KingCharlemagne (2,660 posts) http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026054516
If "Charlie Hebdo" is satire, could someone please explain to me how this cover
satisfies the definition of 'satire'? Maybe it's a French thing, but I just don't see it. Here's how I translate the copy:
White headline text: The Koran is shit
Yellow textbox text: It {the Koran} doesn't stop bullets
From where I sit, this cover does NOT look like satire by any reasonable definition of the term. This cover looks like anti-Muslim hate speech pure and simple. I'm not Muslim but were I Muslim, I would be deeply offended at this cover and unable to see any humor in it whatsoever. (It reminds me a bit of the anti-Jewish depictions cooked up by the Nazis from 1922-39; it has that same dehumanizing caricature flavor to it.)
Yet KC doesn't say shit about the covers offensive to Jews or CHristians because **** Them!
KingCharlemagne (2,660 posts)
14. It strikes me as downright racist. But I thought maybe there was some
French contextual clues I was missing.
How can a religion be racist?
The Velveteen Ocelot (38,937 posts)
2. It may indeed be very offensive.
It's still not OK to kill people over it.
KingCharlemagne (2,660 posts)
6. I just wondered if there's some humor here that I'm not getting. From where I sit, a plain reading of that cover goes as follows: Muslim under attack says, "This Koran is shit . . . (because) it doesn't stop bullets." Aside from the graphic caricature of the Muslim depicted, that sentiment just doesn't strike me as funny or as satire of anything or anyone.
No, all you are doing is justifying the murder of 12 people.
NewDeal_Dem (833 posts)
171. that's nasty stuff, and not funny at all. threatening.
So threatening it cause peaceful muslims to firebomb the offices last year before attacking and murdering 12 people this year.
KingCharlemagne (2,660 posts)
17. This cover is, to put it bluntly, out and out racist. I fail to see how this cover has anything whatsoever to do with 'left-wing radicalism'.
We must shut down any speach WE find offensive... which is anything we don't agree with. Sounds like KC might be a muslim.
kelly1mm (3,041 posts)
108. Islam is a religion, not a race. How can this be racist? Bigoted, perhaps, racist, no. nt
KingCharlemagne (2,660 posts)
110. OK, bigoted. Islam actually finds adherents in many lands and of many races, so I appreciate your annotation of my sloppy word choice. I do think anti-Islamic bigotry in France and Germany verges on racism, if only because most Muslims there are Arabic by ethnicity. But, even so, your larger point still stands.
Europe has the same problem that the US does. Look at the crime stats. A good majority of the crimes are committed by a small minority of the population. 13% in the US and 8% in France. YET, the leftist claim that the police target those minorities because of race- not because thats where all the crime is.
Kelvin Mace (12,892 posts)
5. Let us assume for the sake of discussion it is "hate speech" Does that mean the murders are justified? Is that a mitigating issue?
For a leftist, it depends...
Xithras (15,104 posts)
82. Charlie Hebdo is also a lot like Colbert. It promotes left wing positions by satirizing the right. And it rips into EVERYONE. No conservative target is safe from their mocking.
NewDeal_Dem (833 posts)
175. they're not a bit left wing. their entire schtick is racism and its equivalents.
http://a2.img.talkingpointsmemo.com/image/upload/c_fill,fl_keep_iptc,g_faces,h_450,w_804/fopyfilykbtw23k6gokr.jpg
and one of their cartoonists got fired when he wouldn't retract an allegedly anti-Semitic cartoon about Sarkozy's son. so much for free speech.
The maq identifies as progressive and left wing. It must be like those terrorists who aren't really muslims.
1000words (4,270 posts)
16. Not funny. Meant to diminish and inflame. Given today's event, a poor choice to say the least.
DUmbass... that cover was from a year or so ago.
Warren Stupidity (40,958 posts)
55. religious idiots are being satarized.
the shitty Koran of the great allah can't even stop a few bullets. The joke, for what it is worth, is that the religious idiot as he is dying realizes his beliefs are shit.
But what is your point? 12 people have been killed by real bullets by real religious fanatics. A drawing that fails to meet your standards for satire is your concern today?
That picture doesn't come close to depicting the actual revulsion I feel for the religious fanatics who think it is appropriate to murder people because they think their gods have been offended.
KingCharlemagne (2,660 posts)
57. Well, I hate Falwell more than I hate most Muslims, that I'll grant you. And, yeah, I'd probably be willing to accept some satire but condemn others depending on whose ox is being gored. That said, I just didn't see who or what was being satirized here, other than maybe the faithful of Islam.
Here's a thought experiment (and what reminded me of Nazi 'humor' of the 20s and 30s). Imagine this cover depicted a Jewish rabbi holding the Torah and similar verbiage. Would you be offended by it? I'm pretty sure I would be just as offended by that -- maybe even more so, given the ugly history of anti-semitism in the U.S. -- as I am by the cover as it is. Should I be or should I just say, "Oh well, I'm offended but that's the price we pay for free speech."
Or maybe you'd go downtown and murder 12 people. Yeah... no difference.
