La Plume de Ma Taunt

 

 

The BBC has been repeatedly inviting the same guests onto its programmes….notably ones who voice opinions that are diametrically opposed to the narrative that supports ‘Charlie Hebdo’ and free expression.

Naturally any such dissenting voices should be heard…but what if they are making claims that are just plain wrong and are doing so in an attempt to possibly justify the killing of the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo?

Their narrative should at least be challenged.  But it never is, in fact, it is nodded along to by BBC types who have the same feelings and frequently, if more subtly,  express them themselves…ala Tim Wilcox.

Nabila Ramdani seems to be an ever present goto voice for the BBC….shouting of the racism and Islamophobia of Charlie Hebdo whilst demanding respect for Islam and freedom of religion….another popular Muslim to haunt the BBC corridors is Myriam Francois-Cerrah who writes at the New Statesman.  She can, without thinking, rattle off the mantra about Muslims being marginalised, disenfranchised, victims of racism and the ‘multiple levels of aleination that foster terror’.   She is an apologist for terror….unemployed or alienated by cartoons of your Prophet then kill someone seems to be her thinking.   It’s the same line peddled by so many BBC reporters though.

She even claimed that ‘I am Charlie’ is alienating Muslims as they cannot, will not, adopt that theme of defending free speech and expressing outrage that cartoonists should be killed for a drawing.

She uttered these ‘truths’ in a BBC interview (12:25)..naturally the interviewer, Peter Allen, didn’t object…in fact he fed her the lines himself.

She, like Mehdi Hasan, is a fan of the alternative hashtag #JeSuisAhmed in this tweet which  subtly cheers the terrorists actions:

Writer and activist Dyab Abou Jahjah initiated #JeSuisAhmed with:

I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so. #JesuisAhmed

— Dyab Abou Jahjah (@Aboujahjah) January 8, 2015

Just so we know…Dyab Abou Jahjah…Muslim activist and opponent of ‘integration’ who stated after 9/11:

“Most of us … felt that day something that can not be described as joy, or as happiness, but rather as that sweet revenge feeling. We all had – except that small minority- a “what goes around comes around’” attitude”

Any chance he still feels like that?…despite now claiming he doesn’t.

There are of course many others who like to portray Charlie Hebdo as racist or Islamophobic….by doing so they are trying to demonise the publication…and in doing so reduce the outrage at the killings…the cartoonists were racist and Islamophobic so perhaps, in a way, they got what was coming.

Another proponent of the lie that Charlie Hebdo was racist is Glenn Greenwald, once of the Guardian.

Some of the cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo were not just offensive but bigoted, such as the one mocking the African sex slaves of Boko Haram as welfare queens

Greenwald then goes on to publish several cartoons that for some reason are mostly anti-Semitic….a curious choice…is he suggesting that all this fuss about a few cartoonists is orchestrated by the Jewish Lobby?

Here comparing Israel to ISIS…whereas the closest comparison might be the mass murderers and religious fanatics of Hamas…..

The problem is of course that Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons were based upon genuine concerns about Islam, and other issues, but many cartoons about Israel are usually based purely upon racial stereotypes and intended to be nothing else but insulting rather than some satirical comment.

Greenwald includes a joke about the Holocaust:

…but the two subjects are entirely different…the Holocaust was the mass extermination of 6 million people…joke about that if you want…but satirical comment about an ideology is just  critical comment on the tenets of an ideology in a humorous form.  The fact that millions of people like that ideology is neither here nor there, millions followed Hitler and his creed….should we not make jokes about Nazism?

Curiously Greenwald also fails to make his point because the cartoons he has chosen could all be justified in the usual cut and thrust of the very nasty world of real politik….to suggest a ‘Jewish Lobby’ is controlling US policy may be wrong in reality but there is an obvious suspicion for many that it might be true…and therefore I see no problem in making a satirical cartoon raising that possibility.

Just suggesting that there is a ‘Jewish Lobby’ is not anti-Semitic because of course there are Jewish groups who lobby on behalf of Jewish interests…just as the MCB is a Muslim lobby group…or any Union you might choose to name etc etc.

