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Massacre at office of a French satirical magazine
Thirith
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Is there already a thread for this? Here's what BBC News writes:
It seems like not much is known about this yet, but it's pretty likely it's an Islamist attack. There's been discussion here on related things (the Middle East, domestic security, profiling etc.), but I'd be interested in hearing people's opinions on what can feasibly be done against this sort of thing. My impression is that the whole "War on Terror" rigmarole doesn't have many friends here, but what sort of approaches do work? Or is it that nothing works 100%, but politicians want to be seen to be doing things, even though those things are either useless or outright counterproductive? My own political/ideological position is pretty much that of a bleeding heart European social democrat, and such things happening make me feel pretty helpless, in that I don't know if there's any proof for the kind of approaches that socialists/social democrats support making any measurable difference. Not that more hard-nosed approaches make a measurable difference, as far as I know, but they're sure better at giving people the impression that Something Is Being Done.
Anyway, looking forward to hearing what the reasonably reasonable minds here have to say.
bbc.com/news/world-europe-30710883Charlie Hebdo: Gun attack on French magazine kills 12
Gunmen have attacked the Paris office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people and injuring seven in an apparent Islamist attack.
At least two masked attackers opened fire with assault rifles in the office and exchanged shots with police in the street outside before escaping by car.
The gunmen shouted "we have avenged the Prophet Muhammad", witnesses say.
President Francois Hollande said there was no doubt it had been a terrorist attack "of exceptional barbarity".
A major police operation is under way in the Paris area to catch the killers.
It seems like not much is known about this yet, but it's pretty likely it's an Islamist attack. There's been discussion here on related things (the Middle East, domestic security, profiling etc.), but I'd be interested in hearing people's opinions on what can feasibly be done against this sort of thing. My impression is that the whole "War on Terror" rigmarole doesn't have many friends here, but what sort of approaches do work? Or is it that nothing works 100%, but politicians want to be seen to be doing things, even though those things are either useless or outright counterproductive? My own political/ideological position is pretty much that of a bleeding heart European social democrat, and such things happening make me feel pretty helpless, in that I don't know if there's any proof for the kind of approaches that socialists/social democrats support making any measurable difference. Not that more hard-nosed approaches make a measurable difference, as far as I know, but they're sure better at giving people the impression that Something Is Being Done.
Anyway, looking forward to hearing what the reasonably reasonable minds here have to say.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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From what I know of the subject, a few key factors include
I'm no expert as to what can be done to fix all the issues, but a couple of them can be lessened / helped by engaging in a healthy dialog between the participants (ex. Police apologize / seek direct dialog with the oppressed).
In 2011, it released a special edition called "Charia Hebdo", featuring Mohammed listed as its editor. Their offices were firebombed the day before release as a result.
In September 2012, it sparked a huge controversy by releasing a series of caricatures of Mohammed, which caused security concerns.
Le Monde seems to be a bit ahead of everyone on the coverage:
http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/live/2015/01/07/en-direct-des-coups-de-feu-au-siege-de-charlie-hebdo_4550635_3224.html
From the latest feed in the link above, the following cartoonists figure amongst the victims:
Charb, Cabu, Wolinski & Tignous
"Charb" (Stéphane Charbonnier) has been the magazine's editor since 2012.
EDIT: Police have confirmed the victims. The police officer charged with Charb's protection is also one of the victims. Charb was on Al-Qaeda's most wanted list since 2013.
The Vigipirate plan has been activated in France. Newspapers and places of worship are being placed under police protection. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigipirate
The Socialist Party is calling for a march to be organised as soon as possible.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Ain't that the truth.
And it's also, unfortunately, the perfect time for really bad policies and the like to get shoved through. Look at post 9/11 USA.
I also have to say, if I was a Muslim, I think this would horrify me even more. The normal people who happen to be Muslim and follow Islam in normal ways are just going to be increasingly ostracized the more this kind of thing goes on.
I've already seen several people who I know that are quite smart and level headed already going down that slippery slope where they aren't far off from just blaming them in general.
That's part of the point. Raidcial Islam attacks moderate Muslims as much as Westerners. Their biggest fear is moderate Muslims westernizing and becoming part of the enemy as they see it.
Oh, I know. And I just wish that point was more prominent. At least here I don't see it mentioned much. It's almost always just the sensationalized attacks and how evil the current Islam terror group of the day (ISIS at the moment) is.
It's like the red scare soviets all over again. All communism was bad, and now all Islam is bad, even if it is not (usually) presented quite so directly.
