Terror attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris

[Broomstick]

There are Christian people in the US who think homosexuals should be imprisoned and put on the sex offender list, forbidden all contact with children, engage in hate crimes, etc., too that are religiously motivated (see Westboro Baptist Church). There are a crapload of groups that want to gut the First Amendment and control everyone's else speech, reading material, movies, and so on. There are athiests who want to treat all religious belief as a mental illness. All of these people exist on the same spectrum as people who kill cartoonists for making images of religious figures, just on a different part of the spectrum.

Right now, it tends to be Muslims who occupy the killing part of that spectrum but you're deluding yourself if you think other religions or political groups don't have the capacity to slide over there.

[wautd]

Indian ex-minister wants to donate approximately a million € to the attackers

Ready to pay Rs. 51cr reward to Charlie Hebdo attackers: Yakoob Qureshi

Whoever dare show disrespect for Prophet will invite death like the cartoonists and journalists of Paris-based satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Haji Yakoob Qureshi has said.

“Rasul ke ashiq unhe saja de dete hai (followers of Prophet punish them),” the former Uttar Pradesh minister told HT on Thursday, reacting to Islamic clerics’ views that the religion had no place for violence.

“Those who dare insult Prophet Mohammed deserve death and there is no need to initiate legal procedure against them.” The Meerut-based leader said the Prophet spread the message of peace and love.

Late on Wednesday, he had maintained the same line with journalists who sought his reaction to the attack on the magazine.

Qureshi had hit the headlines in 2006 after declaring a reward of Rs. 51 crore for anyone who would kill the Danish cartoonist who had created a controversial cartoon of Prophet Mohammed. He had made the offer at a public rally in Meerut.

Reacting to Wednesday’s attack on Charlie Hebdo, Qureshi said he was ready to pay the reward money to the attackers. “I am ready to pay the money if they come and demand the declared reward.”

Qureshi’s statement is likely to come under police glare. Uttar Pradesh additional director general (law and order) of police Mukul Goel said, “We can initiate action against him only after examining his statement under the purview of law.”

Four of France's most famous cartoonists were among the dozen people murdered Wednesday when gunmen attacked the Paris offices Charlie Hebdo.

The magazine gained notoriety in February 2006 when it reprinted cartoons of Prophet Mohammed that had originally appeared in Danish daily Jyllands-Posten.

Why isn't this guy in prison yet? Because that's where you belong if you think that murder, not debate, is the correct response to words and pictures.

[Elheru Aran]

I would like to submit that we avoid Islamo-bashing or religion-bashing, and focus upon the perpetrators instead. Certainly their religion was a motivating factor in what they did, but the Koran didn't grow arms one day and shove guns in their hands. They made a conscious decision to follow a path of extremism.

That said: They've been nicked, is there any further information beyond that? Have any associates been arrested?

[AniThyng]

There are Christian people in the US who think homosexuals should be imprisoned and put on the sex offender list, forbidden all contact with children, engage in hate crimes, etc., too that are religiously motivated (see Westboro Baptist Church). There are a crapload of groups that want to gut the First Amendment and control everyone's else speech, reading material, movies, and so on. There are athiests who want to treat all religious belief as a mental illness. All of these people exist on the same spectrum as people who kill cartoonists for making images of religious figures, just on a different part of the spectrum.

Right now, it tends to be Muslims who occupy the killing part of that spectrum but you're deluding yourself if you think other religions or political groups don't have the capacity to slide over there.

I don't think anybody thinks Christians (or anyone else) can't go there, we're not holocaust deniers here. I think what is worth remembering is that while the average muslim would not actually go so far personally - look, the easiest example is to just look at the typical muslim reaction to the regular israel - palestanian fracas - which is almost always that Israel deserves what it gets, even if they personally aren't going to shoot rockets at anything.

@Elheru Aran

I leave you this passage by the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, and Malaysia's government itself. Note that Malaysia is foremost of the moderate muslim nations (one may beg to disagree that it is in fact "moderate", but it is what it is. http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/mala ... -says-dr-m :

The Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, France yesterday could be a backlash against the French satirical magazine's provocation towards Islam, said former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

He said that Charlie Hebdo frequently showed disrespect towards Muslims by making fun of Prophet Muhammad through their caricature drawings.

"Do they need to make fun of Prophet Muhammad even when they know it hurts Muslims. We respect their religion and they must respect ours," he was quoted as saying by Bernama today.

According to the national news agency, Dr Mahathir was asked to comment on the attack where three gunmen with Kalashnikov automatic rifles and a rocket-launcher opened fire at the Charlie Hebdo offices yesterday and killed 12 people, including two policemen.

