Je Suis NON Charlie

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Whilst I abhor any form of terrorism be it state or ideology based and I defend all forms of free speech, I most certainly do not associate myself with Charlie Hebdo.

The hypocrisy of the mass media and the western states in vilifying this act of terrorism, as an attack upon free speech is quite simply nauseating. At present we have Julian Assange holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy, Ed Snowden in Russia, and Chelsea (Bradley) Manning serving an effective life sentence, not to mention the missile attacks by the US on AL Jazeera offices and journalists on the ground, all, in my opinion, victims of Western States attacks upon freedom of speech. Not only this, but across the western world freedom of speech is being eroded by various state laws, for example, here in Australia, the newly re-instated sedition laws are so broad that any comedian taking a pot shot at the Government or Head of State (the Queen or her representative the Governor General) is guilty of sedition.

Seditious Intention
Section 24 defined a seditious intention as [a]n intention to effect any of the following purposes:

(a) to bring the Sovereign into hatred or contempt;
(d) to excite disaffection against the Government or Constitution of the Commonwealth or against either House of the Parliament of the Commonwealth;
(f) to excite Her Majesty's subjects to attempt to procure the alteration, otherwise than by lawful means, of any matter in the Commonwealth established by law of the Commonwealth; or
(g) to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different classes of Her Majesty's subjects so as to endanger the peace, order or good government of the Commonwealth;

And yet we have 40 leaders marching in solidarity in paris. WHY?

The answer is simple, they are using this atrocity to strengthen and broaden already extensive anti democratic measures put in place since 9/11/2001.

The lies and half truths are vile. Again using Australia as an example, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been linking the co-ordinated attacks in Paris to the recent Martin Place siege, and in doing so pushing for tighter and more draconian 'anti-terror" laws. He and the mass media are falsely linking the act of a lone and clearly troubled man to these attacks in order to instill fear and panic.

I am NOT Charlie Hebdo. They are a Islamophobic group who engender cultural and religious animosity and hate. The neo facist National front secured 25% of the vote in the latest election in France, Charlie Hebdo (In its use of crude and vulgar caricatures that purvey a sinister and stereotyped image of Muslims) has facilitated the growth of a form of politicized anti-Muslim sentiment that bears a disturbing resemblance to the politicized anti-Semitism that emerged as a mass movement in France in the 1890s.See THE DREYFUS AFFAIR

As Karl Marx stated:

"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

Whilst I am at heart anti-theistic, I also see the need and want that religion fulfills. Charlie Hebdo whilst accumulating support from the so called left, has, by its puerile and at times vile depiction of Islam and its culture, purposefully attacked the poor and the powerless.

I abhor the attack on Charlie Hebdo but I have nothing in common with the paper, nor the dishonest, hypocritical and opportunist campaign the attack has allowed the western governments to mount.



I oppose all forms of terrorism, I support all forms of Free Speech. But I am not Charlie Hebdo

Once again, you have cherry-picked the facts to support your own political point of view. While it is true that Charlie Hebdo has satirized and ridiculed Islam, they have also done that to all religions. Because of this one fact, you can not claim that Charlie Hebdo's editorial policy is Islamophobic any more than you can claim that George Carlin was. Displaying contempt for all religions does not mean that someone is Islamophobic, it just means that they see all religions as contemptible.

Whose side are you on, anyway?

One might think this was a cheesy polemic, a way to grandstand on the death of others.

The phrase you want, by the way, is "Je ne suis pas Charlie Hebdo." What you have here is, "I no Charlie Hebdo," which just makes you seem ignorant. I don't mean ignorant as a term of abuse, but ignorant in the technical sense-you don't know French and probably don't know much about Charlie Hebdo, French politics or French journalism.

I am ignorant about Australian politics, so I read this part of you post with interest. It sounds like politicians doing their usual thing, not unlike your own post--latching on to a hot topic in the public mind and awkwardly hitching their own established goals and message to it.

I find this kind of attack on the "mass media" comical. How did you first become aware of the names Julian Assange, Ed Snowden, and Chelsea Manning? Could it have been through the mass media?

I think your attack on Hebdo is rubbish. They don't attack islam they attack the murdering filth who use Islam as the excuse for their particular brand of fundamentalist religious totalitarianism. I don't think you really know their work or what the dead men stood for.

Can you explain to me how Al Baghdadi is poor and powerless? Do you claim that the right wing extremists behind the Islamic State are representative of all Muslims? Unless you can make that claim, your attack on Charlie Hebdo is groundless.

Maybe you have some other rationale, but I think you are groundlessly smearing newly dead people who led really good lives.

Charlie Hebdo are against racism, sexism, abuse of political and religious power and hypocrisy and puffed up social status in general. I'll take your word for it that you have nothing in common with them.

Peut etre c'est vrais: toi, tu n'es pas Charlie Hebdo.

