Tag Archives: Charlie Hebdo

France, Hate Speech, Islamophobia, Media

Garry Trudeau: We Are NOT All Charlie Hebdo…………

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“Garry Trudeau, the Pulitzer Prize-winning satirical cartoonist behind Doonesbury, says his fellow satirists at Charlie Hebdo “wandered into the realm of hate speech.” Trudeau made the remark during his acceptance speech of the George Polk Awards in Journalism, according to Peter Bale, the head of the Center for Public Integrity. “Free speech… becomes its own kind of fanaticism,” Trudeau also reportedly said, adding that the job of satirists is to punch up, not punch down…………”

This point of view is not new, others have expressed it during the international cacophony following the terrorist attacks in Paris. But now someone, a great one, at the top of the business of satire has spoken. Funny, it doesn’t sound like blasphemy, either.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Politics, France, Media, Saudi Arabia

Raif Badawi: Tous les dirigeants arabes sont Charlie……..

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“Saudi Arabian rights activist Raif Badawi has been publicly flogged for insulting Islam despite international outcry over the sentence handed down by a court in the conservative kingdom, Amnesty International and his wife said. The flogging Friday in Jeddah was the first of 20 such sessions imposed by a Saudi court after Badawi’s 2014 conviction. He was arrested after creating an online forum in 2008 that his wife says was meant to encourage discussion about faith……….Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, said the video was difficult to watch. “It’s a scene I cannot describe. It was horrible,” she said from Canada. “Every lash killed me……….”

Some of the Middle East potentates and dictators rode the Charlie Hebdo bandwagon. Some of them sent leaders, officials, or had mock marches in their capitals. All in support of Charlie, that is Charlie Hebdo, a magazine I occasionally browse online, a magazine they would never allow in their own countries. Solidarity with a magazine they all think should not be allowed to publish anywhere in the world. Others were more discreet about the whole affair.

They arrest journalists, writers, and common citizens who openly speak. Not “blasphemy”, just criticism of government and its oligarchs.

Now they ride the bandwagon of “freedom of the press”, as they ‘celebrate’ the defense of free speech in Paris, only in Paris. From the Persian-American Gulf to the Nile River. At the same time they arrest more people at home, and they sentence more free speakers to prison on trumped up charges, and they sentence people to internal and external exile, and they publicly flog free speakers in their countries. M. Hollande and Mr. cameron never protest such travesties. And the freedom-loving Western leaders keep arming them with the weapons needed to keep up the repression. In exchange for some nominal fee………

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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France, Hezbollah, Jihadists

Hassan Nasrallah: Je Suis Charlie Hebdo?………

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“The leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah group says Islamic extremists have insulted Islam and the Prophet Muhammad more than those who published satirical cartoons mocking the religion. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah did not directly mention the Paris attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead, but he said Islamic extremists who behead and slaughter people – a reference to the IS group’s rampages in Iraq and Syria – have done more harm to Islam than anyone else in history…………..”

Translation? Je suis Charlie Nasrallah Hebdo…………..
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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France, Jihad, Terrorism

Paris Non-Suicidal Massacre: the Aftermath……….

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The terrorists who attacked Charlie Hebdo in Paris are still on the loose. There is much speculation about the identity of the attackers, their allegiance, their particular connections. Could it be to the Salafi terrorists in Syria (and Iraq) who are loyal to the Caliphate? To West Africa and the Sahel region? France has always been active militarily in Africa. France has also recently participated in the air attacks on the Hollywood Caliphate of ISIS in Syria.
It is important that this was not a suicide attack. It was not meant to send three terrorists to the rewards and diversions of Paradise and to inspire others to follow suit. Here is what might happen back in the Middle East:

  • The governments of Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia may soon start campaigning to tie the Muslim Brotherhood to the attack.
  • British PM David Cameron, as usual, heartily agrees that this is an avenue to be explored. If only because the Saudi princes and Emirati potentates say so. All based on the principle that “money talks louder”.
  • Benyamin Netanyahu is no doubt trying to find a plausible Iranian-Hezbollah angle. (Plausibility not mandatory in this case).
  • Netanyahu will be supported by the Washington Post‘s David Ignatius, who can quote more of the usual credible Saudi and Bahraini intelligence officials than anyone else in the world.
  • Representative Louie Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) will call Obama a weakling ninny who is afraid to start a war against somebody………. anybody.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Al-Qaeda, France, Jihadis, Terrorism

Wahhabi Terrorism: Why Paris? Why Now?……..

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My first thought this morning on seeing the news was: why Paris? Why the most beautiful city in the world (it is true, not a cliché, to say that)?

During the 1980s, when I was a youngster, I used to travel occasionally to Paris on matters related to my work. I recall that several times whenever I landed at Orly or Charles De Gaulle, that would be followed by a terrorist attack. I used to, stupidly, joke that I had nothing to do with it.

Paris had several small attacks in those days, but nothing on the scale of these attacks we see nowadays. Those were the days when the Salafi Wahhabis were allies of the West in Afghanistan. Only the Russians, the Soviets, called them terrorists in those days. In the West, they were called freedom fighters. In the West, the words Mujahideen and Jihad were not dirty words yet.

Now the deed is done: the original Afghan incubator of Wahhabi terrorism is spent. It has been replaced with the Syrian (and Iraqi) incubator of Wahhabi terrorism.

Some things never change, however: petroleum fueled the Arab “Afghans” of the 1980s; petroleum fuels the terrorists of the new century. Not just financing: volunteers and weapons and, more important, a warped Salafi ideology.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

[email protected]