Friday Morning Ramble: Don’t Cower #JeSuisCharlie

There was only one real news event this week.

Realise:

And (straight from the donkey’s mouth, i.e., the mouth of UK Imam Anjem Choudary writing in USA Today): “Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone. Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people's desires.”

The good thing, perhaps the only good thing, to come out of the executions of 12 brave men and women (apart from seeing the Catholic League realise it has more in common with their murdering co-religionists than with those they killed in cold blood, and then doubling down on that admission) is that more and more – even academics and mainstream and liberal fellow travellers – are beginning to see the sharia through the trees.  Even in the Herald.

• We must defend Charlie Hebdo's right to offend – Professor Bill Durodie, NZ HERALD
  ”Now we must reaffirm the importance of absolute freedom of expression in an open society - regardless of how offensive it might be to some and, on occasion, how puerile it may become. The solution to bad ideas - as the enlightenment philosopher John Stuart Mill noted - is not censorship but more speech with which to counter them.”
• The Charlie Hebdo killers must not silence us. We should ridicule them  - Suzanne Moore, GUARDIAN
  “Yet to talk openly, freely, is of course what the gunmen want to stop. They demand respect for their god with the barrel of a gun.
      “In response we must fight them. And we must laugh, ridicule and ultimately disrespect them. Fanatics, as Amos Oz said, don’t really do jokes. There cannot be peaceful coexistence with those who are want to return to a fantasy of the seventh century. They brook no dissent. They fear laughter. Rushdie has spoken of how religion, all religion, deserves ‘our fearless disrespect.’ Some have died for this. The least we can do is carry on being disrespectful.”
• The Blame for the Charlie Hebdo Murders  - NEW YORKER
  “The murders today in Paris are not a result of France’s failure to assimilate two generations of Muslim immigrants from its former colonies. They’re not about French military action against the Islamic State in the Middle East, or the American invasion of Iraq before that. They’re not part of some general wave of nihilistic violence in the economically depressed, socially atomized, morally hollow West—the Paris version of Newtown or Oslo. Least of all should they be ‘understood’ as reactions to disrespect for religion on the part of irresponsible cartoonists.
      “They are only the latest blows delivered by an ideology that has sought to achieve power through terror for decades.”

Not so hotso was the soft censorship in the msm of either not showing, or of pixellating #CharlieHebdo pics. Point made:

And not a single UK newspaper has dared show a single #CharlieHebdo cartoon on its front page.

So take a bow then NZ Herald. Not a #CharlieHebdo cartoon, but giving the front page over to cartoonist Rod Emmerson was a brilliant idea.

Take a bow outlets worldwide who proclaimed #JeSuisCharlie.

And take a huge bow outlets like the Berliner Kurier, who gave up their front page to Marian Kamensky’s tremendous message:

That said…

And if you’re wondering how the barbarians become so emboldened:

So go on the attack yourself, whenever necessary. The Mohammed Image Archive provides all the satirical ammunition you need – “not only a full collection of the original [2006 Danish] cartoons, but more importantly the largest collection of Mohammed imagery ever assembled in the history of the world.”

Mind you, satire is simply the canary in a very dank coal mine…

What must be said? A basic truth, opposing the reason for the West being multiculturally disarmed:

MORE COMMENTARY HERE:

“There are plenty of opponents of free speech in our midst… The majority have censored us already, the Islamofascists simply want the courtesy extended to them.”
Defending free speech when it is under attack – LIBERTY SCOTT

“It is easy to express solidarity with murdered cartoonists, but it is difficult to live as bravely as they did.”
We Are Not All Charlie – Jeffrey Goldberg, ATLANTIC

“The saga of Molly Norris, the still-hiding Seattle Times cartoonist who created #EverybodyDrawMohammedDay in 2010.”
Society for Professional Journalists: Mostly Mum on Molly Norris, and Trashing the Journalists Who Pointed That Out – Matt Welch, HIT & RUN, 2010

“Here’s what will happen next.” I hope not. But I fear so.
Charlie Hebdo Massacre: How the West Will Respond – James Delingpole, BREITBART

“It does not matter whether you agree or disagree with the particular book, cartoon or movie that they seek to silence. We must defend our unconditional right to freedom of thought and freedom of speech.
    “The totalitarians are counting on self-censorship: that their threats and attacks will leave most of us too scared to speak out and criticize their doctrines. They then have a chance of killing the few individuals brave enough to defy them.
    “We must end any hope that this strategy will prove effective.
    “In the wake of the attacks on Sony, many people rightly observed that if The Interview were put up on the Internet and made widely available, the attackers’ goal of silencing the filmmaker would be unachieved. The same goes for criticism and satire of Islamic doctrine.
    “If we now all defiantly make the content and images the jihadists wish to ban widely and permanently available across the web, the attackers will have failed. They may have taken the lives of the editor and cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, for which we grieve, but they will not have taken their freedom.
    “The alternative is to cower and stick our heads in the sand in hope that the issue goes away. But this will not end the threat. It will only make our freedom disappear.”
Onkar Ghate: Freedom of Speech: We Will Not Cower – REASON VS. FAITH

[Hat tips Derek McG, Russell W, Julian D, Trevor Loudon, David Burge, Ari Cohn, Russell Brown, Michael Jährling, Paul Perrin, JeSuisCharlie, Paul Rooney, Lachlan Markay, Adam Wagner, WikiLeaks, John Harden, Claudia Mendoza, Emanuele Ottolenghi]