Je Suis Charlie
Posted by: Iver van de Zand on 07 January 2015
!
The offence is caused by the attempt not by the result.
1st Attempt.
(Can you tell what it is yet?)
Is it Mr Obama's golf ball?
Think about it, think about how hypocritical the western world can be. Only when things happen close to our worlds, or in similar nearby cultural societies do we become outraged or concerned.
Who cared when Syrians were being annihilated by the first rumblings of IS, no-one, only Turkey offered some sanctuary.
Who cared in the western world at the outbreak of Ebola in western Africa. Only when infected parties reached the shores of the western world did their interest perk up.
One can go on and on .........
Completely different opinion here,AllenB,but that's just me.Nobody kill us in Euorope or western world for our different opinions(apart isis/al qaeda),we are not in Syria,Iraq,Pakistan.Tu es Charlie.
Think about it, think about how hypocritical the western world can be. Only when things happen close to our worlds, or in similar nearby cultural societies do we become outraged or concerned.
Who cared when Syrians were being annihilated by the first rumblings of IS, no-one, only Turkey offered some sanctuary.
Who cared in the western world at the outbreak of Ebola in western Africa. Only when infected parties reached the shores of the western world did their interest perk up.
One can go on and on .........
Completely different opinion here,AllenB,but that's just me.Nobody kill us in Euorope or western world for our different opinions(apart isis/al qaeda),we are not in Syria,Iraq,Pakistan.Tu es Charlie.
No. Here they put you to sleep without TVs around and without ak47s......
Think about it, think about how hypocritical the western world can be. Only when things happen close to our worlds, or in similar nearby cultural societies do we become outraged or concerned.
Who cared when Syrians were being annihilated by the first rumblings of IS, no-one, only Turkey offered some sanctuary.
Who cared in the western world at the outbreak of Ebola in western Africa. Only when infected parties reached the shores of the western world did their interest perk up.
One can go on and on .........
Whataboutery.
Also, on the Ebola outbreak, you're just not telling the truth - although the WHO (a UN agency, not exclusively Western) was inexcusably slow off the mark, not arriving until September last year (the outbreak began in December 2013) Western aid agencies such as MSF were there weeks after the outbreak.
Extreme poverty, poor communications and transport infrastructure, remoteness, a mistrust of government officials after years of warfare, mistrust of Westerners, banditry, poor hygiene, ingrained ignorance all play their part in making getting out to West Africa, and treating the outbreak, difficult.
There are hundreds of dedicated and brave Western people out there fighting this outbreak, often at considerable risk, and your post is both ill-informed and a calumny on their efforts.
+1
AllenB, 'tis you who is ill-informed
Excusery (if there is such a word)
There isn't. But then you do seem to be quite good at making stuff up.
Unconfident Christians often have the same lack of perspective.
Indeed they do, but generally they don't go around murdering people.
Unconfident Christians often have the same lack of perspective.
Indeed they do, but generally they don't go around murdering people.
Not generally - but occasionally.
Northern Ireland, abortion clinic workers, killing of Sikhs in USA and the KKK. Not to mention christians in Africa and India (and ....).
Not generally - but occasionally.
Northern Ireland, abortion clinic workers, killing of Sikhs in USA and the KKK. Not to mention christians in Africa and India (and ....).
Well indeed.
But in the past 35 years or so all of those added together have absolutely paled in comparison with the number of people killed by Islamist extremists. Almost 3,000 this month alone, in Nigeria, Pakistan, France, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, etc etc.
Islamist extremism is the most vile and dangerous ideology since Nazism: even the KKK (with fewer than 8,000 members worldwide) can't come close, and certainly do not pose an existential threat to the world as the Islamist franchises DAESH, Al Shabaab, AQ, Boko Haram, Jamaat-e-Islami, Taliban etc do.
I do hope you are not surrendering to the egregious narratives of whataboutery...
Unfortunately it is is impossible to stop those who want to kill or commit other acts of terror from pinning their colours to a religious mast.
What is important is that the leadership of a religion which is hijacked in this way should state their support for or condemnation of the actions of these terroists
ATB from George
Unfortunately it is is impossible to stop those who want to kill or commit other acts of terror from pinning their colours to a religious mast.
What is important is that the leadership of a religion which is hijacked in this way should state their support for or opposition towards the actions of these terroists
ATB from George
Trouble is George, there isn't really a central authority in Islam (apart from the Koran and the Hadiths) in the way that, say, the Catholic Church has the Pope or the Anglicans the AoC.
Nor is Islam monolithic or united, with hugely different interpretations around the world (North Africa, Iran, West Africa, South East Asia, Pakistan, Xinjiang, the Caucasus, Kurdistan, Central Asia, Turkey, Arabia, etc). The branch that gives us most grief is the Wahabbism (sometimes called Salafism), the fundamentalist sect of the Saudis and Qatar. Interestingly, the Shi'ism of Iran, which was the big bogeyman in the 1980s, is probably as opposed to Salafism as most in the West.
