DeWayne Wickham at USA Today says Charlie Hebdo has gone too far with the “all is forgiven” cover. Right; forgiveness is going way too far. So extreme much fanatical.

Charlie Hebdo has gone too far.

In its first publication following the Jan. 7 attack on its Paris office, in which two Muslim gunmen massacred 12 people, the once little-known French satirical news weekly crossed the line that separates free speech from toxic talk.

Toxic talk? Portraying a Mohammed who cares is toxic talk? Portraying a Mohammed who is saddened by what three of his more hateful followers did is toxic talk? How does that work, exactly? How is it toxic to offer a Mo who doesn’t rejoice at piles of fresh corpses but instead weeps at them?

Charlie Hebdo‘s latest depiction of the prophet Mohammed — a repeat of the very action that is thought to have sparked the murderous attack on its office — predictably has given rise to widespread violence in nations with large Muslim populations.

Ok that’s a two-parter. First, apparently the idea is “how dare they repeat the very action that is thought to have sparked the murderous attack on its office?” So the idea is that they did a very wicked thing in again doing something they and we and everyone have every right to do. That’s like saying it’s very wicked to do something a Mafia enforcer has told you, with menaces, not to do. We are allowed to draw images of Mohammed. We are allowed to draw images of Mohammed, Jesus, god, Shiva, Vishnu, Buddha, Athena, Loki – any god, any prophet, any cleric, any godling, angel, demon, hymn-singer, anyone we like. People are not allowed to kill us for doing that, and they are not allowed to threaten us with violence for doing that.

Second, the utter nonsense about predictability and “given rise to” and blaming the victims for that. This isn’t plate tectonics; people can choose not to engage in violence because someone drew a cartoon; we can’t decide what we’re allowed to do based on predictions about unreasonable and unlawful violent responses to what we do.

While the Obama administration condemned these deadly attacks, it probably wasn’t surprised. Two years ago, then-press secretary Jay Carney questioned the judgment of Charlie Hebdo‘s editors when they published an offensive depiction of Mohammed. That came a year after the newspaper’s office was firebombed when it tauntingly named Mohammed its guest editor. That portrayal came with a caption that read: “100 lashes if you don’t die laughing.”

Then-press secretary Jay Carney was wrong. Obama was wrong when he said the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. DeWayne Wickham is wrong.

Ten people have been killed during protests in Niger, a former French colony. Other anti-French riots have erupted from North Africa to Asia. In reaction to all of this, Pope Francis has said of the magazine, “You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”

The French, of course, are no more bound to accept the findings of the bishop of Rome than they are to be guided by the Supreme Court’s rulings on our Constitution’s free speech guarantee. But given the possible ripple effects of Charlie Hebdo‘s mistreatment of Islam’s most sacred religious figure, at least people in this country should understand the limits America’s highest court has placed on free speech.

That is just flagrantly saying “Surrender to the threats. Give up. Let the murderers have their veto.”

In 1919, the Supreme Court ruled speech that presents a “clear and present danger” is not protected by the First Amendment. Crying “fire” in a quiet, uninhabited place is one thing, the court said. But “the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.”

Twenty-two years later, the Supreme Court ruled that forms of expression that “inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” are fighting words that are not protected by the First Amendment.

If Charlie Hebdo‘s irreverent portrayal of Mohammed before the Jan. 7 attack wasn’t thought to constitute fighting words, or a clear and present danger, there should be no doubt now that the newspaper’s continued mocking of the Islamic prophet incites violence. And it pushes Charlie Hebdo‘s free speech claim beyond the limits of the endurable.

Triumph for the late Kouachi brothers. Next there will be a violently enforced veto on blunt criticism of Islam, then maybe Catholicists will get in on the act – the possibilities are endless.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

This is desperately sad. From the Toronto Star:

Makayla Sault, the Ojibwa girl who refused chemotherapy last year in favour of indigenous medicine, died on Monday, with her parents reportedly blaming modern treatment for their daughter’s death.

She was 11 years old.

The Two Row Times reported that the New Credit girl suffered a stroke Sunday morning. In a statement to the paper, her family said: “Chemotherapy did irreversible damage to her heart and major organs. This was the cause of the stroke.”

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Yes eight. You’d think it could be 100, wouldn’t you – unless the other 92 are afraid King Abdullah will write back to ask difficult questions about electrocutions and Eric Garner and the like?

Anyway eight did write.

Eight senior US senators have sent a letter to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, decrying the harsh sentence imposed on progressive Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who was sentenced to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes, which are to be carried out in installments of 50 lashes across 20 weeks.

