I agree that Charlie Hebdo's cartoons functioned as provocations; and given the context of islamist violence, it could be argued that no matter how much CH was mocking islamophobes—which they undoubtedly did—the effect of their satires was to ignite outrage on the part of believers. I agree that that is an important consideration.
However, let's be sure what we condemn them for: not for disrespecting Muhammad, but the belief in Muhammad as a divine messenger, in religion itself as an opiate, etc., just as belief in Jesus as divinity itself, in Moses as a divinely sent prophet, etc, all constitutes the delusions of believers.
Targeting religious belief and institutions goes back to Voltaire—whose "ecrasez l'infame—seems soo soo old-fashioned and boring. CH was mostly targeting bigots, not faith, but it had no truck with faith as the response to bigotry. It is a conventionally liberal and secular journal, in the end.
We can be sure that some muslims in france wouldn't tolerate that message, just as many many more both tolerate or ignore it, they themselves being more victim of islamists than adherents. But in the climate of islamophobia that persists in Europe now, the simple fact of saying, I do not believe in your god, is like spitting on you since the oppressive atmosphere changes all readings.
Insisting on the right to mock others' faiths, or mock others' bigotry, or others' opiates, is to risk wounding many sensibilities and ignite fanatical flames.
We should all recognize that.
Having done so, do we then tell the cartoonist he must shut up? It is a very difficult question.
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, 8 November 2017 at 19:24
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Once again, Charlie Hebdo provokes Muslim sensibilities
Re - "Niggers try to act like Malcolm
And when the white man doesn't react
toward them like he did Malcolm
Niggers want to act violently" ( The Last Poets - "Niggers are scared of revolution")
Re - "I don't have more time, except to affirm, as strongly as I can, that people who don't understand the politics of Charlie Hebdo and its cartoons really are exposing their ignorance if they think the journal is anti-muslim. It is not. It is very much a leftist journal, one opposed to the fundamentalisms of the muslims and Christians and jews, and any other...Their satire is grounded in French symbols which ignorant readers don't get....... no one at war allows enemy propaganda to be broadcast in their own country." ( Professor Harrow)
We must not be too philosophical about this:
Swift has no place of prominence in The Great Tradition , nevertheless, in Merry England Private Eye does its fair share of ribaldry as do some of the other satirical magazines in the UK without any of their staff meeting the same fate as members of Muhammad's Dead Poets Society. Perhaps they have not been threatened that they will not meet any of the 72 holy virgins in heaven if they make the wrong move...
In France with a Muslim population of some 5.5 Million potential Jihadists, some of whom, understandably , don't take any nonsense, it is and should be a little different. Of course, no amount of terrorist slaughter or revenge as a deterrent is going to cow Charlie Hebdo into surrendering their hard won rights to Liberté, égalité, fraternité, to unlimited satire and freedom of expression. And that's probably why no matter what, they will continue to feel free and will not be discouraged from tackling whatever they deem to be fundamentalism. They intend take the bull or the bullshit by the horns, head on.
CHarlie Hedbo knows that if he is writing about Muslims then Muslims are most probably going to be the ones who read and are affected by what they read.
Cornelius Ignoramus asketh Charlie Hebdo, doesn't he know that if the Jihadist Muslims decide to react violently this time too, as they reacted the last couple of times to what was perceived as similar kinds of provocation , they (Charlie Hebdo) can only have themselves to blame?
True : the phallus as a spiritual symbol in its own rights ( like the Shiva Linga) can be easily coupled with the idea of heavenly sex after death - " enjoy for heaven" not necessarily for more procreation but just for
the pure pleasure -
what Abolaji Adekeye joyously refers to as
" the promise of pussy galore"
in heaven must have its special magnetic appeal not only in "radicalising young boys and young adults" but also for the the older Muslims and the aged, the ageing and infirm, not to mention the humane and the inhumane propagators of al-Islam and even for hopeful non-believers who hope that after the grave they will someday eventually meet ladies like Ramona
"And on their promises of paradise
You will not hear a laugh
All except inside the Gates of Eden" ( The Gates of Eden)
The Holy Quran says that the fruits on earth are but a foretaste of the fruits of paradise
Elsewhere, we have been told told that divine sex is but a symbol of the highest intellectual enjoyment. And down here on earth, such as when Ibn Arabi fell in love with a thirteen year old girl in Mecca, he did write in his The Meccan Revelations that "sexual intercourse is the highest spiritual plane of contemplation." or some such symbolic wording. But what do I know? Am I going to listen to anyone who has not even lectured in Mecca and Medina?
On Wednesday, 8 November 2017 20:22:29 UTC+1, Kenneth Harrow wrote:
Dear abolaji
Seems we've been round this one before. Speech that mocks, without causing direct harm, should be unchecked. But even as I say that, I can't help but remember when that Danish cartoon mocked mohammed, there were deaths of Christians in india and northern Nigeria as a result. Fine, we can debate that over and over. Whoever publishes a cartoon, in a context where the cartoon will light a fire, has to be held accountable. Before the law? Depends on the context.
When Soyinka said he stood (as he always does) for freedom of expression for rushdie after the fatwa, he too was threatened, and it was a fight to get the afr lit assn to issue a statement in support of Soyinka.
In the case of steppinfetchit etc etc., there was, of course,the times, where racism was normalized.
But so too was lynching. I believe the atmosphere created by the vile expressions of racism permitted lynching to become relatively acceptable in some quarters.
