Sarah Haider of EXMNA:
https://twitter.com/SarahTheHaider/status/1082428246430543872
https://twitter.com/SarahTheHaider/status/1082430182991056896
That was Teju Cole. I remember reading the piece with disgust.
https://twitter.com/SarahTheHaider/status/1082431004344811521
https://twitter.com/SarahTheHaider/status/1082431835114737665
https://twitter.com/SarahTheHaider/status/1082434286656081920… Read the rest
France24 tells us the Charlie Hebdo people say things have only gotten worse.
… Read the restCharlie Hebdo’s commemorative cover this week depicts both a Catholic bishop and a Muslim imam blowing out a candle flame that represents the light of reason. The headline bemoans a French society it says has become anti-enlightenment (“anti-lumières“).
In an interview with AFP, Charlie Hebdo’s editor-in-chief Riss, who was the artist behind the cover drawing, said public attitudes had only grown less tolerant since the attacks.
Not only has the tragedy faded from memory but so has the social significance of the event, he said.
“One gets the impression that we have turned our backs to it, so in our opinion the antiquated attitudes are
Charlie Hebdo sets satirical sights on Donald Trump https://t.co/3kCw8oRBL8 pic.twitter.com/R8NwRkNtgF
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) November 19, 2016
The captions:
Did we have to give him the nuclear codes?
Obama: again a citizen like everyone else
H/t Katrina… Read the rest
Guest post by Josh Spokes.
It is not “liberal” to tut-tut at Charlie Hebdo. It is not “liberal” to insist on turning your head away from misogyny and murder because the perpetrators are part of a group that experiences racist oppression.
If you say “I am not Charlie,” you are not a liberal. You are rejecting enlightenment values. Universal human values.
It does not matter who you vote for, how progressive your circle of friends is, or how mindfully you shop, or how faithfully you donate to NPR. You are not a liberal if you qualify your “objection” to murder by asking if maybe the Charlie Hebdo writers should have dressed their prose more modestly if they didn’t … Read the rest
Erik Wemple at the Washington Post again.
As a member of the NBC News family, MSNBC last year elected not to show its viewers the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that circulated in the Paris satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo — even after those cartoons became newsworthy for motivating a murderous terrorist attack on the magazine’s offices. “Our NBC News Group Standards team has sent guidance to NBC News, MSNBC, and CNBC not to show headlines or cartoons that could be viewed as insensitive or offensive,” an NBC News spokesperson said.
So are they sticking to that this year? Still censoring cartoons at the behest of religious fanatics who like killing people?
… Read the restErik Wemple
After finding out that Charlie Hebdo
This is infuriating to read – a smug, detached, sniffy review in the Globe and Mail of Charb’s book Open Letter: On Blasphemy, Islamophobia, and the True Enemies of Free Expression. The reviewer is John Semley, who wants us to know how little he cares.
The night of the Charlie Hebdo shooting, just over a year ago, I went to a comedy show. Not as some act of solidarity or anything. Just because some friends were putting together a comedy show.
That’s a shit beginning. Don’t go thinking he felt any solidarity with other writers, folks, because he didn’t.
… Read the restLike, I think, most people on Jan. 7, 2015, I was shocked and saddened by the attacks. Yes, it was
Caroline Fourest on Charlie Hebdo.
She worked there from 2004 to 2009 – five particularly intense and fascinating years, she says.
… Read the restThe first time I met its audacious, fabled editorial team was as a young journalist, in 1997. Beloved by the radical left, Charlie is the last French paper to maintain a long tradition of trenchant caricatures of the religious, the sacred and the powerful, and to openly mock all forms of fanaticism. Its greatest covers, for many years, were devoted to poking fun at the Pope and the Catholic Church’s antiquated positions on abortion, sexuality and women’s rights.
But fewer people know that Charlie has always been the rallying paper of the anti-racist French left. Its legendary cartoonists
There’s Salman Rushdie in the last frame. On Instagram:
The new Charlie Hebdo is on the stands, the anniversary edition. The slaughter was a year ago, January 7 2015.
The murderer is still on the run.
The Guardian reports on this by letting us know what the Vatican thinks of it – as if we’re all somehow obliged to pay attention to what the Vatican thinks of our struggles to break free of its tyrannical murderous god.
… Read the restThe Vatican’s newspaper on Tuesday criticised French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo for a front cover portraying God as a gun-wielding terrorist to mark the first anniversary of a terrorist attack on the publication’s offices in which 12 people died.
A million copies of the special edition hit France’s newsstands on Wednesday with
Maajid Nawaz defends Charlie Hebdo at the Daily Beast.
The outrage began when Arab and Turkish newspapers decided that Hebdomust be mocking little Aylan.
But soon, non-Arab media also joined the fray and eventually certain race-equality activists, such as barrister Peter Herbert—chair of the U.K.’s Society of Black Lawyers and former vice chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority—were threatening legal action, stating that ‘Charlie Hebdo is a purely racist, xenophobic and ideologically bankrupt publication that represents the moral decay of France. The Society of Black Lawyers will consider reporting this as incitement to hate crime and persecution before the International Criminal Court.’
Wow. I did not know that. That’s disgusting.
… Read the restBut never
And now with extra added Le Figaro and Slate France.
Malheureusement Slate France called me Olivia, but oh well. Ce n’est pas au sujet de moi Ce n’est pas à mon sujet.