Yup. Security/surveillance, anti-immigration/anti-muslim, foreign wars will all be on the table.
It is a very shitty deal, terrible how many people are dead, and gunmen apparently still on the loose.
So, how many more anti-Muslim laws, oh sorry, french preservation laws are going to get passed from this? The only thing I see happening from this is worsening french/muslim relations, and they're already pretty bad.
I don't think one has to be a right-wing alpha male to think that "we should apologize for oppressing them" as a first reaction to being attacked is a little... naive.
Clearly, there are many factors at work here, that lead to violence and prevent certain communities from integrating. It's not "soft" or "weak" to try to address them. But if Freedom of Expression is actually a value that Western Europe wants to continue to respect, one should be really careful not to apologize for that.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
If there's an issue here, its that we utterly fail to get the Islamic moderate community to tear down the various 'community leaders' who tend to get up and give very weak denouncements of stuff like this.
Lots of gatherings scheduled to happen in France tonight following these events:
Map of the planned gatherings:
http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2015/01/07/charlie-hebdo-la-carte-des-rassemblements-d-hommage-en-france_4550916_4355770.html
Spontaneous gatherings are already occuring:
There was actually a study done here in Germany that showed that both groups recruit the same type of people: young men with little perspective, education or money.
Problem is that once they joined the club they are beyond rational discussions, as both groups will believe they know a universal truth and everyone outside the group is the enemy.
I really don't want to see the millions of moderate muslims here suffer for this shit, but in the current mood with the stupid anti Islam protests going on here in Germany, something like this is just pouring oil into the flames.
I can see a lot of politicians from the moderate right jumping onto the bandwagon now, to score points with the voters that are afraid of "radical Islam".
Part of me wants every western media outlet to run those silly Mohammed cartoons, put them on the front page of every paper and magazine for a week or two, just so those idiots learn they can not scare people into following their beliefs. If someone is offended by the joke fuck them, one should be able to live with stupid pictures mocking whatever you think is the bees knees.
Do we even have any indication that the killers were french citizen or are you just speculating? Because this certainly didn't look like anything like an attack by an angry underclass to me, this was professional. Looks more similar to attacks like münich '72
Frankly, Charlie Hebdo should re-run these cartoon. And every French news media outlet should pick it up following that.
Manquant de se faire lyncher, le militant FN de fait évacuer par la police.
(Front National militant (extreme right anti-immigration political party) had to get evacuated by police to avoid getting lynched by a mob).
And, as I like to continually point out, both AQI and ISIS are explicitly genocidal organizations. Any moral credit they got due to issues surrounding a Shia / Sunni gap in the Iraq government instantly goes away as soon as they officially, in writing, endorse genocide.
These fucks in France are the same. This sort of thing isn't a legitimate reaction to oppression, it's people voluntarily joining an evil cult* that is against everything decent and good in the world of their own free will. It's one thing to have a protest where some people throw some bottles at cops in riot gear. However, butchering unarmed, innocent people in a direct effort to destroy basic human rights like freedom of expression is indefensible. We shouldn't be apologizing to anyone, we should go on the offensive and root out anyone who assisted or supported this attack. It should be done with scalpel precision and respect those same human rights (within reason) that are under attack by these barbarians, but equivocation is giving in.
* And before anyone misinterprets this, I'm not referring to all Islam or anything crazy like that. Plenty of decent Muslims have fought and died to fight this garbage.
People want to show that they aren't afraid.
Almost any armed group in history is comprised of that sort of people, including national militaries. Leftist armed groups are certainly in the same category.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Yup, happens too. The leadership especially is often not of the underclass. Che and Castro were doctors, doctors and engineers are common amongst fighters in Libya and Syria etc. I still wager the bulk of the forces will be local impoverished men with little to lose.
There is a pretty good chance that the killers were recruited in France. Homegrown terrorism is common, probably because it's easier to hate and attack your neighbour rather than someone living ten thousand miles away.
Also in general terrorists are more likely to have higher education and a middle class background.
Above: Solidarity gathering in Bordeaux.
"Ceux qui n'ont pas de pancartes, brandissez un stylo ! C'était leur arme à eux", lance une dame.
"Those who don't have poster signs, brandish a pen! It was their weapon!", a lady exclaimed.
"The world has become so sick that comedy has become a profession at risk."
