After firebomb, French newspaper fires back with Muslim ‘love’ cartoon cover

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: Yahoo

A week after its offices in Paris were firebombed in apparent retaliation over a stunt involving the Prophet Mohammed, the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hedbo fired back with a cartoon cover featuring one of the publication's male cartoonists kissing a bearded Muslim under the headline: "L'Amour plus fort que la haine."

Translation: "Love: stronger than hate."

A Molotov cocktail destroyed Charlie Hebdo's offices on Nov. 2, a day after the paper published a satirical announcement that the Prophet Mohammed would be the guest editor of its next issue.

Stéphane Charbonnier, Charlie Hedbo's editor-in-chief, said last week the paper had a "right to mock."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/firebomb-french-newspaper-fires-back-muslim-love-cartoon-151410466.html

---

[qb]

1. They've got balls.

[RC]

4. Balls are weak and sensitive!

If you really want to get tough, grow a vagina! Those things take a pounding.
Betty White

[qb]

14. good one

I :loveya: Betty!
:rofl:

[RC]

2. Good for them.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Nice response

:thumbsup:

[JDPriestly]

5. That is courage.

[vminfla]

6. World’s Ballsiest Magazine Puts a Gay Muhammed on Its Cover

Source: Gawker

Last week, the editorial offices of French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo were firebombed after the release of an issue "guest edited" by Muhammed. ("100 lashes if you don't die of laughter!" said the cartoon Muhammed on the cover.)

The magazine's website was taken over shortly after that by a Turkish hackers group, who left a threatening message reading, "You keep abusing Islam's almighty Prophet with disgusting and disgraceful cartoons using excuses of freedom of speech...Be God's Curse On You! We Will be Your Curse on Cyber World!" Politicians and the media came out in support of the magazine's right to free speech, while French Muslim groups decried racism. Amidst it all and against all odds, the newly homeless Hebdo got its next issue out on schedule. Yup! There it is, the new cover, right above us. This is not going to end well.

*Several of you have pointed out that the headwear/shorter beard/slight tweaks to the angle and scale of the hooknose might suggest that the figure involved in a passionate, man-on-frog liplock is in fact just a devout Muslim, and not Muhammed himself. It's a perfectly plausible theory, and we certainly didn't mean to fan the flames of controversy any further by misrepresenting it as such. Adjust your Holy War Fantasy League pools accordingly.
Read more: http://gawker.com/5857336/worlds-ballsiest-magazine-puts-a-gay-muhammed-on-its-cover

[closeupready]

7. Unrecced.

nt

[HERVEPA]

11. Why?

[lbrtbell]

35. Rec'd to counter whininess - n/t

[leftynyc]

39. Same here

This group has real courage.

[bemildred]

8. Greener's Law -- Never argue with a man that buys ink by the barrel.

[MADem]

9. Cue Ray LaMontagne's "Trouble".....!!!!!

That is some impressive, er, fortitude on the part of the editor(s) of that publication!

Good for 'em, though. I do think a "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke" attitude is warranted here. There shouldn't be wholesale insulting, but any group who can wish death on people for disagreeing with, or even mocking, them ought to be given a taste of outrageous ridicule, simply as a grounding device to give them perspective on what's truly important--and some smart-ass making fun of a prophet is NOT world-ending.

It's just words....didn't mama teach 'em that names could never hurt them?

[frazzled]

10. There's a right to free speech, and then there are reasons not to offend

Charlie Hebdo is a venerable old magazine that I remember from the year I lived in Paris in the late 1970. Very clever and biting. But given that it is extremely offensive to Muslims to portray and or mock Mohammed, they should not have done it.

Of course, firebombing in retaliation is even more offensive. But I'm just saying: because you CAN say things doesn't always mean you should.

[dmallind]

13. Are the non religious given "you shouldn't offend them" status too?

What about people who are offended by treating fairy stories on an equal basis to science? Can they be offended with impunity? Do religious zealots get this protection because their ideas are more worthy? If so how are they? Or do they get the protection because of their superstitious overreaction when challenged? If so how will it ever diminish?

[Freddie Stubbs]

17. This reminds me of a scene in Star Wars:

Chewbacca: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgh!

C-3PO: He made a fair move. Screaming about it can't help you.

Han Solo: Let him have it. It's not wise to upset a Wookiee.

C-3PO: But sir, nobody worries about upsetting a droid.

Han Solo: That's 'cause droids don't pull people's arms out of their sockets when they lose. Wookiees are known to do that.

Chewbacca: Grrf.

C-3PO: I see your point, sir. I suggest a new strategy, R2: let the Wookiee win.

[dmallind]

22. But in this case there is nothing but restraint keeping the droid from pulling off arms.

By treating violent zealots with kid gloves you only encourage other zealots to become violent. We are seeing far more Christian violence in the last couple of decades for a reason I think - they are starting seeing that it works. Do you want to incentivize more of that? Maybe even atheist violence if it comes to that?

[freshwest]

26. IDK...

[bigmonkey]

19. Your "people who are offended by treating fairy stories" folks are a little over-sensitive, methinks

There's a difference between telling a story that the other fellow doesn't believe and telling the other fellow that his belief is stupid. Insulting someone is offensive, saying something they don't believe - not so much.

