blake 3:17
24th April 2015, 23:54
The author's words echo many of my sentiments --
Charlie Hebdo editor's final book: 'Letter to the Islamophobia Frauds Who Play into the Hands of Racists'
On 5 January, Stéphane Charbonnier, 47, editor of Charlie Hebdo, finished writing a short book: Lettre aux escrocs de l'islamophobie qui font le jeu des racistes (Letter to the Islamophobia Frauds Who Play into the Hands of Racists).
Two days later he was dead, writes John Lichfield, murdered by the Kouachi brothers when they attacked the offices of the satirical magazine in eastern Paris. The Kouachis asked for him by name when they burst into his offices to "avenge the Prophet". They shot him before turning their automatic weapons on other members of the magazine staff, a police bodyguard and visitors.
A total of 12 people were killed in an attack which shocked the Western world. Five other people were killed in the next three days by Amédy Coulibaly, an associate of Chérif and Said Kouachi. All three gunmen were killed in police sieges on Friday 10 January.
Stéphane Charbonnier was a cartoonist and writer. He was a supporter of the French Communist Party. And while, under his editorship, Charlie Hebdo aggressively poked fun at Catholicism and Judaism as well as radical Islam, his book – published in France last week – is a passionate rejection of the allegations that, under his editorship, Charlie Hebdo was "racist" or "Islamophobic".
In the book, Charb, as he was always known, defends his publication of cartoons mocking radical Islam and caricaturing (but never mocking) the Prophet Mohamed. He argues – from a left-wing, anti-racist, militantly secular viewpoint – that the word "Islamophobia" is a trap, set by an unholy alliance of Muslim radicals and the unthinking, liberal Western media. The real issue, he says, is racism and Charlie Hebdo was never racist...
***
Really, the word "Islamophobia" is badly chosen if it's supposed to described the hatred which some lame-brains have for Muslims. And it is not only badly chosen, it is dangerous. From a purely etymological viewpoint, Islamophobia ought to mean "fear of Islam" – yet the inventors, promoters and users of this word deploy it to denounce hatred of Muslims. But isn't it odd that "Muslimophobia", or just "racism", isn't used instead of "Islamophobia".
Why has this word taken over? From ignorance, from idleness… but also because those who campaign against Islamophobia don't do so to defend Muslims as individuals. They do so to defend the religion of the prophet Mohamed.
Racism has been present in every country since the scapegoat was invented. There will probably always be racists. The answer is not to make police raids on the minds of our fellow citizens, searching for the least spark of racism. The answer is to stop racists from formulating their nauseating opinions publicly, from demanding the "right" to be racist, from expressing their hatred.
In France, racist language was set free by Sarkozy and his debate on national identity. When the most senior authority in the state speaks to the cretins and swine and says, "Let it all hang out, guys", what do you think the cretins and swine do? They start saying in public what previously they had only roared at the end of drunken family meals.
Racist language – which pressure groups, politicians and intellectuals had managed to corral in the space between the mouth of the xenophobe and his kitchen door – has escaped into the street. It flows through the media and sullies the networks of social media.
So, yes, we are in the middle of an explosion of racist behaviour – yet the word "racism" is used only timidly, and is on the way to being supplanted by "Islamophobia". And the campaigners for multiculturalism, who try to foist the notion of "Islamophobia" on the judicial and political authorities, have only one aim in mind: to force the victims of racism into identifying themselves as Muslims.
The fact that racists are also Islamophobic is, I'm afraid, irrelevant. They are, first and foremost, racists. By attacking Islam, they are targeting foreigners or people of foreign origin. But by focusing only on their Islamophobia, we are minimising the danger of racism. The anti-racist campaigners of old are in danger of becoming overspecialised niche retailers in a minority form of discrimination.
To combat racism is to combat all forms of racism. To combat Islamophobia is to combat – what exactly? Is it a means of suppressing all criticism of the religion? Or is it a way of resisting hatred of Muslims because they are of foreign origin? While we are arguing over whether it is racist to say that the Koran is nonsense, the racists are laughing up their sleeves. If, tomorrow, all the Muslims in France converted to Catholicism – or gave up religion completely – the racists would not blink an eye. Foreigners, or French people of foreign origin, would still be the source of all evil.
