Tag Archives: Charlie Hebdo

The gentle art of taunting bloodthirsty and mad terrorists

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From here:

Condemnation of the new edition of Charlie Hebdo was swift and often fierce Wednesday (Jan. 14) in many majority-Muslim nations after the cover featured a drawing of the Prophet Muhammad with a tear in his eye.

“You’re putting the lives of others at risk when you’re taunting bloodthirsty and mad terrorists,” said Hamad Alfarhan, 29, a Kuwaiti doctor. “I hope this doesn’t trigger more attacks. The world is already mourning the losses of many lives under the name of religion.”

Hebdo1Imagine the shrieks of sanctimonious outrage if, after the abortionist George Tiller was murdered, rather than limiting himself to roundly condemning the murderer, someone had had the temerity to suggest that abortionists must stop because they are inflaming “bloodthirsty and mad terrorists”. But, then, the  cartoon below is so much more offensive than killing unborn babies.

charlie-hebdo-cover1

Let’s apply what the Pope said to the death penalty

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Concerning the murder of cartoonists by Islamic fascists, the Pope didn’t quite say, “they had it coming”, but just about: he obviously thinks a fair share of the blame lies with the cartoonists.

“It’s true, one cannot react violently, but if Dr. (Alberto) Gasbarri, a great friend, says a swear word against my mother, then he is going to get a punch. But it’s normal, it’s normal. One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people’s faith, one cannot make fun of faith.”

The pope said those who “make fun or toy with other people’s religions, these people provoke, and there can happen what would happen to Dr. Gasbarri if he said something against my mother. That is, there is a limit. Every religion has its dignity.”

When it comes to the death penalty, however, being responsible for the consequences of one’s action does not seem to apply. A murderer, no matter how callous and evil never deserves to die:

Pope Francis called for abolition of the death penalty as well as life imprisonment, and denounced what he called a “penal populism” that promises to solve society’s problems by punishing crime instead of pursuing social justice.

[….]

“All Christians and people of good will are thus called today to struggle not only for abolition of the death penalty, whether it be legal or illegal and in all its forms, but also to improve prison conditions, out of respect for the human dignity of persons deprived of their liberty. And this, I connect with life imprisonment,” he said. “Life imprisonment is a hidden death penalty.”

The Pope’s view:
Someone who draws a cartoon of Mohammed should not be surprised when he is murdered because, insofar as he was cavalierly offensive, he brought it upon himself. Someone who murders another person should be encouraged to believe he has not brought either the death penalty or even life imprisonment upon himself. The murderer, no matter how foul the murder, has too much human dignity for that.

This is one weird Pope.

The Pope is not a pacifist

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He has informed us that anyone who insults his mother is liable to get a punch; doubtless his theologians have verified that this is in line with Aquinas’s Just War Theory.

From here:

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT FROM COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Commenting on recent killings by Islamist terrorists at a Paris newspaper, Pope Francis condemned killing in the name of God, but said freedom of expression should be limited by respect for religion and that mockery of faith can be expected to provoke violence.

The pope made his remarks Jan. 15 to reporters accompanying him on a flight from Sri Lanka to the Philippines. During the 50-minute news conference, the pope also said his encyclical on the environment will likely be published early this summer, and that he will canonize Blessed Junipero Serra, an 18th-century Franciscan missionary to North America, in the U.S. this September.

Asked by a French reporter to compare freedom of religion and freedom of expression as human rights, Pope Francis linked his answer to the Jan. 7 attacks at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, apparently in retaliation for the newspaper’s publication of cartoons mocking Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

“Let’s go to Paris, let’s speak clearly,” the pope said. “One cannot offend, make war, kill in the name of one’s own religion, that is, in the name of God.”

The pope said freedom of expression was a “fundamental human right” like freedom of religion, but one that must be exercised “without giving offense.”

Offering a hypothetical example that referred to the Vatican’s planner of papal trips, who was standing beside him as he spoke, the pope said: “It’s true, one cannot react violently, but if Dr. (Alberto) Gasbarri, a great friend, says a swear word against my mother, then he is going to get a punch. But it’s normal, it’s normal. One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people’s faith, one cannot make fun of faith.”

The pope said those who “make fun or toy with other people’s religions, these people provoke, and there can happen what would happen to Dr. Gasbarri if he said something against my mother. That is, there is a limit. Every religion has its dignity.”

