Charlie Hebdo massacre and the West's response

[Vintage Paw]

And if it's impossible to tell apart from real bigotry, it might as well just be bigotry.

 

[FNG]

The only reason I am loath to call it bigotry is that it's defenders have labeled such a position a knee jerk reaction and thus unlikely to listen to criticism, I d rather people analysed it more closely( Which fridge magnet and idris have clearly done) than get into a spiral of its racist/not racist to and fro.

 

[Idris2002]

@Idris the story where you make your grandmother out to be a victim or martyr illustrates perfectly the methods Islamists use to take root in communities. I'm sure she has many other stories.

Yes, like the time she walked up the Shankill Road, whistling "God Save the Queen" and carrying a big placard that read "No Hard Feelings".

No wait, that never happened.

What did happen is that during the Belfast pogrom, my great-grandfather had to come home every night in an armoured car.

 

[danny la rouge]

Here's an interesting take from Eiynah, a Pakistani-Canadian. It's about 20 mins long, but worth taking the time. Like me she is not uncritical of CH, and she also sees the baker passage as the weakest part of the article (though actually I see her discussion of this as the weakest part of hers). But she makes a number of very good points, including that about what an "authentic member of the community" looks like, and how this has been pushed to the fundamentalist right both by the Muslim right and the non Muslim liberal left. (Kenan Malik makes the same point). She also asks us to draw a distinction between harassing niqabis and criticising the niqab (and correctly points out that the CH piece explicitly draws that distinction).

Here's her podcast:

Episode 6 - Charlie Hebdo Editorial: How Did We End Up Here?

Her Twitter account is @NiceMangos and her blog is here: Nice Mangos

 

[danny la rouge]

And in case anyone thinks secularism is a soft option:

 

[Idris2002]

And in case anyone thinks secularism is a soft option:

It's not.

But being an ignorant prick is.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The strongest part of the CH article is the singling out of Tariq Ramadan, I think, and given CH's anticlerical history, it doesn't sound at all like a troll.

Reading interviews with him, here you have a reasonable-sounding man, someone who says some good things about imperialism, is outspoken in his opposition to the Saudis and other tyrants, condemns all violence and calls for an end to all capital and corporal punishment.

Yet, he is an Islamic scholar who takes his morality from scripture, including the hudud (crimes against god). So while he would not punish women for not covering up (how big of him), it is the correct Muslim thing to do. While he might not corporally punish homosexuals, homosexuality is wrong. Adultery is wrong. There is a whole list of things that other people do that are the business of Islam because they are in the hudud. And he rejects secularism in majority-Muslim countries.

For an anticlerical group such as CH, which has spent decades targetting the Catholic church, the likes of Ramadan are an enemy to be vigorously opposed, and indeed ridiculed, for that is their method. His views do not deserve respect, and I'm entirely with them on this point. Fuck Ramadan and his fucking morality.

 

[danny la rouge]

It's not.

But being an ignorant prick is.

Who is being an ignorant prick?

 

[Idris2002]

Who is being an ignorant prick?

Those who think they can promote secularism by libelling an entire community.

 

[danny la rouge]

Those who think they can promote secularism by libelling an entire community.

Who is doing that?

 

[Idris2002]

Who is doing that?

The authors of the CH editorial we have been discussing.

And which Ian Paisley is reading in hell, while nodding his head with approval.

 

[bluescreen]

Those who think they can promote secularism by libelling an entire community.

Are you suggesting that the baker with his prayer bruise and the hijabi are typical of an entire community? Or just the far right of Islam, with its attendant bigotry? Eiynah in the link danny la rouge gives above makes the point that these are more like the equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church wrt to Islam. They do not represent her, or people like her family. Worth listening to so I'll repeat the link.

 

[Idris2002]

Are you suggesting that the baker with his prayer bruise and the hijabi are typical of an entire community? [/MEDIA]

No, that's what I think the CH editorial is suggesting.

 

[danny la rouge]

The authors of the CH editorial we have been discussing.

And which Ian Paisley is reading in hell, while nodding his head with approval.

You are entirely mistaken.

Did you listen to the podcast I posted, btw? What did you think?

 

[danny la rouge]

No, that's what I think the CH editorial is suggesting.

No it explicitly isn't: they say so. And not only, they say that it would be wrong to bother the woman in the veil. Explicitly.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

No it explicitly isn't: they say so. And not only, they say that it would be wrong to bother the woman in the veil. Explicitly.

There is something of a contradiction here, though. Ramadan explicitly says that women should not be bothered for not wearing the veil or a hijab, while at the same time saying that they ought to be doing so. Here, CH are explicitly saying that a woman in a veil should not be bothered while at the same time questioning whether they ought to be doing so.