Badawi received the first 50 lashes a week and a half ago, and was set to receive another 50 last Friday, however the punishment was postponed following a medical examination.

The senators, six Democrats and two Republicans, including Marco Rubio, who is considered by some to be a possible contender in the upcoming Republican primaries for the 2016 presidential elections, called the public floggings “barbaric” and noted that the harsh repression of political dissidents in the Gulf kingdom may put Saudi-US relations at stake.

“Any further violence or criminal proceedings against Saudi citizens exercising nonviolent freedoms of speech and religion will unfortunately be a source of continued divergence between our countries,” the letter said.

Good that they did, but the fact that it’s only eight makes it kind of…feeble.

Stupidly, the story doesn’t say who the other seven are.

The United States, Sweden, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have denounced the flogging as a horrific form of punishment, saying Badawi was exercising his right to freedom of expression.

Canada has also condemned the sentence and called for a pardon.

Tick tock, tick tock.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The first prosecution of FGM in the UK is happening at Southwark Crown Court.

A British doctor performed female genital mutilation on a young mother after she gave birth in hospital, a court has heard.

Dhanuson Dharmasena, 32, is accused of carrying out the illegal procedure at the Whittington Hospital in north London.

The junior registrar, of Ilford, Essex, denies the charge in what is the first prosecution of its kind in the UK.

A second man, Hasan Mohamed, 41, denies encouraging and abetting the offence.

…

The mother-of-two, who cannot be identified, first underwent FGM aged six in Somalia, London’s Southwark Crown Court heard.

She was 24 and living in Britain when she give birth to her first child in November 2012.

The court heard that during labour, her FGM stitches were torn and Dr Dharmasena, a junior registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology, sewed her back up in a procedure that amounted to FGM.

The prosecution alleges the doctor did so at Mr Mohamed’s “insistence or encouragement”.

Confusingly, the BBC neglects to tell us what Mr Mohamed was doing there and why the doctor paid any attention to him. Is he the woman’s husband, father, brother, imam, block captain? Whoever he is, if he was insisting the doctor re-mutilate the patient, that’s…gross.

The hospital trust launched an investigation into the incident within a few weeks.

In a statement, Dr Dharmasena said he had carried out the procedure because he thought the woman wanted him to. He also said Mr Mohamed had urged him to do so.

He said: “At no point in time did I intentionally or deliberately want to cause any harm to the patient. I had obeyed all of the patient’s wishes.”

Hospitals must have clear rules in place by this time. It doesn’t seem possible that a doctor could just not know that it’s not ok to sew a woman’s genitalia closed.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A site called Legal Cheek reported a few days ago on a tricky situation at a high-powered London law firm:

A trainee at magic circle law firm Clifford Chance has pulled a YouTube video in which he called on British Muslims to adopt a more robust stance against western concepts of freedom of speech. An Instagram clip from the video can be viewed below.

In a move directly linked to the fall-out from last week’s terror attacks in Paris, the trainee — whom Legal Cheek has agreed not to name — tells Muslims that Islam is “superior” to Western ideologies, while at the same time berating moderates for allowing their minds to become “colonised”.

The video — posted on YouTube on 11 January where it received more than 700 views — puts one of the world’s biggest global law firms in a highly embarrassing position.

The trainee’s 21-minute online rant — delivered mostly in English, but interspersed with Arabic — has already caused concern among lawyers at the firm. Legal Cheek understands that colleagues have been particularly upset by repeated references to “kuffar”, the plural of the slang Arabic word for non-Muslims.

I would imagine so, yes. It’s a very contemptuous and derogatory word.

The trainee’s LinkedIn page says he gained a first-class honours degree in law from London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

I wonder if students at SOAS call their fellow students “kuffar.”

The trainee is part of an organsiation called Call of Dawah. Strictly translated from Arabic, dawah means an invitation; but it is commonly used to refer to preaching or proselytising of Islam.

In the video, the trainee repeatedly refers to viewers as “brothers and sisters” and says he is specifically addressing “the events in Paris that have taken place over the last few days”.

He goes on to lambast moderate British Muslims for being too apologetic for the Paris attacks:

“Brothers and sisters, we would not be here had it not been for the fact that the kuffar had gone to our lands and killed our people and raped and pillaged our resources,” he says, adding:

“This, brothers and sisters, is what we need to understand. We need to move away from this apologetic tone and to have confidence in Islam because we are enslaved otherwise.”

The trainee maintains that moderate Muslims are betraying true Islam by adopting western concepts around freedom of speech.

In short, he’s a fascist.

