Terrorist attacks and beheadings in France

[chilango]

I’d personally prefer tiger away from the term “rights”. It’s used as shorthand, but actually can encompass some some implications I don’t find helpful.

Better to frame it in terms of freedom, praxis and direct action.

Do we really want to keep retreating in every way the reactionary religious right want to push us? No. We really don’t.

Fully agree.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

it's about having the power to assert your values over those you disagree with.

We (I think) share broadly the same values, we differ in our confidence in our power to assert them.

Sure. But it muddies the waters to then say that you don't have this or that right. Rights are ideals, something that might then have/need legal protection. Doesn't mean you always get it all the time. But the right to equal treatment in various situations is something that can and does have concrete meaning.

More broadly, I do agree that rights are often not the right way to think about many issues. It's a narrow legalistic concept, although it does have its place when you're thinking about how narrow legalistic things should or could be ordered.

 

[danny la rouge]

Various stop the war meetings tried to enforce sex segregation to cater to loud voices from Muslims who wanted it. It was a mistake to do that. And it is incredibly arrogant of the various groups to demand it.

I was a local coordinator for STWC and I left it precisely because of those sorts of things happening. It was appalling.

 

[Pickman's model]

They don't have that right though do they? Many places they'd get the shit kicked out of them by a homophobic mob.

Not to mention that snogging even harder might be better postponed until the irritation is removed.

 

[Athos]

it's about having the power to assert your values over those you disagree with.

We (I think) share broadly the same values, we differ in our confidence in our power to assert them.

The bigger question is about the confidence that asserting them is the right thing to do; that's something the relevatists lose sight of, which leads to them ceding power to reactionaries.

 

[Pickman's model]

Various stop the war meetings tried to enforce sex segregation to cater to loud voices from Muslims who wanted it. It was a mistake to do that. And it is incredibly arrogant of the various groups to demand it.

Yeh arrogant Muslims

The demands doubtless a device by which they could see the power relations between them and the stwc. It was all of an unedifying part of some socialists - notably ruc - to leap into bed with Muslims in a bid to reap electoral rewards

 

[Serge Forward]

Maryam Namazie, who I have a lot of time for, says:

Cartoons are an excuse. If you think killings will stop if you stop drawing cartoons, you cannot see innumerable in prisons & on death row in Iran, Asia, Mid East, N. Africa for “provoking” Islamic fascists by living 21 century lives

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Genuine question. How can you tell if you are offended by something without seeing or hearing it? Answers on a postcard please, marked 'offensive' or 'unoffensive' so that I know which ones I can read without suffering a heart attack.

 

[danny la rouge]

Maryam Namazie, who I have a lot of time for, says:

Yes, she’s very good. And that quote is absolutely correct.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Maryam Namazie, who I have a lot of time for, says:

Namazie has herself been a victim of this rubbish, of course, with Muslim men yelling 'safe space' at her in a meeting at Goldsmith's College because she has the gall to stand up as a woman and say that Islam is mysoginist. There is serious abuse going on here of ideas such as minority rights and sensitivity in order to bully and intimidate.

 

[danny la rouge]

Maryam Namazie, who I have a lot of time for, says:

She has also said:

“The focus on limits to free speech when a teacher has been decapitated is like focusing on a woman's skirt when she has been raped. One does not cause the other...

The problem is murder not speech.”

Again, spot on.

 

[Serge Forward]

When the liberals and 'right on' lefts throw in their lot with and cave in to the whims of these reactionary twats, then they are directly shitting on every socialist, communist, anarchist, humanist, secularist whose background is from a community or country with a large presence of religious fundamentalist cunts.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Another gratuitous and shameful example.

This playwright is herself Sikh. It is not a case of minority groups being victimised. It is a case of the leaders of religious groups wielding a power they shouldn't have to crush any challenge to their moral authority. Violence works here as well. Utterly shameful that this play was pulled.

Play axed after Sikh protests


Look how this arrogant fuck presumes to speak for 20 million people.

Mohan Singh, from the Guru Nanak Gurdwara in south Birmingham, an organisation of Sikh temples, said the theatre should have heeded the concerns of Sikh representatives before the protests turned violent but denied that the protesters had attempted to stifle free speech.

He said: "Free speech can go so far. Maybe 5,000 people would have seen this play over the run. Are you going to upset 600,000 thousands Sikhs in Britain and maybe 20 million outside the UK for that?"

"Religion is a very sensitive issue and you should be extremely careful."

 

[danny la rouge]

When the liberals and 'right on' lefts throw in their lot with and cave in to the whims of these reactionary twats, then they are directly shitting on every socialist, communist, anarchist, humanist, secularist whose background is from a community or country with a large presence of religious fundamentalist cunts.

Absolutely agreed. And shitting on women and LGBTQ people in those communities. And so on. It’s despicable.

 

[Red Cat]

She has also said:

“The focus on limits to free speech when a teacher has been decapitated is like focusing on a woman's skirt when she has been raped. One does not cause the other...

The problem is murder not speech.”

Again, spot on.

Yeh, like I said, the issue isn't really about rights, it's about power and violence, or perhaps power exercised through violence and threat of violence is more accurate.

 

[tim]

This is the other aspect that irks me in this discussion no teacher anywhere can just say/show whatever they like without consideration for how it will be received. Teachers doing their job do not have the same "right" to freedom of expression that may be present in other situations.

Perhaps they should. But they don't.