Dr Mahathir, who is the country's longest-serving prime minister, said that no one should provoke another religion as society should learn to respect one another despite being of different religions and races.

He was also reported as saying that there were non-Muslims who were afraid of Islam and imagined it to be an inconsiderate and ruthless religion because of what is shown on the Internet, such as the unrest in the Middle East.

"If they understand the teachings of al-Quran itself, they will not be afraid of Islam and Muslims," he added.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had earlier said that Malaysia condemned in the strongest terms all acts of violence.

"We stand in unity with the French people. We must fight extremism with moderation," he said in his Twitter account.

Wisma Putra also echoed Najib's call, saying that nothing justified taking innocent lives amid the most deadly militant attack in the country in decades.

In a statement today, the Foreign Ministry said Malaysia was standing united with France, its people and especially with the families of the victims. – January 8, 2015.

[cosmicalstorm]

Look this isn't a case of some loon with a shorn off shotty taking 12 people hostage in a cafe demanding to speak to the Prime Minister live on air so he can expose Australia as being guilty of war crimes. This was an execution motivated by a deep set of religious beliefs which are clearly fucking explicitly spelled out in their holy scriptures. They asked for specific people before they started shooting.

You miss my point, Crown. I don't give a shit about offending Muslims, cartoons or not, anymore than I give a fuck about offending Christians. Or calling Muslim terrorists that, but the thing is, the thread started out titled as Terror attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris, which was accurate, and we're supposed to change it retroactively to emphasize the religion of the culprits just because some people have their panties in a bunch about Islam? That's the bullshit bit there. The thread itself does a good job of discussing that aspect of the case.

With regard to attitudes toward Muslims in general, I have nothing but contempt for the pants-pissing hysterical Chicken Little fuckwits (like cosmicalstorm) who start screaming about the sky falling every time some Muslim extremist somewhere in the world does something, and I'm not going to back down from that comment. I refuse to bow down to religious terrorism, but I also refuse to bow down to pointless scaremongering born from the fevered imaginations of paranoid xenophobic cowards. And I've no problem tarring and feathering cosmicalstorm with that moniker, especially after his latest post. If you're confusing that for apologism for terror acts or religious sensitivity, you need to take a remedial reading comprehension course post-haste.

I don't think the sky is falling down but to cut it short I have serious doubts about Mid-eastern culture (Islam being the most prominent part of it). Especially regarding attitudes towards meritocracy, democracy and human rights. I suspect that as the Islamic/ME portion of the European population increases that will lead to negative changes in society. I am aware of Iraq killing 600.000 whatever under GW and so on.

OT
Here is another take on it. There are many ways to interpret these incidents.

> The problem for a terrorist group like al-Qaeda is that its recruitment pool is Muslims, but most Muslims are not interested in terrorism. Most Muslims are not even interested in politics, much less political Islam. [...] Al-Qaeda wants to mentally colonize French Muslims, but faces a wall of disinterest. But if it can get non-Muslim French to be beastly to ethnic Muslims on the grounds that they are Muslims, it can start creating a common political identity around grievance against discrimination. [...]

> The operatives who carried out this attack exhibit signs of professional training. They spoke unaccented French, and so certainly know that they are playing into the hands of Marine LePen and the Islamophobic French Right wing. They may have been French, but they appear to have been battle hardened. This horrific murder was not a pious protest against the defamation of a religious icon. It was an attempt to provoke European society into pogroms against French Muslims, at which point al-Qaeda recruitment would suddenly exhibit some successes instead of faltering in the face of lively Beur youth culture (French Arabs playfully call themselves by this anagram). Ironically, there are reports that one of the two policemen they killed was a Muslim. [...]

> The only effective response to this manipulative strategy (as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani tried to tell the Iraqi Shiites a decade ago) is to resist the impulse to blame an entire group for the actions of a few and to refuse to carry out identity-politics reprisals

[salm]

I leave you this passage by the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, and Malaysia's government itself. Note that Malaysia is foremost of the moderate muslim nations (one may beg to disagree that it is in fact "moderate", but it is what it is. http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/mala ... -says-dr-m :

German muslim leaders are currently organizing anti terror speeches in mosques and muslim protest marches against terrorism.
Since there are a lot of muslims in the world it would be absurd not to expect an abundance of oppinions and it would be silly to alienate moderate people by lumping them in with terrorists.

[Elheru Aran]

There are always going to be people in any faith that are going to take extreme positions. They are only representative of those that share their position, not the entire faith itself.

