There is no question to which the answer is to wander round killing people. It takes a few words or keystrokes for any right thinking person to condemn the killings in Paris today. But that really doesn’t take us very far.
It is impossible to stop evil from happening. Simple low tech attacks by individuals, a kind of DIY terrorism, cannot always be pre-empted. If you try to do so universally, you will end up even further down the line we have gone down in the UK, where people are continually arrested and harassed who have no connection to terrorism at all, often for bragging on websites. These non-existent foiled terrorist plots are a risible feature of British politics nowadays. Every now and then one hits the headlines, like the arrests just before Remembrance Day. Their defining characteristic is that none of those arrested have any means of terrorism – 99% of those arrested for terrorism in the UK in the last decade – possessed no weapon and no viable explosive device.
In fact the only terrorist in the last year convicted in the UK, who possessed an actual bomb – a very viable explosive device indeed, was not charged with terrorism. He was a fascist named Ryan McGee who had a swastika on his wall and hated Muslims. Hundreds of Muslims with no weapons are locked up for terrorism. A fanatical anti-Muslim with a bomb is by definition not a terrorist.
I am assuming that the narrative that Charlie Hebdo was attacked by Islamists is correct, though that remains to be proved. For argument, let us assume the official narrative is true and the killings were by Muslims outraged at the magazine’s depictions of the Prophet Mohammed.
It is essential to free speech that it includes the freedom to offend. That must include the freedom to offend religious belief. Without such freedoms, the values of societies would freeze. Much social progress has caused real anguish and offence to some people. To have stopped Charlie Hebdo by law would have been wrong. To stop them by bullets is beyond any mitigation.
But that doesn’t make the unfortunate deceased heroes, and President Hollande was wrong to characterise them as such. Being murdered does not make you a hero. And being offensive is not necessarily noble. People who are persistently and vociferously offensive are often neither noble nor well-motivated. Much of Charlie Hebdo‘s taunting of Muslims was really unpleasant. That they also had Christian and other targets did not make this any better. It is not Private Eye – it is a magazine with a much nastier edge. I defend the right of Charlie Hebdo to publish whatever it wants. But once the shock dies off, I do hope a more realistic assessment of whether Charlie Hebdo was entirely admirable or not may be possible. This in no way excuses the dreadful murders.
The ability to say things that offend is an important attribute of a free society. Richard Dawkins may offend believers. Peter Tatchell may offend homophobes. Pussy Riot offended Putin and the Orthodox Church. This must not be stopped.
But that must cut both ways. Abu Qatada broke no British laws in his lengthy stay in the UK, but was demonised for things he said (or even things newspapers invented he had said). Most of the French who are today in solidarity for freedom of expression, are against people being able to express themselves freely in what they wear. The security industry who are all over TV today want to respond to this attack on freedom of expression by more controls on the internet!
I condemn, you condemn, we all condemn, and so we should. But the amount of nuanced thought in the mainstream media is almost non-existent. What will now happen is that conservative commentators will rip individual phrases from this article and tweet them to show I support terrorism. The lack of nuanced thought is a reflection of a general atmosphere of anti-intellectualism which has poisoned public life in modern western society.
Mr Goss
“I condemn whoever did whatever was done. But I don’t know the facts. I don’t know who did whatever was done. So who would you like me to condemn Habbabkuk?”
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It would be good if the other commenters on here would do as you have just done and condemn THE ACT ITSELF (irrespective of speculation as to who might have carried it out.
Craig asserts that “I see nobody who does not condemn these murders.”.
Apart from yourself – just now – who else on here has unambiguously condemned them? I see no one.
We are hypocrites.
While we rant and rave justifiably about the wicked carnage in Paris, we forget the daily wicked carnage (times ten, if not more) in troublespots like Baghdad, Damascus, Tripoli, Kabul, Donetsk, Lugansk – all with Western politicians’ filthy bloody fingerprints all over them for causing and stirring up the trouble in the first place.
