sikh. When they are out and about they get lots of anti Muslim taunts. Not anti person-with-origins-in-the-Indian-subcontinent taunts but specifically anti muslim. Which suggests to me that Islamophobia is a reality not an invented, meaningless word.

Yes, op, just yes!!! Totally agree that this is a double standard, totally agree with your post. Not sure you'll get much support for this line of thought on here but I'm delighted that you have put it forward. YANBU.

Surely it's the height of hypocrisy to claim in one breath that Charlie Hebdo should be allowed to publish Mo cartoons, but that the Sun shouldn't be allowed to publish Page 3?

No, not at all. Saying "it shouldn't be allowed" is an expression of personal opinion. You can lobby peacefully as much as you want to have either or both of them banned. In Western Europe governments have not and are unlikely to ban either.

The Sun has realised it's outdated and isn't shifting units. No- one has banned it.
The models can find employment with other publishers if that's how they want to earn a living.

I'd sooner live in a country where Page 3 , no matter how much I dislike it can exist ( if Murdoch thinks he'll make money out of it) along with Charlie Hebdo.

So we're saying free speech for publications like the s*n or charlie hebdo, no free speech for individuals who take issue with what they publish?

How did you come to that conclusion? I clearly said one is free to lobby as much as one likes to get them banned/ express one's opinion. It might not make the slightest difference but one is still free to express disapproval.

OP - I agree - thanks for posting!