Written by: Justin King at theantimedia.org
The specifics and motives of the attack in Paris are being hotly debated, but the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue has in essence attempted to justify the killings by saying that the attack was provoked.
“neither should we tolerate the kind of intolerance that provoked this violent reaction.”
The editor-in chief targeted in the attack, was Stephane Charbonnier. Donohue states that
“Had he not been so narcissistic, he may still be alive.”
He doubles down on the statements in an interview with Newsmax. He talked about protesting against art and then called the victims of the attack “thugs.” Not the alleged shooters; the victims. He cites the abuse of liberty in the United States as well. Apparently, he is unaware that the same Amendment to the Constitution that protects free speech also protects his religious rights and his right to protest art that offends him.
“The abuse of liberty, in this country and . . . by these smart alecks who want to take their middle finger and put it in the face of people of faith, that has to stop too.”
He also stated:
“I also condemn the lack of restraint of people perverting their freedom by choosing the most pornographic, obscene, vulgar depictions of Muhammad for the juvenile intent of insulting them. You know, when you keep doing that, you’re going to get a response.”
The “response” in this case was the apparent attack on a satirical newspaper that killed 12 people. He asked people that wished to condemn Islam to do it with civility and decency.
Donohue was not the only public figure to put his foot in his mouth by attempting to gain political capital out of the deaths.
Nigel Farage, a Member of the European Parliament, blamed immigrants for the attacks and said that it could be blamed on a
“really rather gross policy of multiculturalism.”
This was said without poetic intent. Farage is apparently unaware that having one culture is exactly what the shooters thought was best as well.
The two talking points made by these men complement each other nicely. Don’t criticize religion and there needs to be only one culture. It sounds alarmingly like the probable talking points of the shooters. The solution to the threat of domination by one culture and one religion cannot be the domination of another culture and religion.
Before his death, Stephane Charbonnier said:
“Extremists don’t need any excuses.”
That may be true, but it seems that extremists will excuse each other when the times demand it.
Editors note: It should also be noted that the Catholic Church has sued Charlie Hebdo fourteen times.
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I am not saying the shooting is right but it was expected. If you go out of your way to piss of terrorists with guns you just might meet them.
Yeah it’s like making fun of the mob, though I doubt the mob would have such sensitive feelings lol
Are you saying that all Muslims are terrorists and killers by nature and all it takes for them to murder you is to provoke them with jokes? Did they had it coming? Is this where we have come to?
so, in other words, we should do everything they say no matter our opinion or the moral value for fear that they will retaliate?
When quoting Nigel Farage could you please at least mention that hes an Anti Europe, Anti Immigrant, Anti anything not British to the core type of “definitely not racist” guy.
The only time you should ever listen to anything he says is at the annual Britain’s Biggest Turnip Fair, and then only to do the exact opposite.
What’s sick is this article: put all the religious in the same basket and then tell the world that all the people who believe in a higher consciousness are crazy because the Vatican exist. I did not read the article, I’m starting to see the C.I.A. opinion behind all this anon bullshit. Religion wars over and over again. Won’t this ever end ? Guess we’ll have to blow up the earth for humanity to find some inner peace…
The problem is that these killings are basically the natural result of following the “teachings” to their natural conclusions.
Some people might try to clean up their faith by ignoring complete passages and commands within it in order to not act like a crazy person, like stoning people to death over nothing for example (a popular one), but the reality is that the faith itself (not necessarily the followers) asks for exactly this outcome.
How are we supposed to act at all in regards to not offending people religiously then? Are we all supposed to also remember to go to church and pray on Sundays even if we are not of the faith just to avoid being “apostates” and getting killed? Are we supposed to never take the “lord’s” name in vain or face death? Are there degrees with which we are allowed to bring humorous attention to hypocrisy amongst the papacy? Is there a level which it is acceptable to point out that the muslim faith does not allow you to have so much as a cup of coffee much less bacon? The reason why people pick on the big religions are because they’re the ones people would understand when made fun of, so if anyone thinks they’re being singled out, guess again. Not sure many people would laugh at mocking wiccans and druids as much as the most popular faith of the week.
