Regarding the "Charlie Hebdo" issue, please refer to my previous postings (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20150108)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20150110)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20150111)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20150112)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20150114)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20150118).As for Prof.Guy Millière, please refer to my previous posting (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20130823).(Lily)
1. Gatestone Institute(http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org)
Jihad in France: It's Just Beginning, 19 January 2015
by Guy Millière
The demonstration gathered nearly four million people, but seeing in it a mobilization against terrorism, jihad and anti-Semitism would be a mistake.
The Ambassador of Saudi Arabia attended, shortly after his nation had just finished flogging the young blogger Raif Badawi with the first 50 lashes of his 1000 lash sentence. Badawi is being flayed alive -- "very severely," the lashing order said. He has 950 lashes to go.
Mahmoud Abbas, the President of Palestinian unity government, which includes Hamas and supports jihadist terrorism as well as genocide, was at the forefront -- smiling. Israel's Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, was originally not invited. He came anyhow. He was told not to speak. He spoke anyhow. As a sign of disapproval, French officials left before his speech.
Although six Jews were among the seventeen victims, the anti-Semitic dimension of the attacks was barely spoken about.
The words "Islam" and "jihadist" were not mentioned. President François Hollande said, against all evidence, "Those who committed these acts have nothing to do with Islam."
Few Muslims came. They stated their only concern: "Avoid stigmatization of the Muslim community!"
Anyone who watches television and sees what is happening in many Muslim countries has to be doubting that Islam is peaceful.
Several polls show that more than 70% of the French think Islam is incompatible with democracy and Western civilization. Those polls predate the attacks.
The French demonstration of "unity" on Sunday, January 11, may have attracted nearly four million marchers and shown a facade of unity, but behind this facade, rising tensions are approaching the breaking point.[1]
Government members immediately called for fighting "terrorism" and for "national unity." Mainstream media called for defending "free speech." Signs saying "I am Charlie" ["Je Suis Charlie"] began to appear the next day and quickly multiplied. TV channels showed the sign on their screens. Newspapers and magazines put it on their front page.
After the terrorist attack against the kosher supermarket, signs saying "I am a Jew" appeared, too, but were much less numerous. Although six Jews were among the seventeen victims, the anti-Semitic dimension of the attacks was barely spoken about.
And although it was obvious that the attacks were committed by Islamist jihadists, the words "Islam" and "jihadists" were not mentioned. In a solemn statement on television, on January 9, President François Hollande insisted, against all evidence, "Those who committed these acts have nothing to do with Islam."
The calls for "national unity" and the defense of "free speech" led to the organization of a huge demonstration, on Sunday, January 11. Hollande called on the leaders of all political parties to join; they agreed. He called on world leaders to come to Paris; leaders and representatives from forty countries came. He requested the support of all the media; he got it. He requested the support of the entire population, and millions of people responded to his call.
The event gathered nearly four million people, but seeing in it a mobilization against terrorism, jihad and anti-Semitism would be a mistake. Leaders of "anti-Zionist" left-wing organizations that support Hamas were present. Ministers of states financing jihadist terrorism, and even genocide, were also there.
The Ambassador of Saudi Arabia attended, shortly after his nation had just finished flogging Raif Badawi, a young Saudi blogger accused of "insulting Islam," with the first fifty lashes of his sentence of 1000 lashes plus 10 years in prison, for practicing the most gentle free speech. Badawi is now being flayed alive -- "very severely," the lashing order said. He has 950 lashes to go.
Turkey, which hosts part of the leadership of the genocidal Hamas organization, was there. Turkey has also jailed more journalists than any other country, including Iran and China.
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of a Palestinian unity government, which includes Hamas and directly supports jihadist terrorism as well as genocide, was at the forefront -- smiling. Binyamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, was initially not invited. He came anyhow. French officials let him know that he was not welcome and not to speak. He spoke anyhow. As a sign of disapproval, French officials left the Grand Synagogue of Paris during the ceremony for the dead Jews, before Netanyahu's speech.
The President of the populist National Front, Marine Le Pen, was also not included. She is silent. She is sure a coming explosion will happen, and that she will receive more votes.