From Le Figaro:
… Read the restJennifer Cody Epstein a fait partie des écrivains anglo-saxons qui se sont opposés à la remise du prix Courage et liberté d’expression au journal satirique français lors du gala organisé par l’association littéraire PEN. Un choix qu’elle déplore aujourd’hui.
Jennifer Cody Epstein regrette amèrement le choix qu’elle a fait il y a quelques semaines. La romancière américaine a fait partie des 204 auteurs anglo-saxons qui ont signé la lettre ouverte qui stipulait leur opposition à la remise du prix Courage et liberté d’expression
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
I have permission to publish the letter that Jennifer Cody Epstein sent to her colleagues who organized the petition opposing the PEN award to Charlie Hebdo. In it she describes doing what I wish more people had done: finding out more and changing her thinking as a result.
Herewith that letter:
… Read the restDear Colleagues:
Six days ago I received your petition protesting PEN’s decision to award Charlie Hebdo with its 2015 Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award. I added my name to the list based on a number of factors, chief among them the fact that while I was sickened by the fatal repercussions of Hebdo’s repeated lampooning of Islam, I was also deeply troubled by
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Whaddya know – Jesus & Mo Author alerted me to the fact that one of the Charlie Hebdo protesters actually did listen and did learn and did reverse her position. It was reported in the Norwegian weekly paper Morgenbladet.
… Read the rest«Dårlig informert». – Jeg har akkurat bedt om at mitt navn tas vekk fra listen, skriver Jennifer Cody Epstein, bestselgende forfatter og oversatt til norsk to ganger.
Også hun har endret mening.
– Min opprinnelige impuls var basert på noen alvorlige feiloppfatninger som jeg frykter at flere andre underskrivere deler, selv om de kanskje ikke snur offentlig i en litt pinlig form, slik jeg gjør nå.
Epstein sier at hun misforsto Charlie Hebdos oppdrag og innhold fundamentalt, og etter hvert
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Speaking of the Charlie Hebdo protests…a few days ago Joyce Carol Oates retweeted a string of remarks by Dan Therriault, then made some of her own.
… Read the restDan Therriault @dantherriault May 22
With PEN dissent, I suspect more writers would have separated themselves from Hebdo content if those few who dissented were not so vilified.Majority viciously attacking small numbers of dissent used to stop more dissent, to threaten quiet others & maintain their majority opinion.
This devaluing of dissent in the US bleeds into everything, the media questioning authority, political parties, attacking corporate culture.
But it’s truly disheartening to see writers pulled along the cultural move to the right to attack fellow writers for their rational dissent.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Ok now I’m curious enough about Rafia Zakaria to read her piece about Charlie Hebdo in Al Jazeera. It’s a relief that she does at least know how to adjust her style for a broader audience. The clarity is welcome.
She starts by summarizing the controversy, ending with a very odd description of its core event:
The question whether Charlie Hebdo needs to be valorized is contentious. It tragically lost eight staff members when gunmen affiliated with Al-Qaeda in Yemen stormed the magazine’s offices on Jan. 7.
Charlie “lost” eight staff members. So I guess when the gunmen stormed the offices, Charlie just somehow misplaced eight of its people and has never been able to find them? And that’s … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
There’s another one. This article is much longer, and more “sophisticated” in what I think is a rather bogus way. What Rafia Zakaria says isn’t all wrong, by any means, but it’s…I don’t know what to call it. Academic, perhaps. Too sophisticated by half. Unfeeling. And, in places, just nasty.
… Read the restMy subject today is after all a philosophical one, dealing with my opposition to the PEN American Center’s decision to honor the French magazine Charlie Hebdo with the 2015 Freedom of Expression Courage Award. The star-studded gala, tickets to which cost more than a thousand dollars a person, took place on Tuesday evening, May 5, 2015. Thunderous standing ovations were given to the recipients. The fact that six writers
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
There’s one compensation in all the stupid treacherous bullshit about Charlie Hebdo, and that is the discovery of new best friends. Mihir S Sharma is my new best friend for this morning. He has thoughts on The vanity of good souls:
… Read the restI have already stated, in this column, my reasons for thinking that the highest duty of any writer – or indeed human being – is to refuse to ignore oppression and silencing, even if that silencing is ostensibly on behalf of a marginalised community. Without allies from outside, it is difficult for any stomped-on member of a community to escape. And the focus on that individual, instead of the community to which they are forced to belong by
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
More provincial ignorant backstabbing from people on the left, this time Jon Wiener in the Nation replying to Katha Pollitt.
The headline is terrible, for a start.
Defend Charlie Hebdo’s Publishing Disgusting Cartoons About Muslims? Yes. Give Them an Award for It? No.
That’s probably an editor, because Wiener said “about Islam,” not Muslims. Bad editor. Bad headline.
… Read the restIt’s a simple distinction, but somehow it’s been overlooked by a lot of those who support the decision by PEN to give its “Freedom of Expression” award to Charlie Hebdo. Those who signed the protest against the award (I was one of them) agree that Charlie Hebdo had a right to publish cartoons about Islam, no matter how disgusting, and not be
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Some more beautiful snaps from the PEN gala when Charlie accepted the award, via Alain Mabanckou on Twitter.
Alain Mabanckou @amabanckou · May 6
Une fois de plus, bravo à #CharlieHebdo : j’ai eu grand plaisir à présenter le prix Courage reçu à #NYC au #PENgala[One more time, bravo to Charlie Hedo: I had the great pleasure of presenting the Courage prize, received in NYC at the #PENgala]
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