While French police charge around pursuing the barbarous killers, we cannot even publish the Chilcott Report after all these years to take to task our politicians who commissioned the killing of so many hundreds of thousands in Iraq. The barbarians who slaughtered the children and teachers in Peshawar still have a long way to go to register on the Richter Scale of brutality and barbarism in comparison to us. How many children did we kill in Iraq? Approximate guess: 400000. How many children were slaughtered in Gaza recently?
This is not a matter of attacks on free speech and waving pencils in the air, that is simplistic hogwash. It is pure and simple blowback. Until the West thinks again – especially European poodle governments like ours which accede to Washington hawks like thoughtless drips – we can only expect more of these events.
Habbabkuk
Don’t be tendentious. My original post is plainly condemnatory of the murders. That is the basis of the thread. Commenters can therefore take it that ca va sans dire. You didn’t actually specifically condemn them either. Stop being an arse.
Mark your link does not work. It appears Youtube has taken it down becuase it is so obviously fake. This one works for the time being and was loaded “before Youtube takes it down.”
http://vimeo.com/116191117
Craig
“And then we can have a calm debate about freedom of speech, and the inconsistencies between to whom it is extended and to whom it is not.”
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You are conflating two things. Let’s separate them:
1/. And after that calm debate about freedom of speech, what then? In this particular , limitations on criticism or ridicule of Islam (and perhaps other religions? Think also of the play never staged because of threats of violence from Sikhs.
2/. “to whom it is extended and to whom it is not”. Very well – but if investigation were to show that freedom of speech is defended only selectively (eg – Charley Hebdo’s freedom of speech is defended but that of people posting terrorist encouragement on the internet is not), what would your conclusion then be?
Would you say that because what you call freedom of speech is not defended in the case of those internet warriors, it should not be, either, in the case of Charly Hebdo?
OK Habbabkuk.
I am quite happy to say I completely and unreservedly condemn this killing. But why is it necessary to say this? I notice you haven’t done so yourself.
Maybe it is you who does not condemn it? Maybe you want to see war and violence stirred up? I dont see anyone else on this blog who does. In the end acts like this only help fundamentalist Zionists and fascists. Anyone else who is not appalled must be seriously deluded.
Craig
“Don’t be tendentious. My original post is plainly condemnatory of the murders. That is the basis of the thread. Commenters can therefore take it that ca va sans dire. You didn’t actually specifically condemn them either. Stop being an arse.”
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Come off it.
1/. I did not say that YOU didn’t condemn it, I am commenting on the lack of condemnation by commenters on here.
And on the immediate focus on the “false flag” theme.
2/. You are saying, somewhat indirectly, that because you have condemned that act in your lead-in post, all your readers do so also and that that “cela va sans dire”.
That is nonsense – as, for instance, the vigorous reactions to what you say when you write about Russia/Ukraine have demonstrated on several occasions.
3/. I am happy to specifically condemn the Charly Hebdo slayings.
As you have done and as no on else (except Jihn Goss) has to date.
Philw
Thank you. See my post at 10h49, which crossed with yours.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Maybe you want to see war and violence stirred up?”
How do you get to that from what I wrote? Because I noted a lack of condemnation on here , very little nuancing and a flight into the “false flag” theme?
As Craig would say, don’t be an arse.
I wonder how many Muslims are in jail, often with long sentences, for terrorist offences in the UK. I did not realise that 99% of them had no weapons or bombs or anything, so that means they may have been sentenced for opinions rather than actions, which is pretty disturbing.
There has been a lot of talk on here about the possible “false flag” nature of the Charly Hebdo slayings.
They are, I think, exemplified by John Goss’s “I don’t know the facts”.
So here is a question for commenters:
what proof would the French authorities have to present in order to convince you that the slayings were carried out by Islamic terrorists and were not, therefore, a “false flag” operation?
Ray Vision
“I did not realise that 99% of them had no weapons or bombs or anything”
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You overlook Craig’s drafting skills.
He was careful to say “no VIABLE explosive device” (emphasis added).
I think you get the point….
I ask again, who do you want me to condemn?
Please answer and stop waffling!
Anon
You’ve noticed! Well done! The Zionists spend a very large slice of your taxes ( and future generations’ ) in promoting extremism to denigrate Islam. And I thought trolls were slow, Norwegian creatures with coloured hair growing where their brains should be.