Not fun at the office.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Guardian talks to Shaista Gohir, the chair of the Muslim Women’s Network UK, which launched a national helpline on January 15.

The charity – whose three part-time staff run a network of more than 700 organisations and members – offers specialised help and support to women on issues from mental health to abortion, taking into account their cultural and religious backgrounds. It also campaigns and provides training and workshops. The helpline, staffed by 10 trained volunteers, will allow it to reach more women than ever before, says Gohir, whose relentless energy fuels the small charity’s big ambitions. What motivates her? Dressed in smart businesswear, she replies calmly but bluntly: “Anger drives me.”

Brought up by a single mother who worked long hours in a clothing factory, Gohir says she understood from an early age the injustices women can face. “I had to come home from school and feed my brothers and cook and clean – an 11-year-old acting like an adult. Even in a single-parent family, I saw how women would take responsibility for men’s bad behaviour.”

After graduating with a science degree, she was pressured into marrying and ran away from home.

Several reasons a helpline is needed, right there in those two paragraphs.

But after marrying “the best husband in the world” and having three children, something changed. “I don’t know what happened,” she laughs. “It was around 2004, and I kept seeing the Muslim Council of Britain on TV. They were the only [Muslim] voices on TV, the only ones talking to the government. It didn’t seem right that they were all men.”

All men and all very conservative and theocratic.

Last year, the charity’s harrowing report into the sexual exploitation of Asian girls was cited in the Jay report into the Rotherham scandal. More than 1,400 victims, most of whom were white, were said to have been attacked in the town by men, the majority of whom were British Pakistani. But MWN’s report suggested Asian victims faced extra barriers to reporting abuse and had not been spotted by the services that worked with other abuse victims.

Gohir and her colleagues had collated case studies from charities across the country that detailed the experiences of girls and young women who had been repeatedly raped by multiple attackers, often beaten, and blackmailed into silence. The conclusion was that Asian victims were not only less likely to report abuse, thanks to cultural barriers, but they were also at risk of being “revictimised” if they did; forced into marriages, or disowned by their families for “shaming” them. Gohir says she was shocked by the scale and the brutality involved, but not by the fact there were more Asian victims. “After Rochdale [where nine men were jailed for abusing young girls], I was going to meetings and no one was taking me seriously, because [Asian victims] don’t show up in the statistics. I started looking for case studies – and they were there.”

Honor and shame are obstacles to reporting.

Gohir is outraged that offenders can go unpunished because of the cultural emphasis on “honour”, and women’s role in upholding it, that means someone reporting the abuse of a girl could be accused of bringing “shame” on her family. “I wish the words shame and honour could be deleted,” she tells me. “That is the root of our problems – from forced marriages to not reporting domestic violence.”

It’s being raped that brings “shame” on the family, not raping.

To contact the Muslim Women’s Network UK helpline, call 0800 999 5786 or visit mwnhelpline.co.uk

H/t opposablethumbs

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Originally a comment by Dave Ricks on Religion should not be a political argument.

A few minutes before NBC aired Meet the Press yesterday, Chuck Todd talked with local NBC Washington DC co-anchors Angie Goff and Adam Tuss to introduce the broadcast of Meet the Press as a whole. I transcribed what they said about the interview with Gérard Biard:

ADAM TUSS: He was unapologetic, right?

CHUCK TODD: Unapologetic, but tried to offer the explanation of what he says is the editorial line that he draws when it comes to satirizing religion.

He says they only choose to satirize religion when people are trying to use the prophet Mohammed, Jesus, as ways to advance a political agenda. And he says they are not mocking believers, that he is trying to draw that line. Now a lot of people don’t view that there is a difference between doing that, but that was his explanation, that they’re not attacking people who believe, that have faith, they are only attacking those who are trying to use it for political purposes. But it’s a — you know — I understand the nuanced argument, but it is a tough one to sell to folks of faith, I think.

ANGIE GOFF: Since all this, we’ve seen more protests erupt, as well as more terror plots foiled in the last week. So when we’re talking strategy — what the US is doing to avoid these near-misses — are we at a point where we need to change strategy, as we see this global terrorism network continue to evolve and just get bigger? US officials have admitted that.

CHUCK TODD: Well there seems to be, the one piece of the strategy that has never really worked is an old phrase I’m going to borrow from Vietnam: Hearts and Minds. That’s the missing piece here, because we kill a lot of the enemy, but we haven’t defeated the enemy — right, the radicalization part of it — so the question is why. Why is it that they can cut off a snake head, and four other groups pop up. It’s been constantly a problem, and it moves around, so the name has changed, but the ideology is the same. And I think now we’re at 14 years of this. And so the Hearts and Minds aspect of this, that you hear the President talk about it, you hear others talk about it — but it is, I think there — there’s this feeling there isn’t a lot of good answers right now.