Admittedly, the percentage of those that have an extreme position in Islam versus extremists in other religions is possibly higher; I haven't really done much research into that angle. But as far as I am concerned, the only role religion had here was as a motivating factor, and motive is nothing without action. There's plenty of Christians who tut-tut over homosexuality, but precious few would actually up and try to kill gay people despite believing that it's 'sinful' and 'wrong'.

In other words, attack the extreme position of these criminals. Attack the actions they took. But don't use it as a reason to label their whole faith misguided and wrong.

[Metahive]

Wanna' really go full-on rightard, take all Muslims hostage for the deeds of the extremists, treat them with hate, fear and suspicion and make them feel more isolated and unwelcome than ever?

Then the terrorists have achieved their goals. Congratulations.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Christians like to behead people too, but it doesn't grab the headlines the way it does when a Muslim does it.

Christian was the guy's name, not his faith- apparently he had schizophrenia and several prior run-ins with the law.

[Metahive]

If you want to know what happens when Christian hardliners are allowed to indulge themselves, look no further than Uganda and it's politics regarding homosexuals inspired by fundamentalist christian "missionaries". Or look at that Duck Dynasty shmuck Phil Robertson going on national TV and calling for all unbelievers to either convert or die.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCPVMGvF3vw

Christianity is (mostly) defanged at the moment, but it can easily regrow its teeth like a shark should it get a chance, never forget that. It's after all a death-worshiping doomsday cult, the worst sort of religion there can be.

[General Zod]

Christians like to behead people too, but it doesn't grab the headlines the way it does when a Muslim does it.

Christian was the guy's name, not his faith- apparently he had schizophrenia and several prior run-ins with the law.

There's more than one guy in the article.

[Crown]

Stop pretending that there is somehow any equivalency between what the 'average' Christian thinks and what the 'average' Muslim thinks, because there simply isn't.

When the Muslims in those polls say "punish" what do they mean? Fines? Forced apologies/retractions? Jail time? "Punishment" does not automatically translate to "shoot in the head".

It's not like non-Muslims don't have similar attitudes. Every damn winter the US is subjected to Christians with delusions of persecution demanding protections from the "war on Christmas" and other such nonsense. We've had Christian terrorists kill doctors. Roll things back a few centuries and you had executions for heresy and all manner of abuses. If Christians are relatively non-confrontational today their ideology still retains that capacity.

Yes, you got me. Shooting 12 people for drawing a satirical picture of a dead person is equivalent to "war on Christmas" hysteria from the Faux News crowd. You got me, well done.

[Metahive]

Crown, you really wanna' play Worldwide Atrocity Olympics? Because in that case the West with all its christian leaders takes all the gold medals. Even ISIS' very existence can be squarely laid at the feet of the very christian Bush and his very christian cabinet who were deliberately destabilizing the region for personal gain with Baby Jesus' approval which resulted in millions of ruined existences. How can a bunch of petty murderers measure up to that?

[The Romulan Republic]

Their have been a lot of horrible things committed by people all over the world, but I'm as tired of the response to atrocities outside the West being "the west is bad" as I am to people blaming all Muslims. And George Bush is a dick who should never have been President, but that doesn't absolve ISIS. Nobody's forcing them to chop heads off.

[Metahive]

Their have been a lot of horrible things committed by people all over the world, but I'm as tired of the response to atrocities outside the West being "the west is bad" as I am to people blaming all Muslims. And George Bush is a dick who should never have been President, but that doesn't absolve ISIS. Nobody's forcing them to chop heads off.

They exist because Bush Jr. and his lackeys fertilized the soil for them with their rectal discharge called US foreign policy 2003-today, that's the point. People, including in this very thread, point fingers at Islam as some sort of irredeemable Religion of Evil and yet so much of the shit going on in the Middle East can be traced back to reasons that have nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with the constant fucking around that's going on there and which features the West as a major fucker upper. Be glad that harsh words on a message board are probably all that you'll ever get to experience about this.

[Irbis]

Because to me it seems nothing more than a manifestation of just how well the right wing scaremongering about any and all Muslims has been internalized. To a degree that it can almost be classified as a pathological infection of the national psyche of the US. One of the manifestations is that it can only be assuaged by loudly and publicly bringing up how Muslims are the bad guys if there is even a hint of their involvement in a crime, regardless of the actual perpetrator. It seems as if it takes nothing more than any act of violence by Muslims anywhere in the world against any non-Muslims and America immediately pisses its collective pants, because that is what it has been trained to do by its government and its media for the past 13 years and counting.

It's pathetic, really.

You know what? I agree. Both US and EU has large portion of population reacting like Pavlov's dog every time they hear 'muslim' and 'terror' in one sentence.