Even if we didn’t choose to follow the faith in the first place, are we still required to learn all of their laws and obey them anyways? Keep in mind that there are literally tens of thousands of different versions of christianity alone, much less all the different faiths altogether.
The reality is that even if this magazine didn’t exist, that while it certainly pushed envelopes, it doesn’t justify the killings because mockery is just mockery. They didn’t do anything except draw ridiculous pictures and have an opinion. In reality, it could have been any other number of things to piss them off because anything that isn’t in direct obedience to the commands of the faith will earn the ire of some extremists. By definition, not obeying religious laws or rules is an “offense” against the religions “god” or whatever unless specifically stated otherwise. I’m not even talking about muslim faith here, either. All faiths have rules, and when you break those rules there are usually punishments. Generally though, it shouldn’t matter if you aren’t inside those faiths because it would really only make you a bad christian/muslim/JW/jew whatever by not obeying the rules.
Charlies imagery? It only made them the biggest and easiest to spot target, but hardly the only one out there.
Heck, there are douchebags trying to enforce Sharia “decency” laws in their own neighborhoods, where couples can’t dance, hold hands, or show ankle skin. Whether or not those neighborhoods are majority of the faith or not, those people feel the need to do that because their faith asks them to. The ridiculousness of that situation would be funny too if it didn’t basically add up to a gang of thugs roving around enforcing stupid rules that nobody outside of their faith would probably even know exists and harassing and berating them for it.
When it comes to obeying ultimate authority you can’t win in living in peace. If it wasn’t Charlie, it would have just been something else. If you notice here, Charlie didn’t fire any shots. They just drew pictures. If drawing pictures is what causes a war, then that is a pretty pathetic lot of people willing to kill and die over what amounts to ink and paper from some satirists that won’t even be remembered months from now. You know, except now they’re immortalized because of this tragedy. Yes your feelings got hurt, guys. Guess what? If it wasn’t you they made fun of it would be someone else, but you have to admit that overreacting like this repeatedly makes you a very valuable target because of all the people to mock in the world who is it going to be? The person who said that thing that one time and lied about it or the other group that seems to respond with guns and violence to the smallest “infraction” of decorum even if the “offenders” don’t observe your particular brand of faith?
Religion extremists are their own worst enemy. We don’t live in the dark ages where they can just wipe out the enemy tribe who holds an opinion they don’t like anymore. If they don’t like their opinion, they can earn a better one, or tell them to fuck off like the rest of us who might get mocked.
You know what you call a group or guy who constantly attacks what you hold dear? An asshole. You know what you call the guy who decided to murder them all for having an opinion in the first place? The bigger asshole.
I couldn’t have said it better, James! They are all assholes, but the extremists who commit murder for their beliefs are the biggest assholes of all.
Wtf is wrong with you. This did not put all religions in one basket, it put all ignorance into one basket and that just one culture can not, and should not rule the entire world. It also never states that people who believe in a higher consciousness are crazy… read the article before hating it, please, its ignorant not to.
Thats the thing people dont understand.
As a muslim, I dont believe the fact that the man was innocent(he insulted my religion), but killing him was not justified, killing the Muslim cop on the street was not justified, killing his co-workers was also not justified.
MAYBE if you somehow justify the killing, was the killing of the others justified in the least bit? The men who committed this went against the teachings of Islam, I dont know how people can call them muslims.
did you ever thought about where did those scumbags went when they died they went to god even if they was killed from the biggest bitches of the world from terrorists not from muslims because in islam the biggest prohibition of all religion is to kill without war muslims can kill only when they are threatened by life or if they are protecting there family if they are threatened by life this is how the quran says about real muslims
If we all prayed for peace, we could all live peacefully.Amen,
Thats the stupidest thing I have ever read
DannyDan1208 what is your objective of mocking an individual who expresses their wish for peace in humanity wether it be through prayer, meditation, just protest, or through inspiration to another person? Instead of attempting to stand over your fellow being how about you lift them up and positively inspire them. Your attitude is poison to the cause for peace. Open your heart to love and inspire your fellow brother.
