The editor of Charlie Hebdo says that the magazine will not be publishing any more cartoons featuring Mohammad. His colleagues have died in vain, barbarity has won, the values of enlightenment and reason have been discarded.
Charlie Hebdo Update
Opinions, art, debate
Clarissa's Blog 
I read a comment:
// I think that it is easy for us to call him a coward, but given that he cannot get a gun, and the police let the terrorists in to kill him […] Well there is no point in him running the cartoons endlessly because it is clear that he will just be a sitting duck for another attack and nothing will change.
Such places should be protected by armed policemen. But then the people working in them would have to be protected too, even at home. Who would be ready to endanger himself like that and for what? To hear once again from politicians that the murderers are unconnected to Islam which is the religion of peace?
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Of course, the Charlie Hebdo attacks had nothing to do with Islam. Remember one of the terrorists who packed his mistress, his brother and his brother’s wife into the same car and schlepped them around? An actual Muslim brother would have already whooped his ass for degrading his wife in this manner. These people have nothing to do with Islam. Islam is a pretext. And if it didn’t exist at all,they’d be doing exactly the same under a different pretext.
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I don’t get the “has nothing to do with Islam” idea.
I can understand someone saying that it resulted from a faulty debased version of Islam that all good muslims should despise* but ‘nothing to do with’ just doesn’t compute. But then I’m a behaviorist on this kind of question. Islam is only what the people who call themselves muslims actually do (especially while invoking Islam) and not necessarily anything in the koran or hadith (the same goes for any religion – all I’m interested in is what do its adherents do).
But yes, a very bad day for freedom of expression (essentially incompatible with multi-culturalism).
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I’m not part of the Anglo-Protestant tradition, so the “I name myself Christian / Muslim / Hindu, etc, ergo I am” thinking is very alien to me. I don’t get the concept of immutable, sacred identities awarded to us at birth at all, which is why I’m so puzzled by the Rachel Dolezal case. I don’t get how one can be a Muslim while boozing and whoring or a Jew while disrespecting the written word or a Christian who doesn’t practice quiet acts of kindness, etc.
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\ or a Jew while disrespecting the written word
Come to Israel and see, including many of our politicians. Are those people not ‘real Jews’? If so, it sounds very insulting to Jews, imo. We are a people like any other and don’t have to confirm to any stereotypes to deserve the name “Jew.”
Good stereotypes are simply the other side of the coin of the bad stereotypes. I understand “respecting the written word” sounds nicer than “being good with money,” but I feel something is the same at core in both cases.
\ or a Christian who doesn’t practice quiet acts of kindness
Then most people (self) identified as Christians aren’t ones. I bet on more than 90% of Christians being ‘fake’, according to your definition.
If your definitions miss most people who define themselves as X and are perceived by the rest of the world to be X, then the problem lies in those definitions.
\ I don’t get the concept of immutable, sacred identities awarded to us at birth at all
As an example, antisemitism has been quite successful for centuries in awarding a certain immutable identity to Jewish people, whether they wanted it or not.
Also, if enough people say “I am X” while meaning that “X=abc”, then the word X in everyday use changes its meaning to “abc.” Isn’t it the way language develops?
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“Come to Israel and see, including many of our politicians. Are those people not ‘real Jews’? If so, it sounds very insulting to Jews, imo. We are a people like any other and don’t have to confirm to any stereotypes to deserve the name “Jew.””
“Then most people (self) identified as Christians aren’t ones. I bet on more than 90% of Christians being ‘fake’, according to your definition.”
“If your definitions miss most people who define themselves as X and are perceived by the rest of the world to be X, then the problem lies in those definitions.”
“As an example, antisemitism has been quite successful for centuries in awarding a certain immutable identity to Jewish people, whether they wanted it or not.”
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” think that it is easy for us to call him a coward, but given that he cannot get a gun, and the police let the terrorists in to kill him […] Well there is no point in him running the cartoons endlessly because it is clear that he will just be a sitting duck for another attack and nothing will change.”
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\ To hear once again from politicians that the murderers are unconnected to Islam which is the religion of peace?
The conversation stops at “it has nothing to do with Islam.” Whether you agree or not, we probably may both agree that stopping at those declarations is not helpful.
I also think most people on the street don’t believe those politicians and see their speeches as complete PC. Ironically, being afraid to have serious conversations encourages hatred of Muslims, since many people both understand they aren’t told the entire truth and don’t come themselves with anything better than “those Muslims again…”
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