Charlie Hebdo

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Charlie Hebdo publishes satirical cartoons

No-one catch this little gem? The mag in question has a long track record for publishing offensive satirical cartoons featuring religious and other figures and decided to give the prophet Mohammed the same treatment this week, depicting him in the buff. On the one hand they're showing no fear or favour and it's a noble stand for free speech, on the other you can't help wondering if they haven't just poked an already angry dog with a very big stick.

OK, I know I promised not to post agin but I have to respond to this..I am not attacking France OK? Nor have I read anyone who is critical of CH's cartoons being anti-French on this thread. So please, we’re better than that aren’t we?

I love France, I go there often, and I believe there is a lot we can learn from the French. I have 2 French God children whom I adore, as well as for decades - many close French friends. France has a fine tradition of including and being open to ethnic minorities in positions of power. In politics, and in the arts. More, historically than we have here in Britain. Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Alexandre Dumas etc.

But this discussion is about France and French society because of the recent diabolical murders in Paris. If you wish to focus on Britain’s problems, I’d welcome that, but not on this thread eh?

What is pissing me off mostly is not just the cartoons, (all we can do there is agree to disagree - I think?) It is that when discussing this issue the media and therefore mainstream discussion, encourages us not to look beyond this Western cliche of “Islamic fundamentalism”.

It seems to me undeniable that France has created for itself a massive problem by the way it’s ghettoised it’s Muslim community, in Les cites. Marginalisation, towering poverty and unemployment are rife there. Unemployment rates among the Muslim-Arab minority are three times higher than the national average or more than 40 percent. Muslims have been pushed further outside of French society by racist policies and constantly hassled by the police with their provocative I.D. checks. Amnesty International criticised the “impunity” provided to police and police violent treatments of youth from North African origins during these checks. In fact, an Arab or an African man has no right to look a policeman in the face during this deliberate racist harassment.

These hideous, evil murders at CH’s office , are as much attacks on French society as much as anything else it seems to me. These murderers seek justification in their scriptures, mainly because they are desperate, poor, bored and feel powerless. As I said, I believe we must look beyond cliches of bearded, intolerant fanatics. They are very much about the oppression and racism they experience regularly. Racial discrimination is very real in France, but it’s not something that the authorities ever really wanted to face up to. The situation is not unique to France BTW, it’s a trend across Western Europe. It is the French establishment and the French society that bear the responsibility for this system of conscious racism. Once this system is removed and its roots cut out of French society, France can be proud of its ideal. Does CH seriously believe that they can contribute to that change, (that I assume they would like to see as well), by publishing images that are deliberately offensive to Muslims? There I go again !

Perhaps now, anti-muslim attacks will overtake the anti semitic attacks as they also are on the rise in France. Last year more than 6,000 French Jews immigrated to Israel, more than from any other country.

Sourdrawers

You are conflating race with Islam which is voluntarily held belief system.

Muslims are not a seperate race, there are practicising Muslims of all races.

'The French' are also not a seperate race. It's untrue to accuse them of racism against Muslims who are neither a seperate race and who will be represented by the same races as comprise 'The French'.

Just wanted to make that clear for the 3rd? 4th? time on this thread.

It seems to me undeniable that France has created for itself a massive problem by the way it’s ghettoised it’s Muslim community, in Les cites.

I don't disagree with you, but I think the problem is complex and multi-factored. If only it were a simple case of France being a racist ex-colonial and anti-Muslim society - it would make matters so much easier to put right. But things are not so straightforward.

This terrorist attack happened in France - previous attacks have been in the US and the UK. I think we need to look at the whole picture of what is happening and that includes history (going back to the Ottoman empire if not before), oil, all colonialism and subsequent immigration, western foreign policy, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, religion, multiculturalism etc.

I don't think this attack was an attack on French society - I think it was an attack on the West that took place in France. And there will be other attacks and they won't all be in France.

(approoachingfiftyandfat, many Jews are leaving France due to tension between Muslims and Jews and attacks such as the one in Toulouse and those that occur in relation to pro-Palestinian protest - France has the highest Muslim population in Europe and the third highest Jewish population in the world. Jews are also leaving due to the French National front.)

Muslim citizens and residents then! They suffer disproportionately high levels of unemployment and face discrimination in France, work better? I think my terminology is influenced by the majority’s inability to conceive of Muslims as French.

Really wetaugust, if you're going to go down that road then you are struggling.

It's you who are stryggling to make this a matter of race, which it emphatically is not.

I ask myself how millions of Eastern Europeans managed to travel thousands of miles to fellow EU member countries to take up all these job vavaccies we are told needed to be filled, while a sector of the French community that you claim was discrimminated against in France could not manage the short hop over the Channel for work.

I claim? priceless.. Oh I can't do this anymore, sorry ..

I think my terminology is influenced by the majoritys inability to conceive of Muslims as French.