The slogans in the demonstration spoke of "free speech" and the need to "live together." Signs saying "I am Charlie" were everywhere. Signs saying "I am a Jew" ["Je suis Juif"] were rare. No signs or slogans mentioned jihad or the need to combat jihad or terrorism: the watchword was that these subjects should be shunned. No signs or slogan mentioned anti-Semitism or the real cause of jihadist attacks: caricatures of Mohammed, considered by Koranic law to be blasphemous. Those subjects had to be abandoned.
Few French Muslims came -- the tiniest drop in a huge ocean -- and the television cameras immediately homed in on them. They were interviewed and stated their only concern: "Avoid stigmatization of the Muslim community!"
Prime Minister Manuel Valls had told journalists he was "afraid" for Muslims. Two days later -- and only two days later -- on January 13, he said that "France is at war against terrorism, jihadism and radical Islam." He added immediately that one of his priorities was to fight mercilessly against "Islamophobia."
Emergency decisions were taken. Ten thousand soldiers were deployed throughout the nation. Military patrols were placed at the entrance of Jewish sites and mosques. A few Muslims who shouted "Long live Coulibaly" or "Long live the Kouachi brothers" were arrested.
Debates in the media were organized around ethereal questions: "How to build a 'French Islam'", "how to explain that Islam is peaceful," "how better to integrate Muslims."
Anyone who knows Islam and knows of the existence of the internet also knows that "French Islam" does not exist, and that Islam in France cannot be separated from Islam as it is everywhere else.
Anyone who watches television and sees what is happening in many Muslim countries has to be doubting that Islam is peaceful. Most Muslim "experts" invited to speak are familiar with Islam, familiar with the internet and familiar with what is going on in many Muslim countries -- but they lie. Almost all of them are militants, imams, Muslim scholars. Most of them are members of Islamic organizations. Many belong to the French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the French have just obligingly given them a platform.
The idea that Muslims have to be integrated was discussed many times -- in vain. The absence of integration has worsened decade after decade. "Experts" invited to speak about integration were forcefully lying too. Those who knew the truth and could tell it were kept away.
More than 750 no-go zones exist in the country, all under the sway of gang leaders and radical imams.
More than 60% percent of inmates in French prisons are Muslim. And future Amedy Coulibalys, Cherif Kouachis, Mohamed Merahs and Mehdi Nemmouches are radicalized every year before going off to train for jihad in Syria or Yemen.
Terrorism experts say that dozens of jihadists are preparing attacks in France alone, and that more deadly attacks will take place. They stress that many terrorist sleeper cells exist in the country. France is a country where gun ownership by ordinary citizens is forbidden. So most people are powerless against aggressors, as tens of thousands of guns are hidden in basements.
French Jews have no illusions. Anti-Semitic attacks have become common and increasingly severe. When members of the government dare to speak of anti-Semitism, they refuse to speak of Islamic anti-Semitism, even if Islamic anti-Semitism is now the cause of almost all anti-Semitic attacks.
French Jews could see on January 11 that Prime Minister Netanyahu was not welcome, while Abbas and other supporters of jihad were celebrated. They see how speaking ill of Israel blows through the mainstream media and feeds increasing Jew-hate. They see the French parliament vote for the creation of an admittedly genocidal "Palestinian State."
They see that they are unarmed and that the soldiers in the streets will not be there forever. They see that jihadists are preparing more attacks. They see no-go zones grow increasingly turbulent. They see what is happening in prisons. They see that the French justice system gives short terms to jihadists and releases them quickly. They see that the government cannot stop mass riots and has no way to prevent more attacks. They see that if just Jews had been targeted in recent attacks, no protests would have taken place. Each year they see more Jews leave the country. Seven thousand left for Israel in 2014, and the Jewish Agency for Israel expects 15,000 this year.
The Muslim population is largely silent, except in the heavily-Muslim suburbs, where those who support Coulibaly and the Kouachi brothers can speak without risking arrest. Those who speak officially in the name of the French Muslim community explain that Islam is not the threat, that the real culprits are those who "insult Islam," and that "the main victims" are Muslims.
The rest of the French population is not convinced. Several polls show that more that 70% of the French think Islam is incompatible with democracy and Western civilization; those polls predate the recent attacks.
French society has not been this split for a very long time. The political consensus that prevails in the country will not last. Recent polls show the rising fear of a widespread explosion.
