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.

This weeks profits what about all the other weeks. They are a business that sells papers by shocking and offending in the name of satire.

Bloody hell. I'll pass on this one.

tidy I don't believe they do it for the money. It's never been a big circulation magazine, money chasers would go and work elsewhere.

They genuinely believe they are doing a worthwhile thing poking fun at all religions as well as politicians.

A worthwhile thing IMO is uniting people not dividing them.

I agree with you wholeheartedly tidy but speaking generally some folk are born agitators and I think maybe they have useful roles to play in life too. Mostly I tell myself they help me develop patience and some might help me in my own thinking as I rebut their points of view - always long afterwards sadly as I'm useless at off the cuff answers.

You mean French state schools.

doesn't change my point. Muslims in France possibly feel muzzled, when anyone else can say anything about them. Confusion on allegiance to free speech is understandable.

Writtenguarantee,

Just make some resarch and you'll see that there are indeed a lot of faith schools in France. The majority of them are catholic, which makes historically sense as they were built before we became a secular country, but there are also jewish and muslim schools.

Now, the interesting thing is that, as long as they respect the french educational cursus, they ALL equalitary receive subsidies from the so called intolerant french State. Actually, teachers'wages are paid by the State.

Regarding the ban of "ostentatious" religious symbols in State school, I worked myself as a monitor and I can guarantee you that no pupil is allowed to wear a big Christian cross or Davis Star, but discreet ones are ok, alike small Fatimah' Hand jewellery for muslim.

"David Sta" -sorry

no they are not, only "ostentatious" ones. Small crosses are accepted (how convenient?).

Crosses are most defiantly not accepted in French state schools. Children may wear whatever religious symbol they like so long as they're not visible at all .

Just make some resarch and you'll see that there are indeed a lot of faith schools in France.

I never said anything to the contrary. I know that there are a lot of faith schools in France.

@LaChatte you appear to be contradicting Myosotisbleu. I don't know which of you is right, but my impression is that it is Myosotisbleu.

Having been a pupil from the age of 9, then a language assistant from the age of 18 and now having been a teacher since I was 24 (I'm 34) in France (state schools), I feel pretty confident I'm right (incidentally we live in a "deprived" area, with many kids coming from multi-cultural backgrounds and are reminded on a very regular basis of what goes and what doesn't).

(Shockingly however, I am an English teacher although all sense of syntax appears to have momentarily deserted me).

I don-t think what I said enters in contradiction with LaChatte, WrittenGuarantee :

• Yes, all ostentatious relious symbol are forbidden, could it be from islam, christian or jewish religion.

• and yes, you can wear small jewellery as long as you don't display them in a show-off, that means usually we had to tell the pupils to put them UNDER their shirt.

I do remember young arab girls wearing some Fatimah's hand but unlike LaChatte, I haven't worked in french state school since 2001, so maybe it's stricter nowadays. Mind you, at this time, the most ostentatious symbol we had to tell the pupils to hide were Marijuana leaf, though ;-)

Anyway, my point was to say that ALL faith schools receive subsidies from Frecnh State if they respect the educational cursus.

That means that we do respect the right of all believers to be taught according to their faith, plus we help them doing so : not bad, eh, for a supposedly intolerant secular country? ;-)

Law came in in 2004, so that makes sense!

Mama1980 is right. Freedom of expression is fine just so long as we agree with it.

Do we need to go out of our way to offend and insult one sector of society just because we are expressing our inalienable right to say what we like?

Take is web site. Posts are forever being deleted for going against the grain of popular opinion. But we're fighting now for the right to offend?

The website ids here to support parents essentially, it's not here as a bastion of free speech. The moderators here delete on matters of taste as well as avoiding libel laws.

Charlie Hebdo was operating within the law of France.

lemisscared I agree 100% . I'm utterly appalled by the murders in France. But do we really need to go out of our way to offend and insult one sector of society just because we are expressing our inalienable right to say what we like. Do we give everyone that much freedom?

I wonder how many people claiming 'nous on Charlie' actually know about what's going on in the Middle East? It troubles me enormously that the whole terrible, complicated situation is reduced to a bloody silly slogan / hashtag.

funnyossity So was Nato in 1999 (as it was within UK, U.S. law) when it bombed Serbian TV headquarters killing 16 people - cleaners, journo's, camera men, producers.. I don't recall crowds lining the streets for that one. Because that was censored.

Most debates on freedom of speech centre on the issue: what can we say and what can't we say? The more interesting question, however, is: what has been censored, and why?

'Taste' is an interesting term in this context funnyossity. Doesn't that just mean consensus view? No? OK I'm talking bollocks. Well I'm Defending my right to talk bollocks..

sourdrawers : while I may never want to buy CH myself I think they do have a right to publish if they operate within the laws of their country.

I agree about social media soundbites but worry more about those who use it to exhort to violence.

By taste I refer to what Mumsnet workers use, for their website which chooses to disallow personal attacks.

So was Nato in 1999 (as it was within UK, U.S. law) when it bombed Serbian TV headquarters killing 16 people

was the killing of people intentional?

But do we really need to go out of our way to offend and insult one sector of society just because we are expressing our inalienable right to say what we like.

I don't. But some people do.

The 1999 bombings were the first time NATO had bombed like that without explicit UN authorisation. But there were oodles of resolutions about the use of force which provided enough arse covering.

And of course, with benefit of hindsight, it's hard to see that as anything other than precedent setting.

When you launch air strikes, it is done with full knowledge if the possibility of both your target being destroyed and people being killed. I think the intent is inherent in the act.

was the killing of people intentional? YES!! Absolutely it was. Nato insisted that the TV station, was a "ministry of lies", hence a legitimate target and the bombing 'must be seen as an intensification of our attacks'.

A Pentagon spokesman added: 'Serb TV is as much a part of Milosevic's murder machine as his military is. The media is one of the pillars of Milosevic's power machine. It is right up there with security forces and the military.' Amnesty International though, called it a war crime.

We also bombed the crap out of Libyan state broadcasting and Al-Jazeera's TV station in Kabul, killing and injuring several. These also we're just brushed aside and justified with bland, 'unfortunate but necessary' platitudes.
Oh and Israel killed 17 journalists last summer in Gaza.

But we’re not encouraged to go out on the streets protesting and waving placards about those things, that are - after all, happening in our names are we? Why aren’t these stories burned into our minds as much as the terrible Charlie Hebdo murders are?

YES!! Absolutely it was. Nato insisted that the TV station, was a "ministry of lies", hence a legitimate target and the bombing 'must be seen as an intensification of our attacks'.

You are saying the bombings were intentional, not the killing of people was intentional. that doesn't make the attack right, but makes it very different from the Charlie Hebdo attack which actually tried to kill the targets.

But we’re not encouraged to go out on the streets protesting and waving placards about those things, that are - after all, happening in our names are we? Why aren’t these stories burned into our minds as much as the terrible Charlie Hebdo murders are?

I think we should go out and protest these things. But you can see why protests for these things in Paris are much smaller, right? The Charlie Hebdo incident happened in Paris.