Nonsense, we can say whatever we want to say. We may lose our jobs or face criminal charges for saying things we want to say, but I can't think of any job where the former isn't true and any sphere of public life where the latter isn't. My experience in the distant past, and more recently from the behaviour of colleagues (former) and from student anecdotes is that, because of the power the role gives them, some teachers often have got and continue to get away with saying and doing the unacceptable.

With reference to French education I had a student at the beginning of this year who had been expelled from secondary school for attacking a holocaust denying history teacher (obviously I only heard my student's take on the event). He was from a Maghrebian Jewish background but said that in the schools he'd been to there were blatantly racist teachers. He was from the 19th Arrondissement where a lot of people of West and North African origin live.

 

[Serge Forward]

Yeh, like I said, the issue isn't really about rights, it's about power and violence, or perhaps power exercised through violence and threat of violence is more accurate.

Indeed. The teacher "offended" violent fash-like cunts.

 

[tim]

Rubbish. Two gay men snogging in the street have every right to snog even harder if a religious wanker takes offence. Clearly we're not obliged to accommodate everyone else's prejudices and bigotry.

Not if they're from different households, they don't.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

A tangent but I am really interested in what’s going to happen with this legal case here (it’s not the first of its kind).
I’ve moved more than once for this same reason , because orthodox Jewish men ‘can’t’ have me sat next to them.

Honestly, fuck people like this. When Islam is portrayed as if it's the only 'backwards' religion (particularly in relation to the Israel-Palestine conflict), it's good to keep this sort of stuff in mind. Sure, people are entitled to their beliefs, but I think to be able to live a life free from other people's religion should trump this. Orthodox Jewish men of this type deserve to be booted off the plane (when they cause a fuss like this).

 

[tim]

Yeh, like I said, the issue isn't really about rights, it's about power and violence, or perhaps power exercised through violence and threat of violence is more accurate.

The power of the state, and in turn the education system that is part of it, is power exercised through violence and the threat of violence.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The power of the state, and in turn the education system that is part of it, is power exercised through violence and the threat of violence.

It doesn't behead people though. Well not since 1981 anyway.

However, there is a crucial difference, which is actually where we can and should talk about rights. There is this thing called the law that provides protection against the arbitrary use of power and violence by the state.

 

[bimble]

Good to see (video of thousands of people come out to pay their respects) . Also says that there is a sense teachers need protection, that there have been a growing number of complaints and threats from parents.

Thousands rally across France in tribute to murdered schoolteacher

Nation mourns Samuel Paty, who was beheaded in a terrorist attack on Friday

www.theguardian.com

 

[Red Cat]

The power of the state, and in turn the education system that is part of it, is power exercised through violence and the threat of violence.

I'm aware of that and I wasn't excluding the state, in fact I very much had that in mind when I made my post. But thanks for assuming I wasn't aware of that and needed teaching.

 

[likesfish]

Always has always will be.
The state having the monopoly on violence tends to be a better idea than the Alternative.
If you want blood feuds family honour and Blasphemy trials maybe 21st century Europe isn't for you feel free to leave.
Liberals weren't chanting "we are all Hezbollah".
Freedom of and from relegion is worth fighting for feel free to believe and worship how you like.
But you can't FORCE anyone else to belive or follow your rules.
If your offended suck it up buttercup.
Price of living in civilisation if you can't cope fuck off.

 

[Raheem]

But you can't FORCE anyone else to belive or follow your rules.

Unless you're a teacher.

 

[Edie]

I’d personally prefer to get away from the term “rights”. It’s used as shorthand, but actually can encompass some some implications I don’t find helpful.

Better to frame it in terms of freedom, praxis and direct action.

Do we really want to keep retreating in every way the reactionary religious right want to push us? No. We really don’t.

Well maybe if you think about it like that, you can have the freedom, praxis and direct action to be that offensive, but you have to accept that if you provoke some people that much the consequence will be that they’re prepared to kill you.

 

[sleaterkinney]

Well maybe if you think about it like that, you can have the freedom, praxis and direct action to be that offensive, but you have to accept that if you provoke some people that much the consequence will be that they’re prepared to kill you.

Well no, because that’s designed to shut the debate down. That’s how a lot of religion works. Should that school in Birmingham not teach LBGTQ stuff?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Well maybe if you think about it like that, you can have the freedom, praxis and direct action to be that offensive, but you have to accept that if you provoke some people that much the consequence will be that they’re prepared to kill you.

Is the end point of giving in to the violence and threats that there is a quiet accommodation between everybody else and the fanatics who consider their belief to be the one true belief, that any fellow believer who strays from that is an apostate, and that everyone else is a godless infidel who is going to hell?

I don't think so.

 

[Athos]

Well maybe if you think about it like that, you can have the freedom, praxis and direct action to be that offensive, but you have to accept that if you provoke some people that much the consequence will be that they’re prepared to kill you.

I don't think 'accept' is the right word; yes, you have to understand that it's a possible consequence, but not accept it.

 

[tim]

It doesn't behead people though. Well not since 1981 anyway.

However, there is a crucial difference, which is actually where we can and should talk about rights. There is this thing called the law that provides protection against the arbitrary use of power and violence by the state.

The law provides little protection from the violence be it arbitrary or coordinated of those employed by the state to enforce the law. The French police kill and get away with killing about 25 to 30 civilians, mostly from minority communities, a year, about the same as Britain and hundreds less than the US forces. They're also adept at maiming people as can be seen by the large number of demonstrators blinded by rubber bullets over the past two or three years.

Teachers in France are not being slaughtered or blinded by fanatics be they religious or secular at a comparable rate.

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