The French journalist Eric Zemmour said a short while ago that France was on edge of civil war. His remarks provoked shock. He received multiple death threats. He is now under police protection. All those who criticize Islam in France suffer the same fate. Charlie Hebdo cartoonists received death threats. They were also under police protection. They are dead.
French Jews are now under military protection.
More than three million copies of the issue of Charlie Hebdo published January 14, a week after the murders, were sold on the day of its release, and at least four million more the days after. The cover says, "All is forgiven," and shows Mohammed crying and bearing a sign saying, "I am Charlie." Many French Muslims, and Muslims in Niger and Pakistan, are voicing their anger. Jihadist movements are hurling threats against France.
On January 15, two jihadists who had returned recently from Syria were killed in Verviers, Belgium, a hundred miles from the French border. They were about to commit serious attacks, police reported. They had accomplices, and there have been arrests. The situation in Belgium is as bad as the situation in France. There are terror cells, we are told, in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. The jihad in Europe is just beginning.
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[1] On Wednesday, January 7, two men entered the office of the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in Paris. They killed twelve people, including four famous French cartoonists and two police officers, then fled, shouting, "We have avenged the Prophet!" The next day, a man driving a stolen car had a traffic accident in Montrouge, south of Paris, close to the entrance of a Jewish primary school, at 8:20 a.m., when parents accompany their children on their way to class. A female police officer was present. The man killed the police officer and escaped. It is easy to imagine what would have happened in the Jewish school if he had not had that accident.
The day after that, the man who had an accident in Montrouge entered a kosher supermarket at Porte de Vincennes in the east of Paris. He killed four people, kidnapped those he did not kill, and threatened to kill all of them. A few hours later, the killer in the kosher supermarket was shot dead.
The two killers who acted at Charlie Hebdo, Cherif and Said Kouachi, were Muslims born in France. The killer at the kosher supermarket, Amedy Coulibaly, was also a Muslim born in France.
The three killers of the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo magazine and the kosher supermarket knew each other. Two of them, Cherif Kouachi, the younger brother of Said Kouachi, and Amedy Coulibaly, had met and been radicalized in prison. They had served short sentences, despite involvement in jihadist activities, and were released prematurely. They joined al Qaeda in Yemen, then returned to France. French police knew about their ties with al Qaeda, but did not monitor them.
The attack against Charlie Hebdo was the deadliest terrorist attack in France since 1961.
The attack against the kosher supermarket was the third deadly jihadist attack committed by young Muslims born in France against Jews on European soil since 2012.
2.Tablet（http://tabletmag.com）
The Charlie Cover, 14 January 2015
Slander, ridicule, and terror in post-1968 France
by Paul Berman
So, here is the new issue of Charlie Hebdo, and the cover cartoon, by Luz, is a masterpiece. On a field of green, a white-turbaned and robed Prophet Muhammad, bug-eyed with horror, a giant tear falling on his cheek, holds a placard saying, “Je suis Charlie,” which is the same slogan that dominated the largest mass protest in the history of the nation that invented the phenomenon of mass protests. And above the cartoon Muhammad’s head are the words, “Tout est pardonné,” or, “All is forgiven.”
The cartoon is inspiring, moving, slightly mysterious, and entirely beautiful. It is inspiring because, in the face of the ultimate in terrorist pressure, the editors and cartoonists have chosen to go ahead and put the drawing on the cover. The cover of this week’s Charlie Hebdo is the most defiant newspaper cover in the history of journalism—a bolder cover even than the cover of the 1898 Paris newspaper that presented Zola’s article, J’Accuse (which, by non-coincidence, also bore on the question of what Zola called “imbecile anti-Semitism”). Zola knew that, by publishing his accusation against the enemies of Capt. Dreyfus, he ran a danger of persecution, arrest, and imprisonment, but probably not murder. The editors, staff, cartoonists, printers, truck-drivers, and kiosk vendors of Charlie Hebdo are in danger of murder. And they are unfazed.