Not surprised if they allowed to mistakenly think of Muslims as a seperate race.
That sort of thinking needs to be challenged

I don't think this attack was an attack on French society - I think it was an attack on the West that took place in France. And there will be other attacks and they won't all be in France.

THANK YOU!

I certainly don't deny the Maghrebian community (BTW, not all of them Muslims) experience everyday racism in France but could we cut the political correctness and agree that this terrorist attack has something to do with the spreading of fondamentalism and the wealthy countries which help financing it?

You do realise that the academics are denating whether we should even be using the term 'fundamentalist' as many 'moderate; Muslims would describe themselves as 'fundamentalists' in that they follow a very pure version of Islam.

We should call them what they are Islamofascists that want to forcibily convert everyone to an extreme form of ideology which they mistakenly claim to be Islam.

And yes, I agree it was an attack on the West and not just on France. France just happened to be 'home territory' to them and so facilitated the attack. We have our own home grown Islamofascists.

I think my terminology is influenced by the majority’s inability to conceive of Muslims as French.

This is a very interesting sentence.

And, I think may be getting to the crux of the matter as it occurs presently in France and other western democracies.

There is, patently, a schism that exits between the customs and values of a secular republic and that of a population which practice a faith which is holistic and combines state and religion with both public and private life.

If the world were a more sensible place then perhaps never the twain would have met. But they have, and they are (fundamentally) incompatible. So, everyone is going to have to compromise. But that means everyone, anything else is unworkable and a route to war (which I believe we are currently on and I hope we can reroute.)

Most of the French Muslims I know consider themselves Muslim first and French second. And I think if we are being honest we have to acknowledge that the reason for that is not entirely due to French intolerance/racism but also the strength of the Arabic Muslim identity and culture. And there is nothing wrong with that, but, I repeat that the two cultures do not mix well. Which is a shame and most aggravating for all.

I don't know what the solution is. I hope cleverer people than me are doing what they can to resolve the situation, because currently, in France, many (non extremist, nice, regular, every day people) fear that we are slipping into a religious war.

It seems to me undeniable that France has created for itself a massive problem by the way it’s ghettoised it’s Muslim community, in Les cites. Marginalisation, towering poverty and unemployment are rife there. Unemployment rates among the Muslim-Arab minority are three times higher than the national average or more than 40 percent. Muslims have been pushed further outside of French society by racist policies and constantly hassled by the police with their provocative I.D. checks.

I don't disagree. The first time I took the train to Paris I was shocked as they went through the banlieues. I said above that the muslims themselves have their rights to free expression limited in France, which I think is wrong. And certainly this problem needs to be dealt with.

None of that means any kind of blasphemy law should be enacted. Such laws, even if meant to protect a certain group, will inevitably be used against that group or minorities of that group.

Also, in an attempt to be fair to France, I don't think the ghettoising of the poor was a conscious decision. I think it was the result of poor town planning and a lack of vision. Nowadays it is obligatory for councils to include social housing in all town planning. There are quotas and percentages which have to be respected - when a private investor builds they must include social housing as part of their project. This policy is helping to lessen the divide between comfortable owner occupiers and less comfortable renters.

France is a socialist country with a generous benefit system and a generous social housing system. There is work to be done to improve things, but we all need to work together.

the academics are denating whether we should even be using the term 'fundamentalist' as many 'moderate; Muslims would describe themselves as 'fundamentalists' in that they follow a very pure version of Islam.

Of course you're right about the literal sense of "Fondamentalism" but it also happens to be a wahhabism current which has been artifically imported from Saudi Arabia, first in Algeria during the eighties and later on in Europe. Consequently, that means that French Muslims who've been practising their faith in a discreet way for ages are now refered in opposition as "moderate" Muslims, which is a meaningless & despising term.

That said, the pb with fundamentalism, and this is true for ALL religions, is that it tends to freeze the religious practises in a rigid and dogmatic way which conflict the modernity and sometimes the issue of living together as a society.

This vision France has of itself as the model secular nation is a bit simplistic. The reality's more nuanced.

There are exceptions to this separation of state-church, which many see as unfair, as they fail to take into account the fact that to be French in 1905, (when the laws were drawn up) is something quite different to what it means to be French today. There are laws that separated church and state, though these didn't apply in Alsace-Moselle, which was under Prussian rule. But even when it was reintegrated into France, it remained exempt from the 1905 laws. Catholicism, Calvinism, Lutheranism, and Judaism are still officially recognised religions in the region. As a result, religious education in one of those religions is obligatory for public-school students and the regional government pays the salaries of clergy of those four recognised religions. Also the 1905 the laws forbid gov’ financing of new religious buildings, but the gov' can pay maintenance costs for religious edifices built before 1905, mostly Catholic churches. The state also subsidises private religious schools, mostly Catholic, but some Jewish. Catholicism still lingers within the education system too, like a public school calendar that’s organised around Catholic holy days and public school cafeterias that serve fish on Fridays.

