Paris maintenant

The BBC reports on the massive Paris march today.

More than 40 world leaders joined the start of the march, linking arms in an act of solidarity.

“Paris is the capital of the world today,” French leader Francois Hollande said. “The whole country will rise up.”

The marchers hope to demonstrate unity after the attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, police officers, and a kosher supermarket.

The rally, led by relatives of the victims of last week’s attacks, began at the Place de la Republique. It is thought that more than a million people are taking part.

[Read more…]

What happened in Baga

Amnesty International says, not surprisingly, that the attack on Baga may be Boko Haram’s worst massacre so far.

“The attack on Baga and surrounding towns, looks as if it could be Boko Haram’s deadliest act in a catalogue of increasingly heinous attacks carried out by the group. If reports that the town was largely razed to the ground and that hundreds or even as many as two thousand civilians were killed are true, this marks a disturbing and bloody escalation of Boko Haram’s ongoing onslaught against the civilian population,” said Daniel Eyre, Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International.

[Read more…]

Guest post: The kind of thinking that contributes to the vicious cycle of marginalization

Originally a comment by artymorty on A French style of anarchic left-wing social commentary.

There’s so much confusion and disagreement among liberals about whether CH’s cartoons are punching up (lampooning religious authority) or punching down (needlessly mocking an already marginalized group of people).

Many Muslims are marginalized in France, but Islamists and conservative Muslim leaders are not powerless. Quite the opposite: they derive a great deal of power by claiming to speak for Muslims as a whole, and they’re actively working to enrich their power by undermining secular values in the West. [Read more…]

A more precise characterization of Charlie Hebdo

From a comment by sff9 on A French style of anarchic left-wing social commentary:

It’s really not that complicated, CH’s staff are left-libertarians who enjoy over-the-top childish humor and practice hipster racism/sexism a lot. They fought racism by reproducing racist tropes with the intent of mocking them. All the sympathy that I had for Charb, Cabu, Tignous, and Wolinski, whose cartoons and comics I read or have read for years, does not change the fact that in a lot of ways CH’s spirit was akin to 4chan’s. [Read more…]

C’est tout

Via Twitter –

Frances Townsend ‏@FranTownsend 1 hour ago
“My brother was a Muslim…killed by people who pretend to be Muslims. they are terrorists, that’s it” #JeSuisCharlie pic.twitter.com/tt0eOt3uZ7

Embedded image permalink

That’s Malek Merabet, whose brother was Ahmed Merabet, who was shot in the head by one of the Kouatchi brothers as he lay wounded on the sidewalk.

Marchons

The BBC reports that some 700,000 people have taken part in marches across France to support free speech and Charlie Hebdo.

During the marches, some protesters held banners that read “I am against racism”, “unity”, or “I am Charlie” – the latter a reference to Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine whose Paris offices were attacked by brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi on Wednesday.

See there? Against racism and for Charlie – that wouldn’t work if Charlie were itself racist. [Read more…]

A French style of anarchic left-wing social commentary

Facebook decided to ruin my mood by showing me posts by people I like ranting about the racism of Charlie Hebdo, as if it were self-evident and universally acknowledged. The idea is that Muslims are a marginalized group, therefore CH is racist.

O really? Then why did so many French Muslim groups immediately denounce the massacre?

The Grand Mosque of Paris, one of the largest in France, issued a statement on its website shortly after the attacks, saying its community was “shocked” and “horrified” by the violence.

We strongly condemn these kind of acts and we expect the authorities to take the most appropriate measures. Our community is stunned by what just happened. It’s a whole section of our democracy that is seriously affected. This is a deafening declaration of war. Times have changed, and we are now entering a new era of confrontation.

[Read more…]