The cover is slightly mysterious, at least in my eyes, because, looking at it, I am a little puzzled by the words, “All is forgiven.” Who is the speaker saying this? And who is being forgiven? It is not immediately obvious. Are these Prophet Muhammad’s words? If so, is he forgiving Charlie Hebdo for having insulted him in cartoons over the years? Is Muhammad forgiving the entire universe, terrorists included, out of a principal of all-embracing beneficence? Or, alternatively, do the words of forgiveness express the view of Charlie Hebdo itself, the newspaper, which forgives the weeping and innocent Muhammad for having the misfortune of being invoked by the nihilist madmen who have murdered the staff of Charlie Hebdo? The cover: Is it an expression of mutual forgiveness, with Prophet Muhammad weeping in sorrow and proclaiming his solidarity with the newspaper, and the newspaper replying by forgiving everyone?
Luz, the artist, has indicated that this last interpretation is his own, and this ought not to be surprising. The interpretation conforms to the tradition of the paper. One of the most famous and controversial of Charlie Hebdo’s Muhammad cartoons in the past shows the prophet again in tears, dressed in black on that occasion and saying, “C’est dur d’être aimé par des cons …”, or, “It’s hard to be loved by some assholes …” Another of the famous cover cartoons shows Muhammad being beheaded by a black-masked fanatic under the caption, “If Muhammad returned …” Nor is the message of universal forgiveness foreign to the newspaper’s past. Still another of the famous covers, which ran a couple of years ago after Islamist extremists burned down the newspaper office, depicted a pencil-carrying Charlie cartoonist in a scandalously homosexual embrace with a bearded man in white Muslim dress, under the caption “Love is stronger than hatred.” (This slogan, too, appeared prominently in the “republican march” on Sunday.) But it is good that, on today’s cover, the words of forgiveness are not overtly attributed to anyone in particular. Uncertainty lends majesty.
The accusations that are thrown at Charlie Hebdo are a slander. I mean the accusations that Charlie Hebdo is a racist newspaper, has drifted to the reactionary right, and foments hatred for Muslims and immigrants. No, Charlie Hebdo’s cartoonists have repeatedly represented the Prophet Muhammad in a sympathetic light, and they have done so in order to draw a contrast with the Islamic fanatics—and, in this fashion, the cartoonists have instinctively made the right distinction. Today’s cover is merely the latest and most moving of the series, the most dignified, the most poignant, not to mention the most heroic. Muhammad weeping a giant tear—weeping because he is a man with a big heart who is overcome with sorrow at the stupid and bigoted murders. Muhammad proclaiming “Je suis Charlie”—proclaiming his solidarity because he is a man of human sympathy, who identifies with the victims of terror. The elegance of the cartoon—the white and green, the lettering below and lettering above, the childlike naïveté of the drawing contrasted to the horror of the occasion—conveys a nobility.
I do not mean to suggest that Charlie Hebdo has displayed a piety toward Muhammad. A while back the newspaper ran a crude cartoon depicting Muhammad performing in a porno film—with the idea being, in that instance, to ridicule the Islamist riots and violence over a movie. To ridicule the Islamist movie riots was, however, a good thing to do. It was also a necessary thing to do. Some events are, after all, ridiculous, and what is ridiculous needs to be named, and the only way to name what is ridiculous is to ridicule it.
Charlie Hebdo is a pure product of the 1968-era radical left—anti-authoritarian, insurgent, impudent, indignant, mocking, and self-mocking. The founding figures—François Cavanna (who died a few years ago), the artist Wolinski (who was murdered just now), and others—were fixtures of the ’68-era alternative press in Paris. They were the comrades of Sartre at his own journalistic enterprises. The surviving staff was able to bring out today’s issue because of the solidarity of the Paris newspaper Libération, which offered office space and aid a couple of years ago, when Charlie Hebdo’s offices were attacked, and did so again this week. And Libération did this because, in Paris, it, too, is the institutional product of the ’68 uprisings—even if, in Libération’s case, the decades have come and gone, and likewise the owners, and the newspaper is not entirely what it used to be. Still, historical memories persist, and also something of the old left-wing feistiness and comradeship. Incidentally, this is the corner of the French left that overlaps the most easily with the American left and counter-culture—with the Village Voice of long ago, which was the immediate inspiration for Libération, and with the American cartoons, among which Charlie Brown inspired Charlie Hebdo’s name.