This cartoon is the only one that might give one serious pause for thought…it is a rag bag of mixed images intended to protray the Jews as the killers of Christ (an old anti-Semitic trope) as well as siphoning off money from the corpse of America which has been crucfied by the Jews:

 

 

So all the old anti-Semitic stereotypes there, the killers of Christ, the money grabbing Jews and the new one of course…that of America being the victim of the Jews.

Note though that little cartoon in the corner of Judas, the betrayer, and in a way the ultimate killer of Christ, hanging from a tree with the words…‘What Judas ought to do’.

A clear message that the untrustworthy Jews should die for the ‘wrongs’ they commit.

Not satire but pure hatred and an incitement to violence.

 

But what of those claims about racism in Charlie Hebdo mentioned at the start of this post?

Greenwald doesn’t like this cartoon….

The caption reads…

“BOKO HARAM’S SEX SLAVES ARE ANGRY
DON’T TOUCH OUR BENEFITS!”

 

Greenwald has no idea what the cartoon is about, he just supposes it is racist and mocking the unfortunate girls captured by Boko Haram because they are black….they are drawn black because…em…they are black….it’s not racism to draw them that way.   He has no idea of, or concern for, the context of the cartoon….

This cartoon was published at the time of two news events:

1.  Following the kidnapping of school-girls by Boko Haram, it was reported that many of the victims were likely to end up as sex slaves in Nigeria.

2.  A proposed policy in France to decrease welfare allocation (benefits).

 

It is a cartoon that tries to highlight the absurd nature of the claims for welfare made by ‘welfare queens’ in France who make a living by claiming large amounts for their ever growing numbers of offspring. The cartoon uses the completely absurd comparison of the sex slaves claiming welfare to highlight the ridiculous nature of many welfare claims in France….ridiculous to suggest that women in the position of the  sex slaves would claim welfare…and ridiculous for many of these ‘welfare queens’ to do so.

 

Another favourite cartoon of the pro-Islamist lobby  that apparently demonstrates Charlie Hebdo’s ‘racism’ is this one….

The cartoon was published after a National Front politician Facebook-shared a photoshop of Justice Taubira, drawn as a monkey, and then said on French television the she should be “in a tree swinging from the branches rather than in government”:

 

 

The title is “RACIST BLUE UNION”

The cartoon is styled as a political poster, calling on all far-right “Marine” racists to unify, under this racist imagery they have chosen. Ultimately, the cartoon is criticising the far-right’s appeal to racism to gain supporters.

The cartoon was drawn by Charb. He participated in anti-racism activities, and notably illustrated the poster for MRAP (Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples), an anti-racist NGO.

He was a Communist, and his girlfriend’s parents were North African. A funny kind of racist.

 

The cartoon is literally saying the National Front are racists.

 

Here is Charlie Hebdo’s cartoon of Marine Le Pen:

 

It is a satirical and no doubt sceptical comment on Le Pen claiming to be deradicalisng the NF…by shaving the Hitler moustache.

So from the explanations and context of the cartoons it is clear Charlie Hebdo was not racist…the opposite in fact.  Greenwald, and the rest, have no idea, and aren’t too bothered with the truth, of  what the cartoons really mean.

They want to demonise Charlie Hebdo in order to lessen the horrendous impact the killings have had on people’s perceptions of Islam and its followers.

They have taken the shamelessly lazy and dishonest path of attacking and blaming the victim rather than dealing with the real issue…the attempts, violent and non-violent to spread Islam across Europe.

 

 

One last cartoon says so much about the true message from Charlie Hebdo regarding Islam:

The title is:

“Muhammad overwhelmed by the fundamentalists
[in speech bubble] It’s tough being loved by idiots”

 

Is that insulting Muhammed or questioning those who claim to be his followers and their extremist message?

Shame the BBC just accepts the word of people like Greenwald, Ramdani and Francois-Cerrah without any questions….their narrative is somewhat dangerous in that it gives the suggestion that violence is acceptable for anything you might find the slightest bit objectionable.