I get what you say when you express your niggle about women wearing the veil and how much of a choice it really is, but at the same time, it may well be as free a choice as any choice is - if they are religious, it is entirely possible that they are wearing it as an expression of their beliefs, because that is what they think god wants them to do.

 

[Idris2002]

You are entirely mistaken.

Did you listen to the podcast I posted, btw? What did you think?

I didn't listen to the podcast, no. I was too busy listening to this fab waxing from the Dead:

 

[Idris2002]

No it explicitly isn't: they say so. And not only, they say that it would be wrong to bother the woman in the veil. Explicitly.

So fucking what?

Their protestations otherwise are nothing more than the old "I'm not a racist" bollox.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

So fucking what?

Their protestations otherwise are nothing more than the old "I'm not a racist" bollox.

There's one big difference here between CH and your NI example. They don't just (or even primarily) go after Islam. They don't advocate an alternative religious morality. Their primary target over the years has been Christianity, which they have attacked and mocked in a way intended to cause offence to religious types.

 

[IC3D]

Idris2002

What utterly disrespectful crap.

All you have said here is tell me another story. One I like and makes me feel safe, right and priviledged.

Idris2002 which one of us is responsible for Rutita1 rage. You didn't have to separate us she did it herself by now deciding I'm privileged.

Yes, like the time she walked up the Shankill Road, whistling "God Save the Queen" and carrying a big placard that read "No Hard Feelings".

No wait, that never happened.

What did happen is that during the Belfast pogrom, my great-grandfather had to come home every night in an armoured car.

While it's important to recognise struggles it's important to see they get exploited by extremists. RU has already taken it a step further and called me provoleged. CH raises this as far as I can see and it is speaking the truth without prejudice

 

[Treacle Toes]

Idris2002

Idris2002 which one of us is responsible for Rutita1 rage. You didn't have to separate us she did it herself by now deciding I'm privileged.

No. You assumed priviledge by dismissing what he said and his grandmother's experiences. His post was not good enough for you. It didn't reflect the story you want told. I just called you on it. You were disrespectful. Rage? lol

 

[Idris2002]

There's one big difference here between CH and your NI example. They don't just (or even primarily) go after Islam. They don't advocate an alternative religious morality. Their primary target over the years has been Christianity, which they have attacked and mocked in a way intended to cause offence to religious types.

Their peurile anti-clericalism is a programmed and integrated part of French political culture, and no more a threat to Christianity than it is to the man in the moon. The RC church is big enough and ugly enough to look after itself.

The people who are going to get spat on the streets, or have their homes turned over by the gendarmes, or dumped for life in the bainlieues are not. Now, hose outcomes are partly, and mainly, the result of the fact that evil vicious scum murdered people in Paris and Brussels. But they're also a result of the fact that silly, overgrown adolescents think that "LOL all religious people are stupid and evil" is a serious political position.

FAO Rutita1 - he's not privileged, he's just a moron.

 

[danny la rouge]

There is something of a contradiction here, though.

I don't see a contradiction. I think you answer the problem that you set by being clear that what we do is support voices within those communities. (And, for what it's worth, that's where I disagree with the French state's top-down ban on the veil in public buildings. Top-down, state-imposed is the wrong way to do this. That'll always be a sledgehammer).

What we need to do is show that those couragous voices within those communities feel that they have permission to be Muslim and unveiled, Muslim and LGBT, Muslim and a feminist, to be an ex-Muslim if they wish, and so on. Because at the moment what we're doing is reinforcing the ultra-orthodix as the only way to be "authentically" Muslim. We are forcing women etc into accepting the fundamentalist demands on them. We should not force individuals not to wear the veil: absolutely. But currently we are reinforcing the opposite. Eiynah makes the very important piont that her grandmother's generation in Pakistan felt quite able to be Muslim and unveiled if they wished. In Pakistan. She points out that her own generation does not. That is the problem.

A personal annecdote: I was the local contact person here for STWC at the time of the start of the Iraq war, but I very quickly had to leave that organisation as the message started getting through to me that it was officially OK in that organisation for Muslims to be homophobic, for Muslim women to be treated differently, and so on. Not only was it seen as OK, it was seen as expected. It is not OK. It amounts actually to racism to say that it's OK and expected.

So, just as when my uncle was a Jehovah's witness, I did not say to him that I thought his religion was opressing him, if he raised any views that I thought discriminated against others (gay people, for example), I would challenge him on that. Now that he has left that reactionary sect, I have been able to discuss with him the damage it did to his life. But only because he initiated those discussions. And so it must be the same with any oppressive religion.