How can it be, then, how is it possible, that a left-wing paper like Charlie Hebdo has just now been labeled as racist and reactionary? We are forever being told that to offer any visual image at all of the Prophet Muhammad is a terrible thing to do, oppressive to masses of people and disdainful of them, and is therefore a racist act—even when, as in the present instance, the visual image in question happens to be a defense of the Prophet Muhammad. (I note in passing the obscene quality of this accusation, under the present circumstance—the racist massacre of Jews merely because they were Jews.)
But is it so terrible, in fact, to depict the prophet? Really is it racist? It is true that pious Muslims who adhere to an old fashioned Sunni school of thought would never depict the prophet. Still, pious Muslims who adhere to other schools of thought do depict the prophet. An Islamic consensus on this point does not exist. In any case, the history of Western art does not adhere to pious Sunni traditions, and the history of ribald satire that descends from Rabelais does not adhere to any pious traditions at all.
Why has the issue become so controversial, then? The explanation ought to be obvious. Depictions of Prophet Muhammad have become controversial because, beginning with Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran in 1989 and his call to murder Salman Rushdie and his publishers, the Islamist movement has set out to impose its categories of analysis and judgment on the rest of the world. And the Islamists have enjoyed a massive success. The Islamists have set out to impose these categories on grounds that are positive (so to speak) and negative. The positive grounds add up to a chiliastic dream of imposing an Islamic caliphate on the entire world, which is an entirely mad idea; and a first step in the mad idea is to forbid people in the rest of the world from thinking thoughts that would be forbidden under the caliphate.
The negative grounds add up to a paranoid theory, which counts for a lot more than the dream of the caliphate. The paranoid theory is the belief that sinister forces in the West and among the Jews are conspiring to crush the Muslims and annihilate Islam. This theory is worse than mad: It is, in its consequences, criminal. Still, it is popular.
The belief in a vast anti-Islam conspiracy accounts for why so many Muslims around the world, having heard that in a far-away place somebody has drawn a picture of the prophet, respond so furiously. The existence of a cartoon is taken to be evidence of the diabolical conspiracy. And the same paranoid theory accounts for the desire to massacre the Jews. The accusation against the Jews goes far beyond saying that Zionists have stolen Palestinian land or have bombed Gaza or in other ways have wronged the Palestinians.
The Jewish crime, paranoically conceived, is not a local crime, nor a recent crime. The belief is that, beginning in the 7th century, Jews have been conspiring to destroy Islam. The crime is cosmic. And the Jews must be destroyed in turn. That is why, to the terrorists, it does not matter whether their Jewish victims are infants, as in the Toulouse murders, or museum-goers, as in Brussels, or grocery shoppers, as in Paris.
The paranoid theories account for the genuine popularity of the terrorists in some of the French Arab neighborhoods. There are people who would never dream of becoming terrorists or jihadis, but who nonetheless feel in a vague way that sinister forces are conspiring against Islam, and who are therefore bound to look upon the jihadis as sympathetic rebels. And there are people who are bound to feel intimidated by the climate of violent jihadi opinion around them.
Terrorism directed against “the other” is always a pressure directed at one’s own population. And the popularity of these thoughts naturally spreads outward to neighborhoods of well-meaning people, Muslim and non-Muslim, who are impressed and frightened by Islamism’s rise and who look for ways to adapt and accept and end up repeating to themselves one or another of the Islamist claims—especially the claim that Muslims are the victims of a terrible and overbearing bigotry. Acting on these impulses, the well-meaning people begin to tell themselves that anti-obscurantist protests, which used to be progressive, are now reactionary; leftism is rightism; and rightism is leftism. The well-meaning people shake their heads in sorrow at the murders of various people, and, even so, convince themselves that to publish a cartoon defending Prophet Muhammad must surely be a terrible act of anti-Muslim racism. And the well-meaning people remind themselves that, even if the Jewish shoppers in a Paris grocery store are not directly guilty, there are other Jews, thousands of miles away, who are certainly guilty of terrible crimes, and therefore the racism that we should worry about is the racism directed at the perpetrators of the racist massacre.
That is where we find ourselves today. It is an enraging situation. It is horrifying. It is also an extravaganza of ideas and doctrines that are ridiculous. What is ridiculous needs to be ridiculed. I am Charlie.
・Paul Berman writes about politics and literature for various magazines. He is the author of A Tale of Two Utopias, Terror and Liberalism, Power and the Idealists, and The Flight of the Intellectuals.
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