I don’t have good answers either, but part of the problem occurs to me: Even if political satirists are careful to maintain the distinction Biard explained — to satirize the use of religion for political purposes, not satirize individual belief — the religious individuals who want religious government are bent on conflating those things. As Pat Paulsen said when he ran for US President in 1968, “Freedom of speech in no way guarantees freedom of hearing.”

I still think the political satire should exist. The alternative would put totalitarianism off-limits from satire.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Oh, ugh.

I’ve been only vaguely aware that there’s a movie out called American Sniper…

…and now this:

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Rich pop star flames shadow culture minister for saying there should be more diversity in the arts. Sounds promising…

James Blunt, the singer, has issued a robust response to an MP who criticised his privileged background, saying his “populist, envy-based, vote-hunting” ideas were making the country worse.

Blunt told Chris Bryant, the shadow culture minister, he was teaching the “politics of jealousy”, after the MP spoke out to condemn a lack of diversity in the arts.

Mr Bryant told the Guardian one of his priorities if he became a minister would be to encourage fairer funding, encouraging organisations to hire from a wider variety of backgrounds rather than just “arts graduates from Cambridge”.

“I am delighted that Eddie Redmayne won [a Golden Globe for best actor], but we can’t just have a culture dominated by Eddie Redmayne and James Blunt and their ilk,” he said.

Yes we can! Because they’re the best. Everybody knows that the way this works is 100% fair because it’s 100% based on merit and talent and quality and gooditude. If you mess with it in the name of “a wider variety of backgrounds” you’ll just end up with a bucket of shit, because talent invariably rises to the top on its own, no matter what.

I kid.

Excerpts from James Blunt’s elegant letter to Chris Bryant:

Dear Chris Bryant MP,

You classist gimp. I happened to go to a boarding school. No one helped me at boarding school to get into the music business.

…

Every step of the way, my background has been AGAINST me succeeding in the music business. And when I have managed to break through, I was STILL scoffed at for being too posh for the industry.

And then you come along, looking for votes, telling working class people that posh people like me don’t deserve it, and that we must redress the balance. But it is your populist, envy-based, vote-hunting ideas which make our country crap, far more than me and my shit songs, and my plummy accent.

I got signed in America, where they don’t give a stuff about, or even understand what you mean by me and “my ilk”, you prejudiced wazzock, and I worked my arse off. What you teach is the politics of jealousy. Rather than celebrating success and figuring out how we can all exploit it further as the Americans do, you instead talk about how we can hobble that success and “level the playing field”. Perhaps what you’ve failed to realise is that the only head-start my school gave me in the music business, where the VAST majority of people are NOT from boarding school, is to tell me that I should aim high. Perhaps it protected me from your kind of narrow-minded, self-defeating, lead-us-to-a-dead-end, remove-the-‘G’-from-‘GB’ thinking, which is to look at others’ success and say, “it’s not fair.”

Up yours,

James Cucking Funt

So really what should be happening is that the music industry should be energetically recruiting talent from the posher public schools.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

NBC News has found just the right defensive label for Bill Cosby – he’s “embattled.”

DENVER — Embattled comedian Bill Cosby told NBC News that the show must go on as he ignored protests over sexual-assault allegations and took the stage in Colorado Saturday night.

In a 15 minute phone call with NBC News hours before appearing at Denver’s Buell Theater, the entertainer would not comment specifically on the growing list of accusations from more than 20 women.

He can’t; some of them are likely to go to court. Two women (so far) are pressing criminal charges.

Instead of talking about the accusations he told NBC how fabulous he is.

“What you’ll see tonight is history, you’ll get to see me on stage. I will share this gift that was given to me with the people of Denver tonight,” he said.

“You will see this wonderful gift on stage tonight [at the show] as well as the people of Denver,” he added. “You will see a master at work.”

His comments came on the heels of a packed show in Pueblo, Colorado…

It’s so heart-warming that a guy can be accused of rape by more than 20 women and still pack the hall.

Backstage before the show, Chuck Morris — ‪president and CEO of AEG Live Rocky Mountains, the promotion company that hosted Cosby — defended his decision to put the comedian onstage despite the allegations against him. Cosby, through his lawyer, has denied wrongdoing.