[dmallind]

21. But legislating those fairy stories goes well beyond insult, no?

And telling impressionable kidfs that Genesis is as educationally valid as evolution in science class is a bit more than "saying something they don't believe". It's lying to them and cheating them out of knowledge.

[bigmonkey]

32. Think of the historical precedents you are allying with.

I'm with you when the law conforms to specific religious beliefs, mostly. But I also am aware of the forced removal of Native American children from their own families to get them away from their traditional "degenerate" cultures "for their own good." Racism was a scientific movement at the beginning of the twentieth century. Native languages were suppressed because they were "backward".

Some people believe things I think are horrific. For me, learning about female genital mutilation was the point where I realized that relativism really has its limits - that practice just has to stop. I'm just saying that being too touchy is not helpful - there's plenty of actual horror to fight. Refusing to be intolerant is isn't the same as tolerating everything. Sometimes the situation is grave and you have to speak up or do something. There's no beautiful world free of cultural diversity in the offing, and trying to bring it into being tends toward the imperialistic, to my mind.

[Demstud]

15. Many groups find many things offensive. I don't get your point.

[frazzled]

16. I should have been more specific

Sure, anyone can be offended by satire of their religion (or, for the poster above, non-religion). Islam actually has a proscription against representations of human beings, especially of Allah or Mohammed (or other prophets). Thus Islamic art is almost exclusively geometric and non-representational.

So it is not a question of mere offense to have portrayed Mohammed: it's actually against their religion. That makes it a more serious breach of protocol than other kinds of offensive depictions.

[vminfla]

18. But, you are saying the same thing

Free Speech ends at the point where someone may be offended. That is exactly the reason why free speech laws exist in many nations.

[frazzled]

20. I'm not talking about free speech laws

They had every right to publish whatever they wanted. That doesn't mean it was WISE to do it.

Time Magazine, in the US, could print the photoshopped image of Obama as a Witch Doctor with a bone through his nose. No problem with respect to their right to do it. But I think we would all feel they were being extremely unwise to do so.

Society has laws, and society also has social mores. These don't always overlap.

I could call your post a "fucked up and idiotic response." The rules of DU would not prohibit me from doing so (so long as I don't call YOU fucked up and idiotic, as a personal attack). But I would chose not to say something like that, because I think it's an offensive thing to do/say. (It's also, I might add, untrue in this case; I'm just using an example.)

I'm trying to be reasonable and clear here: they have the right to have done this. They probably shouldn't have done it.

[dmallind]

23. It's the normative conclusion that is the problem though.

Yes it's both impolite and risky to yell racist epithets in a hip-hop nightclub, and yes it should not be done, but we surely have to distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable accomodation. I'd certainly never throw a butchered pig into a mosque, or perform a satanic black mass at a Diocesan meeting (if I had any idea how to). But the supposed "ban" against images is both recent and non-universal, and merely used as a rabble-rousing excuse by extremists. There are certainly some black people who may object to being called that, but a vast majority don't (in fact surveys I've seen express a slight preference for the term over " African-American" even) and it certainly makes little sense to BE offended at it except subjectively. If an individual asked me to use A-A instead to him personally I would do so, and not out of fear but merely politeness. But it's not sensible to suggest a blanket ban on "black" simply because it offends a small subset. The N-word in contrast, from me at any rate, is almost certain to offend everyone, for good reason, and I certainly avoid its use again even when no retaliation is plausible. This silly idea about images is not akin to the N-word (the butchered pig more so), it is akin to using "black" on a demographics questionnaire, and avoiding it is as silly and unnecessary an accommodation, done out of misplaced fear.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1596240?seq=4

[frazzled]

24. Honestly, you're making no sense

You're also defining "normative" from the perspective of what YOU find normative, not from the perspective of the offended parties find normative.

All I say is, knock yourself out, post satirical pictures of Allah or Mohammed. It's your right. You should know what to expect next.

[dmallind]

25. Ermm.. when you say that something should be done/not done

that by definition is a normative conclusion from YOUR perspective.

Should we then, in the same light, refrain from esercising all rights for fear of offending a subgroup of religious extremists, or just the ones in the news?

What else didn't "make sense" to you?

[Little Tich]

34. Hear, hear, let not the iconoclasts win!

[closeupready]

28. I agree with you. Spoiled children don't like to be told what to do.

Often, I think the world is populated with spoiled children who are throwing temper tantrums, i.e., George Bush.

[BadtotheboneBob]

30. By that reasoning, then all religions should not be mocked...

...which is not the case. Christians take literary and 'artistic' beatings regularly. Little care is given to keep from offending them. Why should it be any different for Islam?

[progressoid]

12. Oh boy.

This is gonna be fun.

[truthisfreedom]

27. The message being, we can inflame you more than you can inflame us.

I wonder where this will go.

[and-justice-for-all]

29. HaHA!! love it...nt

[Nuclear Unicorn]

31. Here's the difference

-- The magazine has a right to publish

-- The audience has a right to its feelings

-- The government has an obligation to intervene against either party that seeks violence

[vminfla]

36. +1 nt

[harvey007]

33. What George Carlin said

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o

[burrowowl]

37. Good repliqe Charlie Hebdo!

[Kolesar]

38. Slobbery, no less ... eom