Charlie Hebdo Mohammed Cartoon

[Colourful Stuff]

So this is a shitty thing that has happened in the world. A French satirical magazine has published a cartoon depicting Mohammed nude, satirising the Kate Middleton pictures and the violence resulting from the infamous anti-Islamic film. The magazine has already been attacked as a result and the website shut-down. Now there is fear of further violence and French schools outside of Europe have closed. French embassies are also on high alert.

Links:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19646748

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9552612/France-steps-up-security-at-embassies-as-magazine-publishes-Prophet-Mohammed-cartoons.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/19/paris-magazine-muhammad-cartoons-french

Obviously the volatility of the some Muslims is an issue which should be discussed, and comedy like any art form has a place in that discussion. What I find hard to understand is how Charlie Hebdo could be so reckless. There will likely be deaths as a result of their decision to publish the image, which surely nullifies any inherent cultural or political value it has? I don't think people should react violently, I don't think people should react at all, and I do think that Islam has internal problems that must be addressed. However I don't agree with the decision to publish content which will likely result in the loss of human life.

[MrHoatzin]

This kind of shit never works out. For either side. The more reactionary Islamic traditions have this curious feature where they don't culturally comprehend fiction and satire—they consider those simply LIES. Hence all the fatwas against writers. I am starting to suspect that the western idiots who keep prodding them are either woefully ignorant or are purposefully rooting for strengthening authoritarian elements on both sides of the divide. Whatever problems Islam has, it needs to solve them from within.

[Gormongous]

Well, there's also the fact that Islam considers any visual depiction of God or His prophet to be blasphemy of the worst kind. As much as I hate to see the Muslim response be violence and hatred, I wonder why many in the West haven't picked up that pictures of Mohammad don't really make you that popular out east.

[Colourful Stuff]

Obviously any editor is aware of the reaction provoked by the publishing an image of Mohammed. In a post-Rushdie, post-Danish cartoon world ignorance is inconceivable. Anybody who chooses to make public inflammatory anti-Islamic imagery does so with a negative agenda.

[brkl]

These assholes are basically collaborating with the most radical elements in the Islamic world to create unrest. Even if they consider each other enemies, they're engaged in this unholy alliance where Western radical idiots mock Islam to prove their point that Muslims are barbarians, and the radicals in the Islamic world pick up every possibility to claim the Western world hates Islam because it gives them power. Everybody else loses.

[Problem Machine]

I'm curious what would happen if every newspaper in the world published a defamatory cartoon of Mohammed on the same day... would these people declare war on the world?

I'd like to imagine that's the ideal behind these cartoons, but I can't speak for anyone else.

[Colourful Stuff]

Has anybody read Hanif Kureishi's Black Album? I saw the stage adaptation a few years ago. I think it deals with fringe Islamic ideas in an interesting way. Often the motivations of radical people can seem completely incomprehensible from a moderate perspective, however the lead character gradually adopts radical ideas in a believable arch, starting as a westernised student and eventually becoming a violent radical. The ideas he subscribes to are hard to sympathise with however he is a very smart and likeable character. It's a good example of how art can problematise the vilification of groups by humanising its members. That is what many anti-Islamic commentators and media outlets forget, at the core of the problem are real people with real human motivations.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Obviously any editor is aware of the reaction provoked by the publishing an image of Mohammed. In a post-Rushdie, post-Danish cartoon world ignorance is inconceivable. Anybody who chooses to make public inflammatory anti-Islamic imagery does so with a negative agenda.

Absolutely. It's hard to see the French magazine as being completely innocent victims in this situation. As unreasonable as the extremists may be, you can't poke a rabid bear and then complain it mauled you. I wouldn't go into Hannibal Lecture's cell, cover myself in hot sauce, hand him a knife and say, "bon appetite!".

Of course, we shouldn't have to kowtow to extremists, but the timing on this is particularly suspect.

[Ben X]

I wouldn't go into Hannibal Lecture's cell, cover myself in hot sauce, hand him a knife and say, "bon appetite!".

He'd probably eat you just for pronouncing it "bon appetite".

[Twig]

BAWN APP-IH-TITE

[Gormongous]

Has anybody read Hanif Kureishi's Black Album? I saw the stage adaptation a few years ago. I think it deals with fringe Islamic ideas in an interesting way. Often the motivations of radical people can seem completely incomprehensible from a moderate perspective, however the lead character gradually adopts radical ideas in a believable arch, starting as a westernised student and eventually becoming a violent radical. The ideas he subscribes to are hard to sympathise with however he is a very smart and likeable character. It's a good example of how art can problematise the vilification of groups by humanising its members. That is what many anti-Islamic commentators and media outlets forget, at the core of the problem are real people with real human motivations.

I was reading Ian Buruma's Inventing Japan last week, in the course of which he made the observation that the most extreme nationalist radicals were almost all at one point liberal and pro-Western. The complex of dispositions and beliefs that makes for one often leads to the other, so it's important not to think of radicalism or extremism, whether political or religious, as a disease certain people or societies are born with or catch. I'll look up that book next time I have the chance.

[ThunderPeel2001]

He'd probably eat you just for pronouncing it "bon appetite".

A cannibalistic grammar Nazi. The worst kind.

[Roderick]

I was reading Ian Buruma's Inventing Japan last week

That's a great read, by the way. Read it last year and it gave me some new perspectives on Japan's turbulent history. Last chapter on modern politics is a bit drier than the rest, though.

[theGreatjon]

Bumping this up: Charlie Hebdo is certainly not innocent. It is making a point. This point is that freedom of speech cannot be compromised with.