Three points:

1) The correct French is "je ne suis pas". "Je suis non" is clumsy, it implies you are called "Not Charlie".
2) Julian Assange is holed up in an embassy because he is hiding from charges of rape like a coward. Nothing to do with free speech.
3) I don't think it is fair to link Charlie Hebdo to the National Front. Some of their comics are very much in bad taste and I would probably have spoken out against them a week ago, particularly the Boko Harum one, but I think your criticisms are over the top - particularly as Charlie are actually quite an obscure publication (i.e. they couldn't possibly be having the cultural impact you think that they have had)

That right there says it all. If you are against Charlie Hebdo, then you are against Equality, Egalitarianism, Liberty and the exposure of Hypocrites and the Prideful.

The people of Charlie Hebdo rank alongside Nathan Hale and other martyrs for Freedom.

Sorry but that's claptrap. Firstly, false equivalence of "againsts". I believe you have previously voiced a disliking for Jefferson's slave ownership, but I do not accuse you of being against everything in the constitution.

Is it not perfectly possible for someone to argue that, despite Hebdo's claims to be a non-racist organisation, that some of the things they say and do actually perpetuate harmful stereotypes and just shoot down the oppressed?

Or is this more along the lines of Mike Brown? You claimed his shooting was justified because he was a shoplifter. As you have already (quite rightly) decided that the Hebdo staff did not deserve to be shot, does that mean you have to feel they did absolutely nothing wrong?

Agreed. However, the OP did say he/she has "Nothing in common" with Charlie Hebdo. The list of things these old French provocateurs have been against is very long, and if you have nothing in common with their stance on those things, then you are defining yourself: pro-establishment, anti-populist, pro-racist, pro-patriarchy, pro-facist, pro-islamist, anti-liberal, anti-counter culture, pro De Gaulle, anti protests of 1968, etc., etc., etc.

I guess you can cherry pick a few cartoons from the decades of work of these public agitators and find an excuse to call them racist or sexist or whatever you want, but to do that you have to be ignorant of the body of their work or deliberately distort it.

Just out of curiosity, how do you interpret the cover with the pregnant victims of boko haram sex slavery demanding their maternal subsidies? What do you think it means, that it is an example of racism?

Edited to add: you might find this interesting:
Quora discussion of the Boko Haram/Ne touche pas nos allocs cover

Okay, so we disagree on a few points. I believe the 'Nathan Hale' analogy, and you don't. Fair enough.

Still, responding to criticism with bullets is simply wrong. It's like being shot by the police for referring to them as "Trigger-happy cowboy cops" - it only proves that the critics were right. At the very worst, criticism should be met with counter-criticism. At the very best, criticism should be met with blessing, or some other act of goodness and kindness that clearly demonstrates just how wrong the critics' comments are.

(Oh please, ye grammar nazis; don't shoot me for sentence ending a preposition with! Bake me some cookies, instead!)

I concur with Will Self. Free speech must be tempered by responsibility of speech.

But that responsibility should never be enforced with bullets.

Not really the job of cartoonists, though is it?
I wan't able to view the video, but in any case, I disagree with the sentiment. People who believe free speech "must be tempered" with anything don't really believe in free speech.

I see from your sig that you are a racist supporter of the British Far right.
Your language offends me and you should be silent.

I tried to link a fantastic interview of will self on channel 4 but youtube is screwing with me for some reason. The point he was making was that the end game of these cartoonists isn't about excercising free speech. Its to do more with creating a general anti islamic narrative where in public attention is drawn away from the empowered sections within French society in order to create rancour between muslim and non muslim factions of the general public.


No, you are a dolt if you interpreted it that way.

It is paraphrasing Nigel Farage, the point is to illustrate the true racist nature of the UKIP party.

here is the Will Self video i tried to link. Self nails the issue here.

I can understand the sentiment terrorism affects us all non of us are safe but I would not buy ANY publication unless I saw something I liked. That's number one for me.


Another thing disturbs me - we have had terrorist attacks for years and years and years sooooo many people died of every race and creed yet barely a belch now that these people were attacked at this magazine, thousands, maybe millions are marching and demonstrating. WHERE WERE THEY YEARS AND YEARS AGO WHEN PEOPLE WERE DYING???? Why is it it take something like this and not the others to get them to realize terrorisms sucks, it's a problem, people die, we should be demonstrating??? We should demand the terrorists be eradicated from our society not moan about how much we hate regulation???

Well, an issue there is 'terrorist' is such a weasel word. If by terrorist you mean any body or country that uses violence in order to satisfy political ends, then by the same logic some of our own governments are the worst terrorists in existence.

Explain to me why an american drone targeting a wedding party in afghanistan is any better than a group of rogue islamists shooting up a newspaper office in Paris?

Will Self is an idiot and what he has done in interpreting the work of the cartoonists as creating an anti islamic narrative is EXACTLY like taking your sig as evidence of your love for Farage.

It's a total misrepresentation of the reality of their work. It's plausible only if you don't understand the context.

The narative that says you can't tell the difference between the millions of peaceful Muslims and the salafist jihadi murderers who were ridiculed in the cartoons is the true racism. "Those little dark people are all the same, don't you know."