Je suis Ahmed, je suis Joav....but Charlie??

Hi,

those assaults in Paris got me thinking.
Terrible!

But one thing I am feeling uncomfortable with, is that Charlie Hebdo now is presented worldwide as a symbol of press freedom, a symbol of our society.
Is that true?
Press freedom doesn't mean to do everything legal imho.
Anyway I am fine with a small part of journalists doing that.
It's getting complicate if those journalists spit on any moral & religion existing and it's hard for me to find their motivation doing that.

But they are a small group, not really representing their society.
Charlie Hebdo had a circulation of 40.000 before the assault.
That is pretty representative I guess.
Last weekend they started with 5 million, again with a Mohamed caricature as title.
Was that necessary?
At least I am happy that some newspapers decided not to copy those caricatures.
It's a bad and wrong signal, especially to our Muslim friends. If it would have been drawn by a Muslim caricaturist....maybe. If you know what I mean.
And what about the Jewish people died? No one really mentions them.
What about Ahmed, the Muslim policeman killed? It's Ahmed, the dead policeman, not Ahmed the dead terrorist some of you maybe know.

Almost two million people from every culture and religion standing in Paris, representing their will for freedom and against any terror, that was remarkable and a big moment in human history.

Freedom & respect.
That's more mine.

Am I wrong?

[Taron]

One can only hope that this whole mess backfired. The one big, giant thing mankind is struggling with is ending its divide and coming together. I keep saying that for a long time already, but our greatest power is our ability to communicate. Combined with the privilege as a species to encounter and experience vastly different environments, the understanding we could collectively achieve would have immediate evolutionary consequences, which are hard to imagine and so much greater than we could from our present point of view.

Our society is ill as are all current societies. We are still largely stumbling in the dark in regards to not just our potential, but the very nature of the limitless resources we are part of. But- returning to the immediate topic here- one can only hope that this whole separation-by-fear project ended up acting like reverse psychology and we all come a little closer!?

Philosophical I am with you. It's far away from our actaul situation, I am afraid.

First step in "fight for freedom" will be it's limitation.
Like on september 11th.
First demonstation were already prohibited, due to risk of assaults. Even though German law protects the right to demonstrate.
O.K. Some pretty brown folks are trying to take their chance, here. But they are confronted by double demonstrating against them, minimum.

But as we are in forum about this wonderful verve, and about art, I am asking:
"Should one draw anything not prohibited by law?"
Isn't there something more one should consider?
Respect?!? Just a little bit?

[Taron]

I absolutely agree on being respectful! It's immature and inconsiderate to simply provoke. My wife, however, won't let me finish writing this, because we have to take out the trash!

Hi,

interesting topic.. Yes, every assault is terrible But I agree too, provocation is not a good way and it is immature.. I understand that the new big release of Ch. Hebdo was necessary to prove of the strenght and indestructability (I hope I used right word). But what will be next. Freedom has its borders..

..and it si not good way at all to demonstrate against islam and muslims. They have nothing to do with that assault. The only good way is to allow and support all people to have a good life and not to live at the edge of society. There will be always some deranged, paranoid and manipulated people and their attack will be always unpredictable but if the rest "good" people are happy and they have their sweet home they want to retain it and not to break..

Hahaha taron, first things first.

Lemi, I agree. A quick new release of Charlie Hebdo was an important sign.
Drawing, or any picturization of Mohamed is forbidden in Islam believe.
So if I am a tiny vulgarly, provokant magazine, I think it's O.K. to ignore this.
Even though it put them on the terror target list.

But now, printed 7 million times (as actual news), they have another responsibility, aren't they?
Instead, they smashed every religious Muslim in their face in picturaize Mohamed again. On their title.
Almost every "free" press is printing a copy.
So it's copied billions of times.
People already died in africa while they are demonstrating against these pictures.
10 dead in Niger. They burned down a church. More dead in Pakistan.
Protests all over the world against this title.

While Charlie Hebdo now is swimming in money, they made a fragile situation even much more difficult.
They missed the chance to state a clear sign that everyone, regardless of religion and status is equal. That terror is an enemy, no matter by whom and of which direction.
Instead they made it worth.
As they behaved as silly and calculateable as those demonstrators in Niger, I sometimes ask myself very quietly this obvious stupid question: "Have this all be planned that way? Who will gain most profit from this situation? We'll never hear the "truth" of the terrorists. All are dead. And they were already dead in the moment they were presented as identified.
No court, no lawyers.
.....nah....nonsense!

But I am afraid of next elections, in Germany and in France, maybe worldwide.

P.S.
Don't get me wrong. I like those magazines. German pendant Titanic, I like it time by time.
Charlie Hebdo, some funny pics in there. Vulgarly, respectless.
But I am grown up with Titanic, Mad, U-Comix.
I really love french cartoonists. They are best in world.
But I am not a young boy in Niger, or Pakistan.
I am liberally educated.
I am not religious in any common way.
I believe in human.
Still.

Kill for drawings is something out of the understanding!

I'm with you Pilou.
And quite frankly, I don't see what Charlie Hebdo's team (well, the few people remaining in the staff) was supposed to do after the killing ?
As a reminder, just after the attack the killers have said, yelling in french:
“Prophet Muhammad is avenged!”. “We have killed Charlie Hebdo!“
They (the survivors) had to prove them wrong, and they did it so far.
=> Not issuing Charlie's Hebdo ? => Al-Qaeda has won, Charlie Hebdo is dead.
=> Issuing again, but with self-censorship ? => Al-Qaeda has won, Charlie Hebdo is no more Charlie Hebdo.
They had no choice but to continue drawing the same way.