Scootaloo (15,546 posts)
64. Many DU'ers support hate speech against "The right people" Every poster in this thread would be in line to proclaim outrage if that book said "torah" instead. Some would fight to be at the front of the line. But it says "coran" instead, so they'll defend it and deflect from the fact that it is hate speech at all costs.
Ken Burch (34,893 posts)
69. It looks exactly like a cartoon from Der Stürmer in the Thirties (the "Muslim skullcap" even looks exactly like a yarmulke) with the text slightly altered to just barely switch it from an insulting caricature of a Jew to an insulting caricature of a Muslim. Same exaggerated long nose, too. Nobody at Charlie Hebdo deserved to die, but the anger Muslims could have felt about this "satirical" publication is understandable, even as the means the anger was expressed must be condemned.
If it was against the Jews you ****ers would be laughing about it all.
Solindsey (95 posts)
105. Colbert Report eh? Lets not. I have friends who are Moderate Muslims that find the crap this magazine puts out as very hateful. It's gone beyond just drawing the Prophet to something malicious and eerily similar to days gone past when another demonized group was targeted like this in Europe. Could you post covers of previous "satires" of other major religions they have targeted? I keep hearing they are JUST as hateful towards others in the past. I have not seen much evidence of it though.
Then you haven't looked much. There are covers posted in this thread that show it.
starroute (11,944 posts)
104. It strikes me as bullying behavior -- like throwing Korans in the toilet
We in the West have turned Islam into some big scary bugaboo. Yeah... it's not like they'd murder 12 people for a cartoon. But from their side of things, they're poor, exploited, and vilified. Now, wait just a minute. You all claim islam is the founder of eduation, mathmatics, art, and all that. Muslim countries are some of ther ichest in the world. Muslin culture is way better that the west... so what is it? Playground bullies kick sand in their faces and uproot their olive trees and nobody comes to their defense.
Their religion prohibits depicting Mohammed at all. But Western humorists not only do it but do it in the most graphically offensive manner possible. Their religion puts a premium on modesty in dress and behavior. Western satire strips it away. So, that gives them the right to murder 12 people?
Even at the best, this is the sort of treatment jailers inflict on inmates. At worst, it's metaphorical rape. And the "why can't they take a joke" reaction to it is no different from the misogynistic men who wonder who women get offended by sexist so-called humor. So we sould beg forgiveness from them for 12 murders?
Chamberlain ain't got nothing on this DUmpmonkie
KingCharlemagne (2,660 posts)
114. You have articulated exactly feelings I had but was unable to articulate clearly to myself. If it
were simply in bad taste or purely to shock the bourgeoisie, I don't think I would be so bothered. It's that 'metaphorical rape' thing that gets at what is going on, I think. But, as someone upthread pointed out, I'm selective in my outrage about whose ox is being gored, especially if that ox happens to be Jerry Falwell. Not sure where that leaves me, save to note sadly La Rochefoucauld's maxim that "hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue."
Thanks for this thoughtful post.
Think about what you just said... I acknowledge you are a hypocrit... yet you see nothing wrong with that.
KingCharlemagne (2,660 posts)
118. I take John Stuart Mill's line (in "On Liberty") that the best cure for bad speech is not to suppress it -- whether by the ballot or the bullet -- but instead to counter it with more speech. By the same token, though, 'satire' presumes some norm or institution is being held up to ridicule. I suppose one can argue that since the praying Egyptian students were killed by Egyptian police, that thereby their faith did not protect them and is therefore 'shit.' It was the combination of the graphic image and the sentence "The Koran is shit" that seemed to me over the top and not satire but instead pure anti-Islamic hate speech
.
You are an idiot.
KingCharlemagne (2,660 posts)
135. Memories grow dim with the passage of time. But, IIRC, Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" (basically a photo of a crucifix submerged in a glass filled with Serrano's urine) was the subject of bomb threats and of at least one physical attack. Republicans especially were outraged that NEA funds had been used to subsidize partially its exhibition.
So... nobody was really killed then?
KingCharlemagne (2,660 posts)
124. The "So What?' has to do, I think, with who exactly is being mourned and why. If those who died were and are fearless satirists and proponents of free speech, the outpouring of grief and mourning is appropriate. If, on the other hand, those who died were and are garden-variety hate speakers, is the outpouring of grief and mourning still appropriate? If the latter, what exactly is being mourned? Definitely agree with you 100% that hate speech is protected speech in the U.S. I don't know what rules apply in France, although I assume they're roughly similar or equivalent.
joeglow3 (6,079 posts)
119. Is Piss Christ hate speech?
jberryhill (35,769 posts)
139. No, it wasn't.
Far from it. Bodily fluids are an important part of Christian symbolism in the first place.
Is ritual cannibalism - eating the flesh and blood of Christ - not still part of Christianity?
The Bible says that during the crucifixion, he was pierced by a spear and fluid came pouring out. What do you suppose it was?
The work, by the way, is not "Jesus in urine", it is this photograph:
If you didn't know how the photograph was made, you would think it was a common sort of divinely glowing depiction of Christ.
However, that glow comes from sunlight filtered through something which is essential human and corporeal - i.e. urine - which is also symbolic of the Christ as "fully divine and fully human
joeglow3 (6,079 posts)
143. Do the same thing with Muhammad
Good luck with that...