I don't have more time, except to affirm, as strongly as I can, that people who don't understand the politics of Charlie Hebdo and its cartoons really are exposing their ignorance if they think the journal is anti-muslim. It is not. It is very much a leftist journal, one opposed to the fundamentalisms of the muslims and Christians and jews, and any other.
Their satire is grounded in French symbols which ignorant readers don't get.
I don't get it all the time either, but I am humble enough to ask my French friends before I go around pronouncing on their views. And since I've met someone who worked there, I feel very sure in my statement of the political orientation.
Rwanda broadcasted, on radio mille collines, that iyenzi should have their legs shortened (i.e. hacked off) and the rest sent back north (i.e. thrown in rivers). They were calling for killings, following the extremist hutu positions taken in 92 and 93. It was part of the genocide. Speech in preparation of and during genocide is part of war, and no one at war allows enemy propaganda to be broadcast in their own country.
Quite simply, free speech isn't an absolute, any more than any other right.
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Abolaji Adekeye <blargeo...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, 8 November 2017 at 09:53
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Once again, Charlie Hebdo provokes Muslim sensibilities
Alagba Harrow,
I agree with you when you refer to the black face, steppen fetchit and other ways in which blacks where mocked in America. How many whites were murdered as a result? Blacks, victims instead appropriated the derogatory word Nigga and pitched it right back at the badtsmen.
The Rwanda episode and others are quite unfortunate and tragic. The derogatory nyenzi " cockroach " and all that negative jazz. But pardon me sir, if you call me cockroach, my riposte will be to call you henroach. My henroach. I won't come slaughtering people for that. People resort to their fist when words fail them or they believe some preconceived primeval notions of honor have been breached.
Each society will have to find a balance in the see saw of freedom versus responsibility and obligations. For example I have been conditioned by my Yoruba upbringing never to use a person's disability against them. Yet I schooled in the North where I had a buddy blind in one eye and was therefore called John one, short for John one eyed. Another was called Musa accident because he got some burns in a fire accident. I was never able to bring myself to call any of these guys the nicknames they so enjoyed. I cannot call a gurugu, gurugu but I'll call a spade a spade.
I do not think the fear of fundamentalists should stop Charlie Hebdo from expressing what has been observed, also by lots of people afraid to discuss in public, from ISIS to Boko Haram to The Zak Zakkyy brigade. How they have elevated sex, male penetrative sex to the level of divine reward for Jihad. The honor killings of women, the overarching and overbearing patriarchy. CH, by which I refer to Hebdo and not the highly esteemed Hamelberg, is inviting a soul searching, an introspection that is avoided by the Ummah. While the West is said to be degenerate and nihilistic, the Jihadists are enticing and radicalising young boys and young adults with the promise of pussy galore and I'm not talking movies.
The same rhetorics that attended the fatwa on Rushdie is what is repeating itself today. Then, the groundswell of opinion was that he brought it upon himself. He knew what he was doing. He courted the fatwa. He blasphemed. He deserves death. Charlie Hebdo has killed nobody. We should not continue to shield killers or would be killers because they can kill and writers can write. Satire is not an instruction to kill neither is it an invitation to one.
On Nov 8, 2017 14:43, "Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju" <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:
to what degree is this latest cartoon from charlie hebdo serious critique and to what degree is it empty mockery?
toyin
On 8 November 2017 at 06:29, Abolaji Adekeye <blargeo...@gmail.com> wrote:
I want to ask like Salman -Is nothing sacred?
I'll answer by posing another - Who determines what is allowed and what is hallowed?
It is rather complex but I believe nothing should be immuned to satire. Nothing should curtail freedom of expression except superior expression. We should look at the brighter side of things. We appear too uptight when our totems, our sacralised absolutes are interrogated, critiqued or lampooned. The Life of Brian and Jesus christ superstar did not provoke bombings or any killing spree. Although there where boycott of the movies by the offended.
I believe personally that the provocateurs are those who prevent freedom of expression and aim to foist their creed and belief on the rest of us from their temples, mosques, madrasal or churches. They espouse their divisive messages from compromised lecterns and pulpits but are quick to convulse in apoplectic fits of righteous indignation at any positions or expositions opposed to theirs.
On Nov 7, 2017 12:03, "Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju" <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:
terrible
On 6 November 2017 at 19:47, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:
There's provocation defined as "action or speech that makes someone angry, especially deliberately" and there's madness , the sometimes seemingly mad / insane reaction to certain types of provocation as in the old Saro Krio saying, of my Yoruba grandmother's King James Bible generation, that "provocation is next to madness"
In accordance with Sunnism there are The Five Pillars of Islam and there's the five roots/ principles the Usul al Din of Shia Islam ( ie.Tawhid ( the unity of God) Adl ( God's Justice) Nabuwat ( Prophethood), Imamat (The Holy Imams), Qiyamah (The Resurrection)
With pavlovian expectations, Charlie Hebdo is at it again – this time their so called satirical illustration is that of an erect giant penis , said to be "the sixth pillar of Islam.".
A new provocation from Charlie Hebdo , new death threats
They are of course expecting Muslims to react violently as Muslims have done in the past, with the Muhammad Cartoons ( Denmark) Lars Vilks canine portrait of the Prophet of Islam (Sweden) and the earlier Charlie Hebdo attacks ( France) which prove that Charlie Hebdo know what they are doing and are doing what they do because they expect the same results , so that they can all shout in unison : TERRORISTS!!!!!!!!!!!!
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