I wonder what the Pope makes of Jesus calling the Pharisees a brood of vipers, hypocrites, whited sepulchres and so on. Jesus is God, of course so he may well have  Papal dispensation to say what he likes. Someone should definitely put the boot in to John the Baptist for his insensitivity, though.

Even Michael Coren – not known for criticising the Pope these days – thinks the Pope has blundered badly. Perhaps the Pope’s handlers should persuade him to spend more time keeping quiet; before we know where we are, he’ll be talking about bacon.

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Anglican priest wobbles miserably on Charlie Hebdo

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The Anglican Journal published a reasonably good article on the Charlie Hebdo Islamic terrorist murders. Predictably, it rankled with some reverends: here is Rev. Bob Bettson telling us that the nub of the issue is not free speech at all: it is really all about not upsetting people – “Muslim brothers and sisters”, in particular:

I would echo the previous comment and say that this situation is complicated. Free speech carries responsibility with it. I was part of a Muslim Christian dialogue in Calgary representing the Anglican Church when the Danish cartoon came out. We as a group of Muslim and Christian leaders expressed our concern with the degrading and sophomoric cartoons, and expressed the hope they would not be reprinted in Canada. We acted in solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters. The Charlie Hebdo massacre is deplorable. But lets not make this about free speech, because the kind of free speech exercised by Charlie Hebdo is sometimes like pouring gas on a fire. We condemn the massacre as religious leaders. But we also don’t make the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists into heroes–which they were not in any sense.

You will note that Bettson calls Charlie Hebdo’s humour “sophomoric”; I am flattered that when Michael Bird sued me, Bettson used the same epithet about Anglican Samizdat: an endless stream of ridicule and sophmoric [sic] humour.

But to the point: Bettson reckons that “Free speech carries responsibility with it”. It does: it carries the responsibility to offend. If it never offends, it isn’t free. Liberals, whether political or religious, have a totalitarian temperament that has little use for freedom of any kind: it could lead to people disagreeing with them, disrupting the harmony of their inbred little utopias.

Ottawa Imam defends freedom of speech as long as he doesn’t disagree with it

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An Ottawa imam, Imtiaz Ahmed, has declared his support for freedom of expression but that freedom has to be “balanced”. He will supply the balance: you can’t make fun of “religious leaders” like, oh, I don’t know, let me take a wild stab – Mohammed.

He does denounce the Paris murderers for taking the “law into [their] own hand[s]” but if drawing cartoons of the founder of his religion should be illegal, what penalty would he impose? A liberal Saudi version of sharia, 1000 lashes and ten years in jail or a by the book – sorry, Book – capital punishment? He doesn’t say.

From here:

An Ottawa imam has denounced the terrorist attack on a Paris weekly newspaper that killed 12 people, but he says satirical cartoons of religious leaders should be illegal.

Imtiaz Ahmed, an imam with the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, said it should be against the law to publish cartoons that depict religious figures in a derogatory way.

“Of course we defend freedom of speech, but it has to be balanced. There has to be a limit. There has to be a code of conduct,” Ahmed said.

A Muslim who hates freedom of expression freely expresses himself

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Anjem Choudary is an imam who lives in Britain; he collects £25,000 in welfare per year while despising the system and taxpayers who pay for his continuing vilification of all the West stands for.

He points out here, that the Charlie Hebdo murders were not only to be expected, they were a requirement of Islamic law. Living in a free democracy, Choudary is at liberty to say whatever he chooses, a right he would cheerfully deny those with whom he disagrees. If I were a Muslim – a common or garden moderate Muslim we keep hearing so much about – I would really, really want to shut him up. Moderate imams: convince me of your moderation by issuing a Choudary fatwa.

Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone. Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people’s desires.

Although Muslims may not agree about the idea of freedom of expression, even non-Muslims who espouse it say it comes with responsibilities. In an increasingly unstable and insecure world, the potential consequences of insulting the Messenger Muhammad are known to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Muslims consider the honor of the Prophet Muhammad to be dearer to them than that of their parents or even themselves. To defend it is considered to be an obligation upon them. The strict punishment if found guilty of this crime under sharia (Islamic law) is capital punishment implementable by an Islamic State. This is because the Messenger Muhammad said, “Whoever insults a Prophet kill him.”