General News Terrorist attack on French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo

Re: Islamists murder 12 - France

Horrible, my thoughts go out to the family of the victims and those who have been injured.

 

Re: Islamists murder 12 - France

I'm an atheist and sometimes even anti theist, but these... "men", are high jacking the faith of millions of people to commit atrocities that aren't justified by anything.

 

Re: Islamists murder 12 - France

Yes. I saw the headline (it's early in the U.S. at this time). I thought it was random. Now I see it was religiously charged. Hijacking the faith of probably over a billion people who don't and never would operate this way is putting it mildly. In addition to being hard on the family and friends of the deceased and injured people, it's hard on the country and it's hard on others of that faith who don't condone and can't fathom these actions.

France has this reputation as being very liberal. Maybe that's something the movies and the media portray as it relates to sex. When it comes to absorbing people of other faiths and nationalities, France can be very different. There are suburbs of Paris that have had serious flare-ups with unrest.

 

Re: Islamists murder 12 - France

"Not good" doesn't begin to explain it. Our national security alert system is at maximum, the President should be speaking in a couple minutes, and our right-wing politicians are going to gain popularity after this for sure. It's not Hollande's fault, but something like this happening during his mandate is pretty much a disaster.

We haven't had this deadly a terrorist attack in years. Decades, maybe. A teacher this afternoon told us about it. The room was silent. A room occupied by seventy-five people in their late teens went completely still and silent. I almost thought he was joking.
France has almost never lived in fear of terrorists. Right now, I think some people in Paris just became very scared.

So yeah, thank you for this thread. It's nice to know the French are not the only ones concerned.

 

Re: Islamists murder 12 - France

Terrible, truly terrible. These people got killed just for speaking their minds.

This is a very sad day for freedom of speech. I can only hope people will not give in to this kind of pointless violence.

 

Re: Islamists murder 12 - France

It is terrible. Paris hasn't had anything like this for decades, and the 2012 shootings in Toulouse and Montauban don't come nearly as close in severity. France, like Canada and Australia, might have to ramp up security to almost war-time levels if this might have been even slightly preventable.

My heart goes out to the victims and I only hope that security services can make Paris and all of France feel and genuinely be more secure.

 

Re: Islamists murder 12 - France

On a quick update, they have identified the 3 alleged attackers.
I hope they bring them to justice without any more victims... at least on the innocent side...

 

Re: Islamists murder 12 - France

First, my heart obviously goes out to the people of France, and in particular the families impacted by the tragedy. It also goes out to the people who work at Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine that was targeted. There is no excuse or justification for what has happened, the intent was to intimidate, to cause fear, and to forcefully silence the voices of those who stand in opposition to Islamic religious fundamentalism. It is my hope that the magazine Charlie Hebdo will be able to recover from this act of terrorism, and then redouble their efforts--with the support of the French people and the global community.

Second, I am gravely disappointed at Tony Barber, the Europe editor of the Financial Times, which has--before the bodies have even grown cold--started to blame the victims for their own murders. Tony Barber stated, less than twelve hours after the murders, "Charlie Hebdo has a long record of mocking, baiting and needling French Muslims," adding insult to injury later by calling their editorial board "foolish" and the magazine as a whole as "stupid" and lacking in "common sense".

Of course, he was quick to jump in and condemn the murders as wrong, and point out how he isn't really blaming the victims--as he proceeds to blame the victims--it is just that, they should not say things that would anger people enough to kill them. Of course, he backtracks there too, saying how freedom of expression shouldn't be silenced. Blah, blah, blah.

The only reason I waste a single second on this fool, is because thoughts and words such as his is a familiar refrain. We have seen this all happen before and this is nothing new. This is, unfortunately, how mainstream liberalism frequently reacts to such things: by condemning the attack, then condemning the victims for making the attackers angry. There is no excuse or justification for what has been done, and what will happen to others in the future. There are no words in the human speech that are vile enough to justify terrorism and mass murder. The fact that sometimes people are offended is irrelevant.

When the funerals of members of our community were (and still are) being protested at by groups like the WBC, and the vileness and lies spewed by religious fundamentalists all over the world is spewed out against us--do we engage in mass murder and terrorism against the bigots? No. What is done to us is far worse, far more insulting, and far more traumatizing than satirical cartoons. By the measure of these people, we would be justified in mass murder and terrorism, simply because we had our feelings hurt and our lives traumatized. These same individuals, were we to do such a thing, would laugh in our face and stand by the religious fundamentalists that would lay dead at our feet.

This is because the root of the problem here is religious deference. The belief that because someone believes something in their religion that they do not deserve to be offended. It is the belief that those religious beliefs somehow occupy a sacred space, above and beyond the spaces occupied by other beliefs, thoughts, and actions. There is no deference that should ever be shown to someone who is religious, there are no sacred cows, and there is no belief so high and mighty that it does not deserve to be challenged.

The only response that the world media publications should give to these actions should be the mass publication of every anti-Islamic cartoon that Charlie Hebdo has ever published in its entire history. Every single news and media publication should be judged by whether or not they publish these satirical cartoons. This is how you respond to terrorism: by showing them that their actions are futile and pointless. That you will not be bent, broken, or cowed into submission by their savage acts. You do this by showing them that every time they strike, their actions will produce the opposite of the results they desire. They may be able to kill the people of one magazine, but they are not so numerous, and not so powerful, that they can kill the people of all of the publications of the world who condemn their actions.