Those who have to speak out are the ordinary law-abiding Muslim man in the street, but at present, most seem unwilling to do so (ironically he or she is the person most at risk from the militants).
Dear Kevin,
Islam as a whole is certainly not unified, and would have a particular problem without an equivalent of the Pope for example in condemning the actions of terrorists.
We are living in troubling times for sure. I do not have a solution, but it is certainly true that freedom of expression is just as important as allowing freedom of religious association, and preventing persecution on a religious basis. Persecution is an abomination in any of its forms in my opinion, and terrible where ever it happens.
Justice and due process should apply equally for all citizens without discrimination, and in the West we must guard against either loosing sight of freedom of expression or allowing discrimination and persecution. These are cultural benchmarks that have been hard earned, and in my opinion we should defend them ...
ATB from George
Dear Allen,
I am not sure that I have understood your point about Islam.
Are you saying that the very people with the authority to condemn terrorism - the clerics - are the very ones behind support for terroristic activities?
If so then the normal and peaceful Muslin has just as big a problem as the rest of the non-Muslim World. Too horrible to contemplate ...
But as I suggest, I may have failed to grasp your point.
ATB from George
If representatives of any organisation set themselves up by stating no-one else is allowed to disagree with or laugh at their mission statements or beliefs (whether those beliefs involve a godhead figure, mass murder or the desire to see the end of those who don't share their beliefs), then they deserve to get others laughing at them and their beliefs if those others choose to do so.
Especially if the chief object of their belief does not exist.
Seems to me that if, perhaps, we didn't have any religions at all then maybe we wouldn't have all this trouble.
Well, maybe just less trouble...
steve
It is s form of tribalism. If one were to somehow magically remove religion, then extremist gangster terrorists would find some other credo. Marxism, or whatever else. Unfortunately we live in a World where psychopathic types have the technology to wreak far more damage than before, and they often like to link their activities to some sort of man-made belief system ....
Banning religion is neither possible, nor would it remove the psychopathic element.
In Europe [in particular] we have reached a point where most people are secular rather than religious, but that does not alter the fact that we still have psychopaths drawn from this secular population, who do [and historically have done] the most terrible things.
ATB from George
Dear Allen,
If Islam is becoming more radical, it is certainly time to take every precaution - with regard to justice, due process, and the security of the rest of society - concerning the violent radical element.
Other than that I doubt anything will stop the trend for centuries, if the human race has that long in any case. Look at Christianity in the Crusader times. It took a long time to calm down and become tolerant ... It is going to be a very long haul at best.
ATB from George
Look at Christianity in the Crusader times. It took a long time to calm down and become tolerant ...
They're still working on it George. Aim is not clear really......
Tony Blair and George Bush have something to answer for with the Second Iraq War really. And yet the results of this will affect those who opposed such adventurism as much and probably even more than those who brought it about.
We need to be very much more probing of those we elect to govern to avoid such things happening again.
Troubled times indeed.
ATB from George
Is that Borat?
Dear Allen,
I am not sure that any of the main potential Prime Ministers have the vision to see this. The 2015 General Election in the UK is voters' poisoned chalice in my view. They get in and say they have a mandate ... for madness. The present ruling class is without vision, or great statesmanship, without exception.
The trouble is that we have a ruling class from which are drawn all the people who are on the voting card. Career politicians, who never did a day's real work in their lives before setting them selves up as electable above us mere voters make me sick. Show me one mainstream political who is any use?
I think that we have a responsibility to vote, but then perhaps not. It legitimises things we would never agree with. Often an un-stated agenda, unfortunately.
ATB from George
PS: Perhaps if voting mattered, they would never let us do it!
Dear Allen,
To lift your spirits a bit, I work with a guy [whom I dislike very much, and he knows it, but we rub along for the sake of ease] who farts for China, and Britain together. I regularly point out his contribution to climate change, because he does not refrain from fart-inducing foodstuffs. He is also massively obese. He is proud of his disgusting efforts.
I don't think we should fall out over politics. Then they have us by the 'nads.
Divide and rule and all that!
ATB from George
Go well, Allen. Time for the wooden hill for me!
ATB from George
And it's so damn nice to know that the 7.62s that fly over my head have probably been sold as stock by an English or Belgian based company that pay the less in taxes due to some "friendly pact" with some dirty minded elected rats that tell me that we're starving because of those talibans. Talibans that never gave a damn about me till the moment somebody went on tv calling them "untermenschen" due to some no better defined cultural superiority. Till the day some piece of crap took down world trade center buildings with explosives and sending a ground/ground missile on pentagon.
Want to know what i think?
I feel far more respect for those Chechen fighters that without food and sleep BARE HANDS destroyed about 200 russian christian tanks in only one day than the respect somebody say i should feel for people that spent life making fun about something they don't know.
I am Ahmed. The muslim policeman killed like an animal on a dirty street protecting people that earn their food, rent and women making fun of what me and mine family and ancestors are.
You think you clean?