However, when Muslim French request similar kinds of accommodations, ie state-funded Muslim schools, a school calendar that incorporates Muslim holy days, they’re reminded that France is a secular country where separating religion from public life is essential. Their loyalty and fitness as proper French citizens is then questioned too, by both right-leaning French Catholics and left-leaning secularists.

French Muslims are also victims of the French model of citizenship. The French state recognises individuals as individuals rather than as members of a community, but it also consistently discriminates against minorities. Because France refuses to recognise communal identities, however, it is difficult to make claims of discrimination based on communal belonging. So anyone claiming to be the target of anti-Muslim discrimination only reinforces their communal difference from the “native” French.

It seems to me that out of date ideology is self-defeating for France. The French state’s prolonged treatment of a segment of its own citizenry as racially suspect and intrinsically prone to violence, as potential enemies within, has proven to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Well, there's a bit of generalisation here, I'm afraid :

• The case of Alsace-Moselle seems indeeed like an anachronism. It is a legacy from Napoléon 1801 Concordat and when these countys have been reintegrated to France after 1rst and 2d world war, they managed to keep their specific laws. That means they are not ruled by the same civil right than the rest of France. This specific statue has lead to endless debates about wether or not they should have their own laws or stick to the general one. To my mind, we should get rid of it but I guess one cannot change 200 years of a local situation that easily.

• Islam is not historically one of the religions which was concerned by this agreement as it was established during the 19th century. As a compensation, they however benefit from a specific judiciary status which they wouldn't be allow to in the rest of the country. For instance, although they are not directly paid by State, the Ministries of Islam Cult can ask for subsidies and the construction of Mosquées in Strasbourg is paid by the Council, which would be forbidden elsewhere in the country.

• The religious education in alsacian schools are not supposed to be of proselyte nature but are much more like here religious studies. They are also not compulsory -pupils can choose to go instead to Civic class.

• State DOES give subsidies to all faith schools, not only the christian & jewish ones

• Regarding the maintenance of churchs by councils, it is only true of classified historical buildings, much like English Heritage. Those churches have been confiscated by State during the revolution and therefore don't belong anymore to the clergy nor Vatican. This is not the case of new churches or other religious buildings which has been built after the 1905 definitive separation of State and Church.

• Regarding the fish eaten on Friday in canteens, I guess it doesn't have anymore of a religious symbol and it's more due to dietetic considerations to promote one meat-free day in the week. Same goes for Magrebian people not eating porc more out of cultural habits than religious reason. Schools' canteen have also to offer alternative meals such as veggies.

• Finally, regarding the Gregorian calendar, well, one guy had tried to change it once. His name was Robespierre and it ended up in quite an incomprehensible mess. That said, there is a quite interesting law proposition nowadays which says that every citizen should have the same amount of bank holyday but should be able to pick & choose as to match them with religious celebrations such as the Pessoah or the Aïd. Not everybody agree on that matter, and even among Muslims people, some don't wish to loose christian bank holydays they are acustomed of ;-) Most importantly, pupils are allowed to be absent from school for celebrations such as the first and second Aïd.

Well, sorry for the lenght, but once again, it's difficult to understand this secular country if one doesn't know its long & complicated history. I don't pretend everything is for the best in France for Muslims citizens but nethertheless, find it harsh to read that they are treated in a "racially suspect" way.

BTW, for the, well, maybe 7th time, "Muslim" is not a race, it's a belief and not ALL Magrebian people are believers. And speaking of "natives" french is an historical non-sens as most French have foreign ascendents.

Nonsense. Freedom of speech is freedom of speech. The whole point is that anyone can say anything they like even if it offends people. It's not violence or physically hurting anyone. All religion is bullshit that offends me but I don't mind people being religious as we have such a thing called freedom of speech. Bravo Charlie!

"Freedom of speech is freedom of speech"

Not in France.

8-year-old boy is questioned by the Police in Nice, after his school calls the Police because he "expressed solidarity with" Charlie Hebdo shooters.

French comedian Dieudonné is arrested following a Facebook post where he said he feels like Charlie ("Je sis Charlie") and he also feels like the terrorists, because he has been treated like a terrorist by the French state for years whereas he is just a comedian trying to make people laugh like Charlie Hebdo artists. He has been charged with being a "terrorism apologist"

More than 100 people have been arrested in France since the Charlie Hebdo massacre for having expressed sympathy for the killers.

The irony of prosecuting people for expressing their (albeit antisocial) opinions, at the same time that millions were marching in support of freedom of expression, seemed to have been lost on the French... as said in the above link.

It seems in France, freedom of speech only protects you when you say stuff the majority doesn't mind hearing.