Sameer Rahim at Prospect points out that it’s not straightforwardly true that – as so many media outlets glibly assert – “Islam forbids depictions of the Prophet.”
Although it’s true there is a strong iconoclastic streak in the religion, there is also a significant alternative tradition of representing the Prophet in Islamic history books and devotional manuals—a tradition not especially well known in the West because Muslim clergy have often condemned or tried to suppress it. [Read more…]
Another tragedy – the Tamil writer Perumal Murugan has decided to withdraw all his books and never write again after being bullied by Hindutva groups.
A week after the police advised Tamil writer Perumal Murugan to leave his home in Namakkal following protests by caste- and Hindutva organisations against his book Madhorubagan, the author has announced that he will withdraw his entire body of work from publication and will never write again. [Read more…]
If you haven’t seen enough rebarbative assholitude enough lately, there’s always Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke. The lovely man did an interview with a lovely site called The New Emangelization – see what they did there?
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke: I think there has been a great confusion with regard to the specific vocation of men in marriage and of men in general in the Church during the past 50 years or so. It’s due to a number of factors, but the radical feminism which has assaulted the Church and society since the 1960s has left men very marginalized. [Read more…]
Tina Nguyen at Medialite reports on the photographic obliteration of women who had the temerity to be visible in the Paris march on Sunday. These brazen hussies were merely the chancellor of Germany and the mayor of Paris and the EU foreign policy chief, so what the hell did they think they were doing out there with the grown-ups?
Yesterday’s historic march across Paris included over 40 world leaders expressing solidarity for France after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, but if you read this Haredi newspaper, you’d believe that none of them were women.
The image that ran on the front page of the Israeli newspaper The Announcer edited two female world leaders out of the image, originally provided by wire service GPO: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.
A third, in a blue scarf is Anne Hidalgo, the Mayor of Paris.
You have to go to the original, which has the real photo and the faked one and a third pointing out all the traces of the photoshopping.
Here’s the YouTube video of extracts from the Charlie Hebdo press conference.
The Telegraph has clips from a press conference in which the Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Luz describes his thinking about the cover for the January 14th issue.
I invoked all the talents of the magazine, all those who were not there any more, all those were still there, I said to myself, we must do a drawing that above all makes us laugh, and not one on the emotional charge we are victims of. [Read more…]
Libération reports on Charlie Hebdo’s exile at Libération and the process of putting together the January 14 issue.
They were working in a rush in a new space and without most of their own equipment, not to mention all the emotional turmoil. There are a bunch of potential covers tacked up on the wall for consideration.
Une très bonne nouvelle, quand même : plusieurs dessins de Riss (touché dans la fusillade et hospitalisé) sont arrivés, avec un jugement esthétique en forme de diagnostic : «Ah ben, ça va, il tremble de moins en moins.»
One piece of very good news, all the same: several cartoons by Riss (wounded in the attack and hospitalized) arrived and got a verdict that was both aesthetic and medical: “Oh great, progress, he’s shaking less and less.”
BuzzFeed has another (in addition to mine, I mean, she said modestly) useful collection of which media outlet did and which did not show the new cover of Charlie Hebdo.
1. Libération: Yes.
No surprise there, since Charlie is now working out of Libération’s office using Libération’s equipment.
2. CNN: No.
3. CBS News: Yes.
4. The Guardian: Yes.
Yes but with a warning at the top. Many points deducted. [Read more…]
The Beeb showed the new Charlie Hebdo cover on the air again, on BBC News 24 –
The Charlie Hebdo effect.
I’m out of time, but want to make sure I draw your attention to this great post by Yemisi: The Charlie Hebdo tragedy: The five crowds that are getting it wrong.
Gotta go.
See
you
tomorrow.