Mr Murray,
Are you saying that Pussy Riots offenses against Orthodox clergy is acceptable but offences against medieval Muslim hierocracy is not? I have seen a LOT of caricatures on Jesus not to mention movies and cartoons BUT no one (in the last 200 years) was executed for that.
Possibly just like most of us (educated secular people)accept that there are some people who believe in what has been written 1000+ years ago (with no empirical evidence of that) is true (which is again insulting for educated people) these people (who believe in dogmas) need to accept that sometime what we do (or say) could be insulting to them? may be, then there will be a peace and no more blood from either side. Why have Catholics killed Huguenots in Paris if there was no OTHER reason for them to kill each other?
Habbapinkhair.
Stop being an arse. Grow some brains.
Mr Murray,
Following from what I mentioned above and your logic, we might one day prohibit/outlaw science yet again. Is not science insulting to these people (who believe in dogmas) because it proved a lot of these dogmas wrong. Should Charles Darwin been executed in his chair? Or should he kept his mouth shut? I see no logic on what you have mentioned.
I am sorry, but here I disagree with you a LOT.
Habbabkuk; “Would you say that because what you call freedom of speech is not defended in the case of those internet warriors, it should not be, either, in the case of Charly Hebdo?”
So here’s the real concern of Habbabkuk, which betrays his irrational & agenda driven mindset; “freedom” should exist to insult, provoke, mock Muslims, but should not exist for those who object to this, because it can be conveniently classed as “terrorist encouragement”, a blanket cover-all euphemism that has resulted of scores of Muslims being given very heavy jail sentences, often for simply expressing outrage or political opposition to attacks on other Muslims; this is path to a future fascist state where all dissenting political speech is criminalized, the US is already leading the way with “Anti-police messages” now being treated the same as “terrorism”;
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/06/police-increasingly-monitoring-criminalizing-online-speech/
For a bit of ironic amusement let’s recall the numerous times that Habbabkuk has tried to closed down the freedom of speech of others here, by appealing to the Mods when smearing others as Holocaust Deniers or anti-Semites on the slightest pretext.
‘The French welcomed the Muslims to join their armies during the first and second world war. At the battle of Monte Cassino when the German paratroops upon the mount could not be shifted’.
Farrukh- Yeah, but the contribution of French colonial troops to the liberation of Italy had something of a downside for the local civilian population-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marocchinate
The actions of these guys are on a par with those of the Red Army in east Prussia and Pomerania a few months later.
‘Yes, Giyane, and the bombings, beheadings, suicide attacks, massacres of schoolchildren, etc, we hear about on a daily basis are pretty evenly distributed amongst adherents of the world’s major religions, aren’t they. ‘
Anon- that indeed is the crux of the matter, and one which Mrs Niall Ferguson (Ayaan Hirsi Ali) identified in the Newsnight debate yesterday, to the slight discomfiture of the referee Evan Davies.
Thanks for bringing “white rightwing nationalists” into this, Komodo, because when, from time to time, such groups carry out terrorist atrocities, the Daily Express subscribers on here suddenly dispense with their condemnations of violence and immediately and unquestioningly apply to join the BNP.
FIFY. Just as true.
Thank God for Charlie Hebdo freedom of speech, the holohoax 6m figure may now finally be fair game. Especially after they recently changed the plaque at Auschwitz to read 1m instead of the sacrosanct 4m (a good chunk of the fake 6m total) killed, exhumed and then cremated there. A figure that was logistically untenable, to say the least.
TonyF12
Shall we now arm jihadists to kill western scientists and others who mock dogmas (and scientists mock dogmas by default) just because we cannot publish Chilcott enquire and because our corrupt governments kill people in Baghdad? Would you have preferred for Saddame to be on the throne in Baghdad now? Do you prefer Karimov to be on the throne because the main argument him and his crones use is that civil war is the only alternative?
For four years now the Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi Theocracy have waged war on the Syrian people. They have not been able to win over the hearts and minds of the world’s Muslims or even the Syrian Muslims because of their systematic rejection of inter-Muslim rights through the mechanisms of takfirism, which denies the faith of the Muslims, and leads to their appropriation of their property and families, and removes their freedoms.
