Voltaire, who was perhaps the most distinguished French Islamophobe since Charles Martel, and the only one, ever, with any charm, once said that if God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent Him. The same might be said about the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Whether it was really spontaneous, or some ginned-up police provocation, hardly matters. It’s been a brilliant success.
In the name of vague and unexamined notions like “free speech” and “satire”, all kinds of ordinarily reasonable, skeptical, good-hearted people have enlisted in the Clash of Civilizations, on behalf of the folks who published the charming image above, shortly after the Egyptian military coup of 2013.
It’s extraordinarily depressing now to listen in on the chatter of people I usually respect and admire. This one somehow got them where they lived, and while they would no doubt deplore — retrospectively — the uses of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, or the Reichstag fire, or the Zimmermann telegram, or remember-the-Maine, they’ve swallowed this latest one hook, line and sinker.
Who was that wiseacre who observed that the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history? I’m afraid he got it right.
Below, another product of French enlightenment.
If we are going to liberate Muslim women from the oppression of their clothes, why stop at the head scarf? For that matter, why stop at Muslim women? We should be passing laws demanding women remove their tops while in public. After all, isn’t it an affront to equality and dignity that men can bare their chests in public but women are arrested for the same behavior? The only conceivable solution is to force women to remove the symbols of oppression they are forced to wear, as the freedom-loving French have done. Some consideration can be made for women in the military but as for the rest, off with their tops!
As can be seen the Prophet Charlie (Piss Be Upon Him) agrees with my enlightened view. Of course, some women are so brainwashed by the patriarchy they will resist attempts to liberate them from their vestments, but that is what God invented tasers for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1421782837&x-yt-cl=84359240&v=ti18IwEOucE
Norman Finkelstein doesn’t support my call for freedom:
“When Europeans came to North America, the thing they said about the native Americans was that they were so barbaric, because they walked around naked. The European women were wearing three layers of clothes. Then they came to North America, and decided that the native Americans were backward because they all walked around naked. And now, we walk around naked, and we say that the Muslims are backward because they wear so much clothes,” he said.
“Can you imagine anything more barbaric? Banning women wearing headscarves?” he asked, referring to the 2004 ban on headscarves in French public service jobs.
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2015/01/19/norman-finkelstein-charlie-hebdo-is-sadism-not-satire/
“Who was that wiseacre who observed that the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history?”
Faddah Smiff?
Take the reference to Mahomet and Coran out of these cartoons and you’ll see the real message they convey: pig fucking, porn obsessed ignorant Arabs. If this is not racism, what is? There would be an uproar if a publication in America would put out those negative stereotypes of Blacks or Mexicans week after week. Correct me if I’m wrong but these days the only form of overt racism on display in America is the Popo brutality.
Update on Québec: the moron who introduced the bill to ban wearing religious symbols for all public employees, which incidentally cost his party the election, is at it again. He’s introduced the 2.0 version of the same bill, which allows the current public employees to continue wearing their head scarves and yarmulkes but bans it for the ones hired after the passage of this bill. Génial! And the guy’s previous profession before he got on the government dole: an esteemed journalist!
Merkin, you’ve been correct on this here and elsewhere — it’s a front for hating on the “brown ones.” It’s racism by another name and other means. And the power relationship is tipped heavily against the “Islamists.”
OT but breaking news:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/23/nyregion/speaker-of-new-york-assembly-sheldon-silver-is-arrested-in-corruption-case.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Possibly your readers are already aware that a 16 y.o. in France is indicted for comforting terrorism or some such thought-offense for modifying the initial illustration on this SMBIVA post. He replaced “le Coran” (word and image) with “Charlie Hebdo” and de-Islamicized the guy receiving “les balles”.
The previously unaware may participate in the crime at Vineyard of the Saker and likely many other places.