The title means "religions compared with each other"
I just posted a link, because I am really not sure if the pic would classifiy as NSFW, I really don't think it does, unless very crude penislike drawings that are actually not dicks are already offensive.
First and foremost, this was a horrific and brutal act, and the perpetrators need to be captured and tried for their actions. There is no justification for what was done.
That said, I am afraid that this is going to allow people to avoid looking more closely at what was going on with the sort of satire they were putting out. A poster on another site gave a good summation:
concerns
This sort of statement, where speech or opinions are equated to real, physical violence, explicitly justifies and legitimizes attacks like this. This attitude that hurt feelings is the same as physical hurt is the biggest threat to "western" free expression that there is.
I'm seeing all sorts of posts, on my facebook feed, on forums that trend 'left', that say things like this, and I think it's horrifying. You can have a wordview where the free exchange of ideas is valuable, or you can have worldview where bad speech is the same as violence. You can't have both.
Just to restate: the opinion in this sentence is the being especially mean about Islam in France is not OK.
I'm also totally baffled by posts saying that one has mixed feelings about terrorists shooting cartoonists, but I'm starting to think I'm a right-winger by this forum's standards.
Dude, kicking is a metaphor, unless you think a magazine is physically kicking a group of people. He isn't "explicitly justifying" anything at all. In the paragraph below he explicitly (meaning, he outright said it) said that violence is not justified in this sort of case.
How exactly is a march going to achive anything is what I wonder. The simple truth is that the only way to deal with people like this is from a bombers sight glass. The only way to prevent more people like this is to aim that glass on the people who are continuing to preach this kind of hatred as a cornerstone of the religion. I am not the liberal type about these things but even I recognize Islam could easily be compared to christianity docterine (as it was 600 years ago), or cherry picking select quotes from say the bible can lead to a fanatic causing deaths but the Muslim world in general where these crazies are recruited are not completely detached from reality. You would think education would prevent the recruitment of people for militant attacks like this from countries where they routinely take place, so if education isnt the answer then offing the sons of bitches preaching the hate as the only way to heaven needs to be considered.
You can't yell fire in a movie theater. Likewise you shouldnt be able to stand on a pulpit and say someone needs to die so you wont go to hell. And yes i think thats true of ALL religions, even my own.
There is a Muslim underclass in France that is treated like shit. That is what is referred to as being kicked. Think like our illegal immigrants, but instead of limited prospects of becoming citizens, and their children definitely becoming citizens, zero prospects in both cases.
So, instead of just insinuations against me, how about addressing the point? Because the sense that I get is that Europe (and France in particular) have some serious issues with organized religion and ethnic groups for whom organized religion is a key part of their identity. (I also think that we on the other side of the Atlantic tend to have a hard time understanding this, because of the difference in view of the concept of freedom of religion.) I also think that people too often see satire a tool of the oppressed and powerless, and ignore that it can be used by the powerful as well to attack those groups.
All of which does not lessen the fact that this was an appalling, brutal, and unjustifiable act of terrorism that will only serve to worsen the issues of race and religion in the world. But on the same note, if we're going to talk about how satirists are brave truthtellers, we should also observe what truth they're looking to tell.
• racism
• inflicting violence on people
Even if racists and violent people often criticize the religion of Islam.
The religion of Islam—like other religions based on ancient texts that condone violence, misogyny, and ignorance—absolutely deserves criticism. I'll go further: When you say that Muslims should be exempted from such criticism, you are in fact dehumanizing them. You are saying they should be removed from the normal and free interchange of ideas and cultures.
The metaphor is used widely to justify restrictions on offensive speech, and speech that's hateful. There, as here, the reason it's used is to suggest equivalence. One can find posts literally stating equivalence on this forum, over in the censorship thread.
I guess I don't really buy it when they try to walk it back in the next paragraph.
The goal of a terrorist attack, is, among others, to terrorize a population.
If, as a result of the attack, people huddle in their homes in fear, they are sending out the message that the attack achieved that goal.
By doing the opposite - marching in the streets in a display of support for what the terrorists were trying to destroy - they are showing that the terrorists have failed at accomplishing that goal.
Marching in the streets is not meant to physically fight the people who committed these atrocities. It is meant to express a message and to demonstrate that our values remain unshaken, standing in opposition against the ones the terrorists were trying to send.
For security at home: bombing campaigns abroad!
Because if the problem is people in muslim nations advocating violence against the west, surely bombs will quash that point of view.
Unless the EU is going to start bombing the poor parts of their own major cities, this isn't a solution.