The Muslim Brotherhood operates an independent spy network targeted on Muslims, which is more targetted than GCHQ, and purely aimed at controlling Muslims by recording their private lives. The Egyptian people came out in millions to reject MB’s US spy Mursi, preferring the sanity of Sisi to a president who phoned up Al Qaida leader Zawahiri in Afghanistan to loan Egypt to the Zionist war against the Syrian people.
Muslims have a duty to obey their just leaders, but if those leaders of whatever nationality are themselves blatantly disobedient to Islam, there is no listening and no obeying.
Mursi can carry on being president in prison. Erdogan can carry on being President in Turkey, but if no one will listen to them and no one will obey them, what value is their great power, acquired from the Zionists to them?
Puzzled
Have you actually stood there and counted how many people have been gassed and cremated? Or have you just applied mathematical formulas to count the space/chemical condensation/heat. What a chilling post you have.
Stalinist still claim that ONLY 850.000 were killed in Soviet Union and not 10.000.000 (executed/died of hunger/died in Gulag) as some archive documents show. Who knows who to believe these days?
Habbabkuk; “who else on here has unambiguously condemned them? I see no one”
Sad to see others falling for this malicious ploy again; to even suggest that somebody might actually support the murder of the people killed in Paris yesterday, is a highly offensive insult in itself, yet some have seen fit to swallow this insult, and say thank you.
On this one sly yet grossly insulting anti-Muslim tactic alone, it’s not hard to see why, as Nevermind recently revealed, Habbabkuk has been banned from another Blog.
Giyane, Mr Goss, Macky
You’re all struggling, aren’t you… 🙂
Anon; ‘Yes, Giyane, and the bombings, beheadings, suicide attacks, massacres of schoolchildren, etc, we hear about on a daily basis are pretty evenly distributed amongst adherents of the world’s major religions, aren’t they.”
Causality; which other Religion’s followers are being subjected to the same scale of attack & interference?
Funny enough, the Israelis manage to do all the above on a regular bais, but with them the causality is a Greater Israel as promised to them by God himself !
“Uzbek to TonyF12
Shall we now arm jihadists to kill western scientists and others who mock dogmas (and scientists mock dogmas by default) just because we cannot publish Chilcott enquire and because our corrupt governments kill people in Baghdad? Would you have preferred for Saddame to be on the throne in Baghdad now? Do you prefer Karimov to be on the throne because the main argument him and his crones use is that civil war is the only alternative?”
My answer is “NO” to all your questions. I am surprised you would bother to ask.
The UK and French governments have been and are still party to the most vile and brutal attacks on foreign soil, some on a very large scale, especially the British who for decades jump whenever Washington hawks tell them to. Our actions in the past have set the backdrop for so many war-zones. The carnage in Paris is at least in part a direct consequence of unsolicited Western intervention and brutality in other people’s countries. One way to minimise terrorism in our own countries in the longer term is to avoid meddling in other people’s business uninvited, and stirring up so much hatred.
What Paris saw yesterday and sees today is not even 1pc of what the Middle East and Ukraine have to put up with every day. Can we at least acknowledge that and reintensify our intentions to eradicate it, starting with our own foreign policy agendas?
Macky thunders:
“Sad to see others falling for this malicious ploy again; to even suggest that somebody might actually support the murder of the people killed in Paris yesterday, is a highly offensive insult”
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Can some one – perhaps even Macky? – show me where I’ve suggested someone on here supports the slayings?
But what I have done is to show that no one (except for Craig and, belatedly, Mr Goss and Philw) has condemned them. A,d that, apart from a modicum of “nuancing”, there has been much on the possibility that this was a “false flag” attack.
What is Macky’s problem with that?
@Uzbek jew In The UK – 4-1=3 and so 6-3=6 , whats so chilling about simple arithmetic?
@Suhayl Saadi “We – the UK – must never support these fascists or their sponsors. Yet we continue to do so, when it suits.”
1. Good to hear from you again!
2. How does the UK support Islamo-fascists? That’s new to me.