Sadly, they will not do this. They will be sufficiently terrorized, and they will take on the "tsk, tsk, tsk-ing" role of Tony Barber. They will send the message, intended or not, that if only people did not make them mad then none of this would have happened. A truly offensive thought if there ever was one. Bad ideas, bad beliefs, religious or not, deserve to be mocked, ridiculed, and challenged--and Islam like every religion--is full of them.

Third, people continue to engage in stupidity regarding Muslim "moderates". This simply proves that they do not understand what a moderate is, how a moderate functions, Muslim or otherwise. We do not need Muslim moderates coming out in droves to condemn the fundamentalists of their faith. We do not call upon moderate Christians to do the same, when savage acts by Christians--such as the religiously motivated assassination of abortion doctors in the United States--take place. We do not call them to stand up and be counted. That is because we, living in a predominately Christian society, realize that the majority of our neighbors would condemn such actions. The same is true among Muslims.

Most Muslims, like most Christians, like most Jews, like most Hindu's, and all other people of the world--simply seek to live their lives in peace. They do not seek to cause problems, they obey the laws of their respective countries (even when they disagree with them), and they are primarily concerned about their day-to-day lives and families. This is an average person, no matter their religion, no matter their nationality. This is what a moderate looks like, and because they are like this they value--above all else--stability and security. If you want to motivate a moderate to action, you must threaten one of those two things. Moderates whenever it comes to situations like this, are utterly useless people.

They are useless, because they are not motivated to take action. They will, of course, condemn the actions--they are equally abhorred by them--but they will not do what people want them to do. They are too busy living their lives.

No, what we want, what we need are radicals of our own. We need Muslims who are as radical in their beliefs in secularism, democracy, liberalism, and anti-fundamentalism as the Islamic State is in their own beliefs. These are people, from the Muslim community, who are prepared to stand up, be counted, fight, and die for the values that we share in common. These are our allies, our friends, and are heroes. These are the people that we want and need, the people who deserve to be given a voice, individuals who will criticize both the religious fundamentalist for their beliefs (attacking the religion), as well as the moderate for being too passive. These are people, preferably who are leaders in the faith, who will stand up and say that the Koran is not a text meant to be taken literally. These are people, who will stand up and be comfortable saying that secularism is more preferable to a theocratic state.

This is how you fight: ideas vs ideas. This is not a war between Islam and the West. This is a war within Islam and the Muslim community itself. The majority of the casualties suffered are other Muslims being killed by other Muslims. The Western world cannot make this better with bombs and the mass murder of Muslim people. The only thing that will make this better is a new set of ideas which spread and take root throughout the Muslim community and the world. In order for us to live in peace with this community, they must share our values, because if they do not conflict is inevitable. If the values are far enough disproportionately from our own, violent conflict is certain.

This is how a culture war is fought. Not with weapons, but with ideas.

 

Re: Islamists murder 12 - France

I think the point is (which Charlie Hebdo were probably making) is that violence, threats and terrorism are not an acceptable response to being "offended" - especially not from something as little as a mocking satirical cartoon. People should not have to live under the fear that causing minor offense will start a nuclear war or have you beheaded - the cartoonists were very right to challenge this and its one of the reasons I think the media should publish the images widely now in support for this to show that this is unacceptable behavior and an unacceptable reaction. Its not about deliberately pissing fundamentalist Muslims off for the fun of it, its about saying "look, your reaction to this is way over the top, and that is a problem".

The terrorists and their supporters are the guilty ones here.

 

Re: Islamists murder 12 - France

Exactly. That is why the cartoons should be published by other media outlets around the world. Not only because it is news worthy ("this is what they were killed for"), it undermines their goals and strategy. Their intent behind this action is to cause fear, and to prevent people from doing the things that offend them in the future. They do not want other media outlets publishing the cartoon, and the implicit threat is that they are next if they do. If scores and scores of media outlets re-publish the offending material, what are the terrorists really going to do? They cannot kill them all. It undermines their intent: they wanted to suppress and hide that which offended, but they have highlighted it instead. They wanted to silence, and instead all they did was amplify. By undermining their goals and strategy, we force them to rethink it, and can hopefully begin to bring an end to it. If everyone stands together, then it is harder for the terrorists to target a single "courageous" media organization.

Now, I know the counter-argument to this is that lives should not be put into danger. However, it is a silly argument. It is silly due to the realities of the threat. The likelihood that anyone will be targeted for death by terrorists is extremely small--even if they receive threats. They are more likely to be struck by lightening. Twice. Everyone is more likely to die in a car accident on the way to work, but we do not live in fear of such a thing happening. Neither should anyone live in fear of terrorists. Simply because people fear it more, does not make it more likely to happen.

 

3 gunmen opened fire in the Charlie Hebdo's offices in Paris. The current status is 12 deaths (10 journalists and 2 policemen) and 11 injured (4 badly injured).

The attackers were armed with an AK-47 (Kalashnikov), a shotgun and a rocket/grenade launcher.

Most current news (as of January 8 at 2:14 am GMT+1 time):
Charlie Hebdo attack: Suspects ID'd after 12 killed; police operation underway - CNN.com



This is what I wrote on facebook:

 

My thoughts and prayers go to the family of the 11 dead as well as the 4 injured and their familes.