Danny is dead on! The result they’re looking for is admirable,but the method is Stupid as can be. Prayer is what you want to appear to be doing something about a problem with out actually effecting the problem. Bullshit voo doo sky-daddies are what caused this, so bullshit voo doo sky-daddies are not(and never are) the answer. Prayer is like a rocking chair, almost no effort and gets you absolutly nowhere. Bullshit should ALLWAYS be mocked.
Si Dieu est grand, pourquoi ne se venge t-il pas lui même?Ces gens n’ont aucune confiance en leur Dieu.
“Ideas are not respectable. Beliefs are not respectable. People are respectable and should be respected.”
Yes, Charlie Hebdo was offensive, but it was making fun of certain aspects of faith, not of the faithful themselves. Furthermore it was not only targeting Islam, however only “Islam” (terrorists are not true Muslims) took violent acts against it. While I did not approve of the satirical articles published in CH, freedom of speech does not give a person the right to threaten others.
The world is responding with vigor now, but think about what this will mean for the future if these acts of terrorism aren’t stopped. If freedom of speech isn’t respected, then eventually our speech will not contain any aspects of freedom.
So by saying they provoked it, means that he said it was justified? I think what he is trying to get is that they were provoking people to do it. If you talk shit about a group, religion, race, or person expect some form of reaction whether it be someone ignoring it or to the extreme of such a tragic incidence that happened to the people whom were killed. (May they rest in peace). Yes you have freedom of speech but use it wisely.
No one is justifying the killers. But how does anyone go about justifying the preaching of hatemongoring, racism, degradation of the minority by the cartoonists saying it was just satire? What they were doing was always disgusting. And now that they are dead, I have no intention of making their works holy. It was always gross.
”Charlie Hebdo” why you abuse my religion?? I dont abuse ateist people.
Polish bro!! Who flight with me to Paris ?
DONT TOUCH RELIGION!!
Exactly, we do not allow ourselves to be offended, especially our religion. Freedom of speech should be, but the limit is: insulting personal feelings.
I am a Catholic and I do not support the killing, but Charlie Hebdo was really exaggerating.
I never liked Charlie Hebdo. I didn’t like the rudeness. I didn’t like the insults. I didn’t even like the cartoon style. I really dislike the vulgarity. My response was to ignore them (well, pretty easy since I don’t live in Paris and only knew of them from an article I read about them years ago) but I do understand the right of Charlie to print and others to read. Nothing justifies these killings, especially since the motivation seems to be to protect God. The terrorists must have a very weak, pitiful God. My Muslim next door neighbours, in contract, seem to have a very great God.
The God I believe in does not need me to defend him by committing murder. How sad it must be to have so little Faith that you believe your God is offended by people just trying to be funny, or using satire to make fun of something.
Who wants to go to a heaven where no one has a sense of humor anyway?
there is a difference between freedom of speech and hate speech. The publisher of this magazine who perished in the attack has been very disrespectful towards all religious faiths while also underestimating the danger he put himself and his staff…it is unfortunate that there are individuals living on this earth who would go this far…but this is a reality, and with the suspects dead, it does not end this reality…
It kind of sucks when the group that is filled with hate, racism, and general disrespect to something you hold dear publishes articles and images that are crude and rude to many people. People that creates stuff that offends many many people by REALLY pushing the envelope.
And yet the gunmen are now the BIGGER assholes.
That’s an accomplishment.
This is all just garbage, can you share some actually interesting stories I mean you pretend to want to change things but anonymous only puts up stories that mean nothing. You can’t sit here and say that what donohue said wasn’t true. He also in no way defends the murderers. When you poke a bear your gonna get bit no shit that’s all he said. He also said that maybe our joke of a media should show a little respect for others “cultures” or shits going to go down.
Why is everyone saying that Muslims are all terrorists and all it takes is to provoke them by ridiculing their religious beliefs? Poke a Muslims guy and if you’re a girl you just might get raped, is that what you’re saying?