 

[danny la rouge]

I didn't listen to the podcast, no. I was too busy listening to this fab waxing from the Dead

Well, if you can make the time at some point you will find it an interesting listen, even if you don't agree with it.

 

[Idris2002]

I don't see a contradiction. I think you answer the problem that you set by being clear that what we do is support voices within those communities. (And, for what it's worth, that's where I disagree with the French state's top-down ban on the veil in public buildings. Top-down, state-imposed is the wrong way to do this. That'll always be a sledgehammer).

What we need to do is show that those couragous voices within those communities feel that they have permission to be Muslim and unveiled, Muslim and LGBT, Muslim and a feminist, to be an ex-Muslim if they wish, and so on. Because at the moment what we're doing is reinforcing the ultra-orthodix as the only way to be "authentically" Muslim. We are forcing women etc into accepting the fundamentalist demands on them. We should not force individuals not to wear the veil: absolutely. But currently we are reinforcing the opposite. Eiynah makes the very important piont that her grandmother's generation in Pakistan felt quite able to be Muslim and unveiled if they wished. In Pakistan. She points out that her own generation does not. That is the problem.

A personal annecdote: I was the local contact person here for STWC at the time of the start of the Iraq war, but I very quickly had to leave that organisation as the message started getting through to me that it was officially OK in that organisation for Muslims to be homophobic, for Muslim women to be treated differently, and so on. Not only was it seen as OK, it was seen as expected. It is not OK. It amounts actually to racism to say that it's OK and expected.

So, just as when my uncle was a Jehovah's witness, I did not say to him that I thought his religion was opressing him, if he raised any views that I thought discriminated against others (gay people, for example), I would challenge him on that. Now that he has left that reactionary sect, I have been able to discuss with him the damage it did to his life. But only because he initiated those discussions. And so it must be the same with any oppressive religion.

I'd agree with all that - and good for you for standing up and being counted in STWC. Nothing in your post makes me think that the kind of shite expressed in that CH editorial would help with the kind of goals and strategies you propose in this post, in fact I still think that the thinking expressed in that editorial is an active hindrance to those kind of strategies.

And another thing - not all religions are like the JWs, and not all people's experience of participation in religious behaviour is the same as being part of a mindbending cult. And any critique of religion from a political angle which starts from the premise that all religion and religious experience is like that is fatuous idiocy (not that that's your premise).

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Their peurile anti-clericalism is a programmed and integrated part of French political culture, and no more a threat to Christianity than it is to the man in the moon. The RC church is big enough and ugly enough to look after itself.

The people who are going to get spat on the streets, or have their homes turned over by the gendarmes, or dumped for life in the bainlieues are not. Now, hose outcomes are partly, and mainly, the result of the fact that evil vicious scum murdered people in Paris and Brussels. But they're also a result of the fact that silly, overgrown adolescents think that "LOL all religious people are stupid and evil" is a serious political position.

FAO Rutita1 - he's not privileged, he's just a moron.

Hmmm.

Their colleagues were murdered for doing what they were doing. And yet they still continue to do it. I reckon a 'silly, overgrown adolescent' would probably show less commitment to such 'puerile' activities.

 

[Idris2002]

Hmmm.

Their colleagues were murdered for doing what they were doing. And yet they still continue to do it. I reckon a 'silly, overgrown adolescent' would probably show less commitment to such 'puerile' activities.

You can reckon what you like, it doesn't make it true.

 

[danny la rouge]

And another thing - not all religions are like the JWs, and not all people's experience of participation in religious behaviour is the same as being part of a mindbending cult. And any critique of religion from a political angle which starts from the premise that all religion and religious experience is like that is fatuous idiocy (not that that's your premise).

But the point in supporting dissenting voices within religious - or culturally paternalistic/misogynistic communities for that matter - is to encourage diversity. Reinforcing from the outside one authentic way to be Muslim (or anything else) is a self-fulfilling prophecy that propels the fundamentalist right into positions of authority they didn't have two or three decades ago. That's a key point here. We are creating uniformity by not supporting secularism.

 

[danny la rouge]

And just to add, for those who have trouble with this, secularism is not a synonym for atheism. (I happen to be both, but it is not necessary. One can be religious and secularist).

 

[Idris2002]

But the point in supporting dissenting voices within religious - or culturally paternalistic/misogynistic communities for that matter - is to encourage diversity. Reinforcing from the outside one authentic way to be Muslim (or anything else) is a self-fulfilling prophecy that propels the fundamentalist right into positions of authority they didn't have two or three decades ago. That's a key point here. We are creating uniformity by not supporting secularism.

I agree, but the CH editorial is clearly not doing that, in fact it is helping the fulfilment of that prophecy by implying, nod-and-wink style, that all Muslims are essentially the same.