Take Mouloud and Gérard. Both are Muslims. Mouloud is of North African origin. Gérard is of European origin. Both go after the same flat. Which has the best chance? The one with an Arab face or the one with a "Frenchy" face? The flat would not be refused to the Muslim. It would be refused to the Arab. Or take the example of Mouloud and Abdelkader. Both are Muslims. Both are foreign. Both have better sun tans than Gérard. Mouloud doesn't have a bean, Abdelkader is a millionaire. Which one would be refused the lease on the flat? The Muslim or the millionaire?
To be scared of Islam is, doubtless, cretinous, absurd and lots of other things but it is not a crime. You can, equally, express your fear of Christianity or Judaism without interrupting the slumbers of an investigating magistrate or setting the judicial machinery rumbling. Believers are often scared of one another's religions. They have been told that their own is the best in the world – no, not the best, the only one. But by proclaiming that their own sacred texts are the truth, they are implying that all the others are fibs. It's easy to imagine that a believer could be scared by the idea that most people might convert to a false religion. Or, more likely, that the competition might pinch all the customers.
However, a sacred text only becomes dangerous when a fanatical reader decides to apply his bed-time reading literally. You have to be really naïve to take at face value the founding texts of all the great religions. You have to be psychopathic to try to do what they say in your own home. In short, the problem is neither the Koran nor the Bible (both of them being boring novels, incoherent and badly written). The problem is the believer who reads the Koran or the Bible like an instruction leaflet for a set of Ikea shelves: "If I don't cut the throat of the infidel, God will banish me from Club Med when I am dead."
Take any cookbook and declare it to be the Truth. The result? A bloodbath. Your neighbour makes gluten-free pancakes because he has an allergy? The sacred Book doesn't mention it. Burn your neighbour, he is a blasphemer! He puts too much butter on the bottom of his cake tin? Kill him!
Full article: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/charlie-hebdo-editors-final-book-letter-to-the-islamophobia-frauds-who-play-into-the-hands-of-racists-10193565.html
Charlie Hebdo editor's final book: 'Letter to the Islamophobia Frauds Who Play into the Hands of Racists'
On 5 January, Stéphane Charbonnier, 47, editor of Charlie Hebdo, finished writing a short book: Lettre aux escrocs de l'islamophobie qui font le jeu des racistes (Letter to the Islamophobia Frauds Who Play into the Hands of Racists).
Two days later he was dead, writes John Lichfield, murdered by the Kouachi brothers when they attacked the offices of the satirical magazine in eastern Paris. The Kouachis asked for him by name when they burst into his offices to "avenge the Prophet". They shot him before turning their automatic weapons on other members of the magazine staff, a police bodyguard and visitors.
A total of 12 people were killed in an attack which shocked the Western world. Five other people were killed in the next three days by Amédy Coulibaly, an associate of Chérif and Said Kouachi. All three gunmen were killed in police sieges on Friday 10 January.
Stéphane Charbonnier was a cartoonist and writer. He was a supporter of the French Communist Party. And while, under his editorship, Charlie Hebdo aggressively poked fun at Catholicism and Judaism as well as radical Islam, his book – published in France last week – is a passionate rejection of the allegations that, under his editorship, Charlie Hebdo was "racist" or "Islamophobic".
In the book, Charb, as he was always known, defends his publication of cartoons mocking radical Islam and caricaturing (but never mocking) the Prophet Mohamed. He argues – from a left-wing, anti-racist, militantly secular viewpoint – that the word "Islamophobia" is a trap, set by an unholy alliance of Muslim radicals and the unthinking, liberal Western media. The real issue, he says, is racism and Charlie Hebdo was never racist...
***
Really, the word "Islamophobia" is badly chosen if it's supposed to described the hatred which some lame-brains have for Muslims. And it is not only badly chosen, it is dangerous. From a purely etymological viewpoint, Islamophobia ought to mean "fear of Islam" – yet the inventors, promoters and users of this word deploy it to denounce hatred of Muslims. But isn't it odd that "Muslimophobia", or just "racism", isn't used instead of "Islamophobia".
