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If it's true that it was 'Al Qaeda' affiliates who conducted the massacre of journalists and Jews in Paris, then we really have reached the end of days.
After all, this isn't a powerful global organisation. It isn't even the type of concentrated hub that could have pulled off something like 9/11. And yet, they've achieved not only a seminal atrocity, but also the bleakly, darkly comical result of sending Europeans scattering to defend crudely drawn images of goat-fucking imams and "sex jihadists" as the very pinnacle of European values, the apex of free expression. And look who's gloating behind the rictus mask of official solemnity. The ranks of hypocrites, murderers and war criminals never looked so serried as during Je Suis Charlie. Give them a pile of bodies, and they're in their element.
As is often the case at moments like this, this has triggered a fatuous discussion of the limits and ends of satire. Does satire have responsibilities? Would we allow this in other countries? What about the French context? Is offence really a good justification for suppression? Is one man's cartoonist another man's toilet wall defacer? And if we criticise cartoons about Muslims and Islam, doesn't this give cover to religious obscurantists and Islamists and clerics who wield power in 'their communities'? I am baffled by all of this.
full: http://www.leninology.co.uk/2015/01/satire.html _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