“We didn’t feel it was our place to play God, judge or jury, when Mr. Cosby has not been convicted or even charged with any crime,” said Morris, who added that Cosby declined offers in recent weeks to cancel other shows.

“I felt that we had a moral obligation to go on with the show. We didn’t feel it was right to cancel a show based strictly on accusations. If there had been a conviction or an admission of guilt, it would have been a different story,” he added.

Right. It’s a moral obligation to believe the famous rich guy and disbelieve the multiple women who say he raped them. For sure.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Beware, says Howard Jacobson, the fanatic who has read only one book.

Maybe, before pondering the education of a jihadist, we should ask a prior question: what makes a fanatic?

We were given some insight into this on Newsnight earlier this week when Evan Davis, growing nicely into his job, interviewed the lawyer, journalist and associate of Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald – a man strikingly deficient in the musculature necessary to essay a smile. The subject was surveillance and David Cameron’s call for more of it. There are, I accept, differing views on this. I, for example, am for having every member of the human family watched day and night by every possible means because the human family is currently dysfunctional and can’t be trusted. But I understand why others don’t think as I do. This puts me in a different category of person from Greenwald, who allows no beliefs that conflict with his and attributes those that do to a cowardly subservience to authority.

Oh my, that’s some good writing there.

Leading Greenwald with expert gentleness into the gated hell that is his mind, Davis put the case for differing viewpoints.

*falls over in awe at that sentence*

Nothing could have been more instructive than Greenwald’s dead expression – his mouth fixed in the rigor mortis of absolute conviction, his eyes unanimated by the pleasure of conversation or the excitement of controversy. Doubt honours a man, but this was the face of someone whom no ghost of a second thought dares visit.

So, beware of monomania. Avoid at all costs having eyes unanimated by the pleasure of conversation or the excitement of controversy.

We rightly shy from holding communities to immediate and unambiguous account for what their most errant children do, but is it wise, is it honest – reader, does it make the world a better place for any of us – to raise the charge of Islamophobia the moment someone questions the communal atmosphere such errancy might have breathed? At the heart of every narrative of belief is a weak spot of exclusivism and dogma waiting to be exploited by its wilder adherents. Monotheism is a grand conceit, but can we really say that it is innocent of the millions of killings in its name? Danger lurks in the tales we all tell.

That guy can do things with words.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Yes.

Prithvi Acharya says can we please stop calling it “eve-teasing.”

Really. As an outsider it was easy for me to find that ridiculous trivialization shocking, but all the same, it’s possible to pull back and take a look at local trivializations too. Acharya says it’s time to do that now.

I take an exception to how practically everyone in India is framing an important national issue that pervades class, age and geography, and has been doing so for decades. I take a strong exception to the phrase ‘eve-teasing’. Yes, it’s a phrase that is used by the police, the news, and the activists alike. We’re constantly exposed to the euphemism – I don’t blame you for subconsciously having included it in your vocabulary. But enough is enough; it’s time we stopped ‘eve-teasing’.

Most glaringly, it trivializes what is – in no uncertain terms – sexual harassment. Notice how the phrase ‘street sexual harassment’ conjures up a very different image in your head than ‘eve-teasing’? This is by design. Euphemisms, historically, serve the specific purpose of replacing phrases, words, or concepts with ones that sound more acceptable or polite. Cat-calling and groping are never acceptable or polite. So even if you mean well, there is no reason to continue to frame them as if they could be.

And, honestly – teasing? That’s supposed to be for mutually enjoyed joking, not uninvited groping and leering.

One of the many examples of how both globally, and in India, we trivialize gender issues by presenting them with words and idioms that intentionally make them sound less polite, or less harsh than they are. It’s never ‘revenge porn’; it’s always ‘MMS’. It’s never ‘statutory rape’; it’s always ‘molestation’. And until very recently, it was hardly ever ‘rape’ and almost always ‘brutal assault’. If, as society, we want to address the problem of sex-crime in our country, we need to start admitting its extent and magnitude, and stop mollycoddling ourselves into believing that they’re only a minor grievance.

And it’s not just India and it’s not just sexual harassment. This is why I keep mentioning the murderers who massacred the people at Charlie Hebdo, and why I call Islamists Islamists and not “extremists.”

Down with euphemisms.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Ah now this is pure fun – a guy on French tv, on what looks like a talk show, takes on Fox News’s pontifications about “zones interdites” in Paris. C’est drolatique.

Especially the part where a correspondent goes into the field, in pleasant areas of inner Paris, and asks locals if their neighborhood reminds them of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Watch French TV make fun of Fox News claims of… by ewillies

H/t Maureen

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)