Why has this word taken over? From ignorance, from idleness… but also because those who campaign against Islamophobia don't do so to defend Muslims as individuals. They do so to defend the religion of the prophet Mohamed.
Racism has been present in every country since the scapegoat was invented. There will probably always be racists. The answer is not to make police raids on the minds of our fellow citizens, searching for the least spark of racism. The answer is to stop racists from formulating their nauseating opinions publicly, from demanding the "right" to be racist, from expressing their hatred.
In France, racist language was set free by Sarkozy and his debate on national identity. When the most senior authority in the state speaks to the cretins and swine and says, "Let it all hang out, guys", what do you think the cretins and swine do? They start saying in public what previously they had only roared at the end of drunken family meals.
Racist language – which pressure groups, politicians and intellectuals had managed to corral in the space between the mouth of the xenophobe and his kitchen door – has escaped into the street. It flows through the media and sullies the networks of social media.
So, yes, we are in the middle of an explosion of racist behaviour – yet the word "racism" is used only timidly, and is on the way to being supplanted by "Islamophobia". And the campaigners for multiculturalism, who try to foist the notion of "Islamophobia" on the judicial and political authorities, have only one aim in mind: to force the victims of racism into identifying themselves as Muslims.
The fact that racists are also Islamophobic is, I'm afraid, irrelevant. They are, first and foremost, racists. By attacking Islam, they are targeting foreigners or people of foreign origin. But by focusing only on their Islamophobia, we are minimising the danger of racism. The anti-racist campaigners of old are in danger of becoming overspecialised niche retailers in a minority form of discrimination.
To combat racism is to combat all forms of racism. To combat Islamophobia is to combat – what exactly? Is it a means of suppressing all criticism of the religion? Or is it a way of resisting hatred of Muslims because they are of foreign origin? While we are arguing over whether it is racist to say that the Koran is nonsense, the racists are laughing up their sleeves. If, tomorrow, all the Muslims in France converted to Catholicism – or gave up religion completely – the racists would not blink an eye. Foreigners, or French people of foreign origin, would still be the source of all evil.
Take Mouloud and Gérard. Both are Muslims. Mouloud is of North African origin. Gérard is of European origin. Both go after the same flat. Which has the best chance? The one with an Arab face or the one with a "Frenchy" face? The flat would not be refused to the Muslim. It would be refused to the Arab. Or take the example of Mouloud and Abdelkader. Both are Muslims. Both are foreign. Both have better sun tans than Gérard. Mouloud doesn't have a bean, Abdelkader is a millionaire. Which one would be refused the lease on the flat? The Muslim or the millionaire?
To be scared of Islam is, doubtless, cretinous, absurd and lots of other things but it is not a crime. You can, equally, express your fear of Christianity or Judaism without interrupting the slumbers of an investigating magistrate or setting the judicial machinery rumbling. Believers are often scared of one another's religions. They have been told that their own is the best in the world – no, not the best, the only one. But by proclaiming that their own sacred texts are the truth, they are implying that all the others are fibs. It's easy to imagine that a believer could be scared by the idea that most people might convert to a false religion. Or, more likely, that the competition might pinch all the customers.
However, a sacred text only becomes dangerous when a fanatical reader decides to apply his bed-time reading literally. You have to be really naïve to take at face value the founding texts of all the great religions. You have to be psychopathic to try to do what they say in your own home. In short, the problem is neither the Koran nor the Bible (both of them being boring novels, incoherent and badly written). The problem is the believer who reads the Koran or the Bible like an instruction leaflet for a set of Ikea shelves: "If I don't cut the throat of the infidel, God will banish me from Club Med when I am dead."
Take any cookbook and declare it to be the Truth. The result? A bloodbath. Your neighbour makes gluten-free pancakes because he has an allergy? The sacred Book doesn't mention it. Burn your neighbour, he is a blasphemer! He puts too much butter on the bottom of his cake tin? Kill him!
Full article: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/charlie-hebdo-editors-final-book-letter-to-the-islamophobia-frauds-who-play-into-the-hands-of-racists-10193565.html