But you know what is really sad and pathetic? Identical scaremongering is internalized just as strongly in dozens of other cases, yet even people aware of the above mechanism also act like this particular scaremongering was true this time and we should have pissed our pants for real and that is actually good thing to do. Then someone familiar with scaremongering cause comes along and asks "guys, really?" to which the only response is "are you nuts??".

*ahem*

Anyway, point is, I don't like Bible, but that part with straw and log can be sometimes really à propos.

There are athiests who want to treat all religious belief as a mental illness.

And yet, no atheist ever killed over mockery of... uh, empty page? Whatever it is that is analogue to religious feelings in atheists, or whatever. Spaghetti monster, maybe?

I'd ask for one example of organized atheist group killing anyone in last 25 years over their hurt feelings (or anything nonsensical, really, like commands of illiterate shepherd who died hundreds if not thousands of years ago) or stop religious apology and cease equating anyone in the group that is the largest victim in history of religious relations since ever with religious terrorists

[The Romulan Republic]

Their have been a lot of horrible things committed by people all over the world, but I'm as tired of the response to atrocities outside the West being "the west is bad" as I am to people blaming all Muslims. And George Bush is a dick who should never have been President, but that doesn't absolve ISIS. Nobody's forcing them to chop heads off.

ISIS exists because of various things. The Bush Administration is one of them. But they're not the only one, and your insistence on simplification is disturbing.

And unfortunately there is a chance that I or someone I know will be subjected to violence spilling over from the Middle East. ISIS and others like them are a global problem, albeit one centred in the Middle East.

[Crown]

Crown, you really wanna' play Worldwide Atrocity Olympics? Because in that case the West with all its christian leaders takes all the gold medals. Even ISIS' very existence can be squarely laid at the feet of the very christian Bush and his very christian cabinet who were deliberately destabilizing the region for personal gain with Baby Jesus' approval which resulted in millions of ruined existences. How can a bunch of petty murderers measure up to that?

It's fucking uncanny how well you parrot an old fallacy that has already been debunked by someone far, far more eloquent and comprehensive than I (lead tongued fiend that I am) ever could;



Let me quote his closing statements;

In other words if you want to avoid upsetting these people you have to let Indonesia commit genocide in East Timor. Otherwise they will be upset with you, you would have made an enemy. If you tell them they can't throw acid in the faces of unveiled women in Karachi; they will be annoyed with you. If you say; 'We insist, we think that cartoonists in Copenhagen [Crown's comment; or satirists in Paris] can print satire on the prophet Mohammed." You've just made an enemy, you've brought it on. You are encouraging it to happen.

So unless willing to commit suicide for yourself and for this culture*; get used to the compromises you'll have to make and the eventual capitulation that will come to you, but bloody well don't do that in my name, because I'm not doing it. You surrender in your own name, leave me out of it. I'm going to fight these people and every other theocrat all the way. All the way. For free expression, for women's rights, for self determination of small peoples, for the right of Iraqi's to federate and run their own show, for the right of the Lebanese not to be bullied by Hezbollah and to have a multi cultured democracy

EDIT :: * here Hitchens is referring to Western democracies when he says 'this culture'.

[The Romulan Republic]

I just realized that I accidentally quoted my own post when I replied to Metahive. I'm not sure how that happened. Sorry.

[AniThyng]

And yet, no atheist ever killed over mockery of... uh, empty page? Whatever it is that is analogue to religious feelings in atheists, or whatever. Spaghetti monster, maybe?

I'd ask for one example of organized atheist group killing anyone in last 25 years over their hurt feelings (or anything nonsensical, really, like commands of illiterate shepherd who died hundreds if not thousands of years ago) or stop religious apology and cease equating anyone in the group that is the largest victim in history of religious relations since ever with religious terrorists

The communist party of China will impose very harsh penalties on sedition, which is possibly as close to "hurt feelings" as you can get in a secular context. Does it count?

Note that the kind of content put out by Charlie would in fact be considered seditious under the secular laws of Malaysia because it is offensive to Muslims and can incite unrest and civil disorder.

[Metahive]

Uhu, you might as well have cited David Duke as an authority on race relations, Crown. Hitchens was a well known anti-brown people bigot. I don't put any stock in his words.

And of course, that answer is to a strawman anyway, since I never said anything bad done by Islamic Fundamentalists is justified because of past abuse, just that it isn't surprising it happens and not an effect of Islam being a Religion of Evil as claimed by way too many people. Wanna deal with the cursive part for a change? Since you're already name-dropping "famous" islam critics, gonna' quote Sam Harris to me next? The guy who think Islam is so evil, the West should just annihilate the entire Middle East via nuclear first strike?

