Charlie Hebdo Prepares For Violent Backlash
by Joseph Klein, FPM
France is now facing the prospect of a violent backlash following the publication of controversial Prophet Mohammed cartoons by the satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo showing the Prophet Mohammed naked. Trying to head off a firestorm not only in the Muslim world but also within the large Muslim population living in France, French officials condemned the publication. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, for example, said that while he respects the right of free expression he sees “no point in such a provocation.”
Mindful of the violence against U.S. embassies and consulates which has swept the Muslim world in the wake of the anti-Muslim video produced in the United States, the French government is taking no chances. It will close twenty of its embassies in Muslim countries this Friday, in case the Friday prayers turn into an orgy of violence whipped up by fanatical imams.
The French magazine’s editor, Stephane Charbonnier, told reporters that the pictures will “shock those who will want to be shocked.” He is deliberately poking a stick at a rattlesnake, not worried about the venomous consequences that will inevitably ensue. He should be worried in light of the fact that the Paris offices of his magazine were firebombed last year after it lampooned the Prophet Mohammed on its front page.
However, the increasing calls for restrictions on free speech as a result of such offensive cartoons or videos are far more offensive than the speech itself. To be sure, there are limits. Speech that clearly crosses over the line from permissible provocative expression to direct incitement to imminent violence can be restricted. But the exceptions to the inalienable right of individuals in a free society to express their point of view, no matter how offensive, must not be allowed to swallow the right itself. Emotional pain or hurt feelings are too subjective a standard to use in regulating speech.
No group can become the arbiter of what is or what is not acceptable speech based on whether it hurts their feelings or shows disrespect for their faith and beliefs. Their threat of violence if they don’t get their way would give them a “heckler’s veto.” Instead, as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis advised, in one of his famous opinions back in 1927, “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”
The real danger coming out of the recent episodes of Prophet Mohammed caricatures is to give the Islamists more ammunition in their campaign to clamp down on speech they claim “defames” their religion and constitutes Islamophobia. They demand tolerance and respect for Islam, but in many countries with Muslim majorities there is no tolerance or respect for other faiths. In some cases, churches, synagogues, Hindu temples etc. cannot even operate openly.
Nevertheless, the Obama administration has already succumbed to the Islamists’ pressure against free speech which offends them with its craven apologies and refusal to use jihad, Islamists and terrorism in the same sentence. Meanwhile, this administration had no compunction in thumbing its nose at devout Catholics by forcing Catholic institutions to pay for contraception and abortion-inducing drugs in violation of their core religious beliefs.
As I previously wrote, the Obama administration tried to have inserted into a press statement, issued September 12th by the UN Security Council on the “Attacks against U.S. Diplomatic Personnel” in Libya, language against the denigration of religions. France, which does not even have legal protections of free speech as strong as our First Amendment and is now facing its own test of resolve against Islamist blowbacks to the satirical magazine caricatures, thankfully blocked this incredibly craven proposal from seeing the light of day.
When Obama visits the United Nations next week to deliver his annual bow to “world opinion” he will find a global consensus in the General Assembly compatible with the Islamists’ and his own worldview, but which is against America’s traditional notion of freedom of expression. In his press conference on September 19th in advance of next week’s love fest, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon displayed this consensus:
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Freedom of expression should be and must be guaranteed and protected, when they are used for common justice, common purpose. When some people use this freedom of expression to provoke or humiliate some others’ values and beliefs, then this cannot be protected in such a way. So my position is that freedom of expression, while it is a fundamental right and privilege, should not be abused by such people, by such a disgraceful and shameful act.
The First Amendment does not confine the protection of free speech to cases when it is “used for common justice, common purpose.” Freedom of speech is an inalienable individual right. Once the collective begins to curb this right in the service of some “common purpose” or sense of “common justice,” all of our freedoms are in jeopardy. As George Washington said:
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“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
@ CuriousAmerican:
OK, I’m going to reword and shorten the comment Spam Filter deemed objectionable. My point is that without amending our immigration laws, these brave challenges to Islam’s self-concept of respectability will amount to nothing.
TO CURIOUS: I can’t comment on that magazine’s motivations. Lots of people take their life into their own hands. Car racers do, for example. But I do understand the point of challenging Islam’s attempt to control our laws and activities. So while I laud the cartoonists’ bravery, I reiterate my point that their act accomplishes absolutely nothing at all as long as immigration laws are not amended. These cartoons will only amount to mere anecdotes in history books, if there are still real history books if Islam succeeds in dominating the planet.
The biggest threat is not the Muslim problem with anger management, but the slow and quiet Muslim invasion into our countries.
TO TED: I try to be careful with the words I use. I make my comments short. I don’t use fancy punctuation. What is the problem? Why are comments being blocked at random?
@ CuriousAmerican:
My seven-line comment is being held for moderation.
@ CuriousAmerican:
I can’t comment on Charlie Hebdo’s motivations. Lots of people take their life into their own hands. Car racers do, for example.
But I do understand the point of challenging Islam’s attempt to control our laws and activities. So while I laud the cartoonists’ bravery, I reiterate my point that their act accomplishes absolutely nothing at all as long as our immigration laws are not amended. These cartoons will only amount to mere anecdotes in history books, if there are still real history books if Islam succeeds in dominating the planet.
The biggest threat is not the Muslim problem with anger management, but the slow and quiet Muslim invasion into our countries.
This Frenchman is taking his life in his hands. He is to be applauded.
Part 2 – The situation is very clear: until Islam can prove it’s compatible with our values (good, bad and in between, but they are OUR values) – then there should be a moratorium on further Muslim immigration. Even a cursory outline of Islam shows that there is no separation between religion and state. Any Muslim who claims to support such separation is not a true Muslim. Or he’s lying.
Those westerners who claim to respect Islam, that it’s a great religion, and so on, should demonstrate their respect by not distorting Islam by attributing to it characteristics it does not have. Islam cannot be democratic. Islam cannot reject the laws of the koran. Islam does NOT tolerate other religions, with the exception of Judaism, only in between massacres and by imposing strict and humiliating Dhimmi laws. Islam’s golden age of tolerance has been exaggerated and is nothing but history. Present day Islam is increasingly dominated by extremist sects inspired by US allies, Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabists.
WRONG! Freedom advocates and the media are going about it the wrong way. They see themselves as heroes because they’re standing up for freedom of speech. All the while they are peculiarly silent on solutions because that would be too politically incorrect. A well-known US right-wing Jewish advocate made sure to repeat many times that she was NOT against Muslim immigration, just against the Ground Zero mosque.
Freedom and democracy advocates need to stop limiting themselves to side issues (the building of mosques, for example) or to gimmicks to attract attention (cartoons), and face the root OUR problem, which is the Muslim quiet but steady invasion of the West and the takeover of our institutions. There have been very few voices mentioning a moratorium on Muslim immigration. The large majority of freedom advocates are horrified by such notion. They did not even avail themselves from the economic slump to question immigration policies.
Excellent analogy.
Like all phobias, there must be an “irrational” fear, one that is not real or only imagined or greatly exaggerated. In the case of Islam, where just about every major conflict or war in the world today and just about every terrorist attack involves a Muslim, one can no longer say fear of Islam or Muslims is either irrational, not real, imagined or greatly exaggerated. Therefore this has become an invalid term as it applies to Islam. True not all Muslims are terrorist but if I put a dozen cups of water before you and tell you one of them is laced with a fatal poison, could you honestly say that your fear to drink any of those cups is irrational?