superHanc

It's a tad unfair. One of the frequent messages in the media and in the marches was "Let's not blame it on the muslims, love all religions", and the government has had a very decent reaction on that topic, reasserting that Muslims were the most frequent victims of extremism and setting up security near the mosques. The situation isn't perfect, far from it, but the attacks were likely done by far-right assholes who were waiting for an excuse. And it's another debate entirely, but if I am perfectly fine with the hijab, i find defending the burka to be a lot harder.

I agree that "Let's republish the cartoons" makes sense as a knee-jerk reaction but isn't very useful beyond that. Same thing for the hashtag, it is a coping mechanism I guess but it's also very meaningless. It's a bit unfair to expect people to get into a reflective phase right away though. Once again, I feel like the national and the international discussion on this is going to be different. The whole freedom of speech issue might be what will remain of it outside of France, and it's fine. There are people saying freedom of speech is important and so forth here as well, but I don't think it will be the legacy of the event. Even the focus on the symbol of the pen/pencil feels more related to the disproportion between stupid drawings and such organized violence. The long-term true political question here should be along the lines of "Why does a French-born French-raised guy turn into a terrorist and what do we do about it ?". Everyone here already has its answers for the first part of the question. Sometimes that answer itself is part of the problem, for instance when you hear that it is an "integration problem", because a good portion of the integration problem is people being told they are not integrated. And the annoying thing is, you only have easy answers to the second part of the question if your answer to the first part is simplistic.

Hi, French guy chiming in mostly to say : funny how I feel like I have nothing to contribute to this conversation. Most of it feels like a reaction to the English language reaction, and working to frame it according to the politics you are used to. It's all turning into Reddit liberalism vs Tumblr liberalism (sorry for the generalisation, but you get the gist). The worst ennemy of the left always has to be the other left, I guess. The reaction in France was obviously a lot more aware of who Charlie Hebdo were from the get go, and as such more nuanced. Don't worry, we had all the hashtags : jesuisCharlie, jenesuispasCharlie, jesuisAhmed. I mean, half of the shock in France stems from the fact that Charlie Hebdo wasn't that relevant anymore, because they were a bunch of people who were good in the 60s-70s and had not really evolved since then. They were criticised by the left before their death (and after), but I feel like most people were aware that the main problem was them being stuck in a mindframe where putting dicks in a newspaper was top-notch anarchism, and the racist slips were straight-up laziness. The drawing Mohammed business is more complex. The short version is that the left has a very strong anti-religion tradition and has had troubles adapting it to the situation where a minority religion (Islam in France) is becoming a big talking point. The reactions of most of the left has been to drop the anti-religion thing entirely or to reduce it to more consensual options : anti-dogma, anti-extremism etc, and frame discussion of Islam in the context of republican secularism (which can border on don't ask, don't tell). CH stuck to the old ways of bashing religion (and drawing authority figures naked/fucking), which was mostly treated as another example of them being stuck to the past. Most of the left reaction at the time was "plz no dont", really. I guess the best way to understand the CH attacks is an attack against the progressive politics (and edgy comics) of 40 years ago. They might not fit in today's politics, but they are stil linked to a cherished past. They were "good guys" at some point. (for context : I lurk on the forums sometimes because I follow the podcast and the GG thread here)