ISIS exists because of various things. The Bush Administration is one of them. But they're not the only one, and your insistence on simplification is disturbing.

And unfortunately there is a chance that I or someone I know will be subjected to violence spilling over from the Middle East. ISIS and others like them are a global problem, albeit one centred in the Middle East.

Bush's invasion was undeniably the biggest factor, you can crow about "complex reasons" as long as you want, but it's clear that without the 2003 fuckwittery ISIS would not exist in this form today as the primary reason for their strength are the ethnic/religious cleansing shenanigans pulled by the regime installed after the ousting of Saddam. Wanna' argue with that? Go on.
Also, if you live in the West, then death by islamic terrorism has less chance to occur than death by rabid dog or lightning strike (or getting hit by a car for that matter). If you allow the terrorists to instill that much irrational fear in you then you've allowed them to win, it's as sad as that.

[Ralin]

There are Christian people in the US who think homosexuals should be imprisoned and put on the sex offender list, forbidden all contact with children, engage in hate crimes, etc., too that are religiously motivated (see Westboro Baptist Church). There are a crapload of groups that want to gut the First Amendment and control everyone's else speech, reading material, movies, and so on. There are athiests who want to treat all religious belief as a mental illness. All of these people exist on the same spectrum as people who kill cartoonists for making images of religious figures, just on a different part of the spectrum.

Right now, it tends to be Muslims who occupy the killing part of that spectrum but you're deluding yourself if you think other religions or political groups don't have the capacity to slide over there.

To me the difference is that the biggest thing stopping those Christians from doing all that is other Christians. America is a democracy with a 75+ percent Christian population and probably even higher among elected officials. Clearly whatever their other failings enough American Christians support the rights of people not like them to not change the law to do all of those things. I don't like them, but I've been openly mocking Christ in the US for many years now without once being afraid of violence because of it, and I'm from Deepest South Louisiana. Don't think there are a whole lot of Muslim countries where I could say the same if I went around talking smack about Muhammad.

[Siege]

What an utterly fatuous argument Hitchens makes in that clip. What he does is he takes what even he himself describes as a "terrible atrocity" and "a genocide more comprehensive than Cambodia", he offsets that against that purportedly Al Qaeda is upset over the loss of East Timor, and then he concludes that if 'we' "want to avoid upsetting [terrorists]" then "we have to let Indonesia commit genocide in East Timor".

Say what? It speaks to Hitchens' cleverness that he's able to pull that piece of insane rhetoric off the cuff, but anyone that thinks about it more than a few seconds should come to the conclusion that it's bullshit of the highest order.

No, we don't want to let Indonesia commit genocide in East Timor. And in fact nobody even referenced trying to avoid "upsetting these people" (whoever the fuck "these people" are supposed to be; are those offended by Charlie Hebdo "these people"?). It's just that some of us would like to get to the actual root of the problem of this insane violence, and aren't looking away when it is suggested that heinous shit like the West collectively looking the other way while "a genocide more comprehensive than Cambodia" transpires might be part of that root.

"Leave me out of it" Hitchens says. Sure! I'll stop talking about the collective Western responsibilities (in whole or in part) for the fucked-up-ness of large parts of the world and all the awful shit that happens in those parts, just as soon as you stop insisting that attacks by outlying Islamic fucknuggets are blanket 'Muslim attacks' like that says anything of significance at all. Then maybe we can all talk about actual roots and causes and solutions like grown ups and it'll be like we're having an actual discussion. It'll be swell. I'm looking forward to those days.

[AniThyng]

Then maybe we can all talk about actual roots and causes and solutions like grown ups and it'll be like we're having an actual discussion. It'll be swell. I'm looking forward to those days.

Well how about addressing what Muslim elder statesman mahathir had to say then? That the west can start by being less offensive against Muslim core beliefs and perhaps maybe stop supporting Israel. He may be a autocratic old man, but he was also the elected leader of a major moderate Muslim state and obviously has some notion of how some Muslims think.

[Siege]

I strongly disagree with him when he says things like "we respect their religion and they must respect ours". We (taking 'we' as my local political circle here) must do no such thing. No religion, belief or idea is inherently entitled to respect. Having said that, I am obviously utterly foreign to the circumstances Dr Mahathir has spent his political career in. And I can imagine that perhaps civil society in Malaysia exists in a balance where his words ring quite true, whereas to a Western European audience they could seem offensive at first sight. I thus wonder if what he said was intended for a local or international audience.

Holy shit it's almost like I'm trying to have some kind of civil discourse here. Like, I dunno, context matters. Shit be craaazy.