BTW part of the money they'll get is for the families of killed/injured.

Killing for anything is out of understanding.
For being in a jewish supermarket i.e.???!
No one on earth can justify any murder.

I really understand and respect your points, GBoGBo.
Maybe this was the only possible way?
I guess not. One would have found billion ways to ridicule those extremists without showing Mohamed.
You guys must be angry if I am considering here and there without focussing enough on the real victims.
Angry as this brave French guy, who really found some good words for it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bjbUg9d64g

But as a consequence the development is not going into a peaceful direction, isn't it?

I found some telephone interviews journalists had with the murderers.
Shocking. Emotionless organized.
Meanwhile the IS also tried to claim this as their assault.......

[Taron]

Let me remind you once again to the possibility that all of this is propaganda!
The more you become outraged about the presented "storyline", the more the propaganda is working! Without a shred of doubt, tension is intended and hatred is meant to be fueled by all this, far more than fear itself. And who in his right mind is ready to believe that a massive group of peoples, who were grown into a certain belief-system, is interested in pissing off an even more massive group of peoples with obviously a lot less scruples and much more fire power, who have been out to expand their territory and invade the world with their system for hundreds, if not thousands of years already, but most relevantly in the last 600 years at least.
First of all, above all else, this is not about known religious beliefs or movements. Well, except maybe the Jews, hehe, who somehow don't need a difference between belief and agenda. At the latest after 9/11, people, who find conspiracies conceivable, are being declared nuts and are ridiculed left and right, while from top to bottom they are being declared everything from dangerous to deranged. Even if you merely attempt to recognize larger patterns, your credibility sinks like a rock and observable actions become more and more overt.
As a tiny little exercise for your imagination, try to picture how propaganda would look like that tries to declare any other religion as dangerous and ready to terrorize the world. Let's say Christianity for example. How hard would it be to find a group of extremists with guns, militia groups that have crosses dangling around their necks and pray before their hunt. Pick any old act of terror and link it to "their movement". How difficult would it be to let someone infiltrate the most extreme groups and send them on some vicious killing spree?!
Heck, go to some cults in India, who literally eat their dead and embrace dying. Inflate their agenda and recognize them as a sub-group to all Vedic religions and see how the world would turn blind in fear and hatred towards truly peace loving people.
Yes, sure, it's a little bit easier to pull threatening ideas from the Koran, especially in connection with what the USA had been used to in order to created the situation in the middle east decades ago, boosting the otherwise totally fringed away Taliban into high visibility after arming them to the teeth for their anti-Sovjet actions. Yet, we're still surfing on the cusp of that very same agenda, pursuing absolute dominance for the system we were born into here in the "west". Before you somehow think this is a financial pursuit, this is merely secondary. It's a matter of control, arriving at a firm handle on all our dealings for what ever reason. Why? I really don't know. It's certainly interesting to ponder over that, but fruitful it most likely won't be.

All I'm trying to say is that we should try not to get sucked into the bullcrap and act based on what such news are asking us to act on. It's a very good idea to keep envisioning your genuine ideals outside of such manipulations and stay on course with your true function, what ever that may be. I really believe, that your true human power will always have a place in what ever system wants to drape itself around you. The moment we start picking sides, we compromise our clarity, we compromise the full power behind our abilities and therefore our use as human beings for each other.

We have a very distorted view on freedom. Because we really are walled in by our indoctrinations and only get to see through the holes that are poked through by those, who indoctrinate us. We are made to believe that what we see through there was freedom, but really, it is only that hole they want you fighting for. True freedom has to do with what you can do, because it is what you want to do, because it is how you best function as part of the community to which your abilities are beneficial. Through that your abilities benefit everyone, directly and indirectly. True freedom is to be allowed to function. If someone waves in front of you with something your lowest instincts find interesting, but prevents you from accessing it, it's not freedom to overcome their barriers. However, it's a part of freedom to recognize their snares.

Anyway...it's wise to be afraid of falling into the trap of hatred. Just don't play that game! That includes any kind of contra-provocation. As so very often, it's not about reality, but about selling a conceivable reality, even if ever so vaguely plausible. The moment you present yourself as a viable target for their "fantasy enemy", that's exactly what you'll become, further helping that fantasy to become reality. Did you really have to? Most likely not.

Generally humans are born into a deep desire to love and be loved. There's a fairly little percentage of true psychopaths out there and they are not bound to any specific group of humans. They pop up everywhere, but most of the time they still have the desire to function, with or without love, which is why only the rarest of them present a true danger. Most of the time those are caught in time and become just another story to tell and forget. That means, most of all of us desire to love and be loved, as we desire to be useful and we desire for our desires to be useful so that we can do what we want to do with joy and the will to focus and endure. This trait is most common and truly part of the human makeup. How it gets supported is a different question. Just because we hardly seem to meet people, who would exhibit such traits doesn't mean they don't have it or never had it. It means it got pushed and pulled out of their senses.

Oh man...I could go on and on about that. I'm just troubled to see, when people fall for the propaganda, you know. Just don't let it pull you away from your path!