Charlie Hebdo - How Did We End Up Here?

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For a week now, experts of all kinds have been trying to understand the reasons for the attacks in Brussels. An incompetent police force? Unbridled multiculturalism? Youth unemployment? Uninhibited Islamism? The causes are numerous beyond counting and everyone will naturally choose the one that suits best their own convictions. Law and Order fans will denounce the haplessness of the police. Xenophobes will blame immigration. Sociologists will rehash the evils of colonialism. Urban-planners will point to the evils of ghettoisation. Take your pick. ...

https://charliehebdo.fr/en/edito/how-did-we-end-up-here/

Too long to fully quote, but short enough for a quick read. Hebdo's response to Brussels.
 
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It's kind of a tabloid column but with better vocabulary, isn't it? An opinion piece dressed up as something different.
 
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What do you think about it?

Talking broadly ... stifling debate is intellectual cancer and leads to many problems with discontent and bad governance

University and college campuses in the UK/US should be close to heaven on earth, after all often speech is highly policed and no offence is given. The reality is though that where free debate is not allowed, and people are not properly challenged, bad ideas flourish.
 
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Caporegime
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I don't really know to be honest. With the information I have available to me I am aware that Islam has issues that other religions just don't seem to have regarding (often) violent reaction to perceived offence. I don't really come away from the CH article feeling like I know any more than I did before hand.

If we take the articles premise as truth for a moment which from what I can tell is essentially that the problem is Islam itself, even if individual members of the faith don't realise it, then it seems pointless to look for any resolutions to the problems to come from within Islam. Regarding the university point, I agree. Anything should be up for discussion, and ideas should be challenged rather than shot down. If a faith cannot handle scrutiny then that's not the fault of the people discussing it.
 
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Most of it came to a boil with 9/11. The hit back against that caused the invasion of Afghanastan and Iraq, the Arab spring and the destabilisation of the Middle East.

It was a perfect platform to do so, Iraq have lived through wars, dictators, repression, invasions and now civiil war to top it off. It's hardly suprising an extreme group like ISIS would be borne from it.

Bin Laden got what he wanted in a lot of ways.
 
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Well I'd hope anyone who listened to such a person still knows that nothing is off limits for criticism. If they refuse to criticism Islam due to the speech of one man then they have other issues with themselves. Nothing is above intelligent criticism.

Although who gave him "this job"? :D This part that struck me as odd.

How long before this thread goes exactly the same way as others.
 
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Nothing is above intelligent criticism.

One of the brakes on free debate is not really whether a criticism is intelligent or not(and I don't actually think intelligence has to be a key feature), but whether it is considered offensive or socially unacceptable - who has the right to decide how offensive something is and whether it should be allowed to be voiced? Who polices the political police?
 
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I don't really know to be honest. With the information I have available to me I am aware that Islam has issues that other religions just don't seem to have regarding (often) violent reaction to perceived offence. I don't really come away from the CH article feeling like I know any more than I did before hand.

If we take the articles premise as truth for a moment which from what I can tell is essentially that the problem is Islam itself, even if individual members of the faith don't realise it, then it seems pointless to look for any resolutions to the problems to come from within Islam. Regarding the university point, I agree. Anything should be up for discussion, and ideas should be challenged rather than shot down. If a faith cannot handle scrutiny then that's not the fault of the people discussing it.

Yet the article seems to indicate inviting a scholar on islam to talk about islam to a load of political science students is bad. Why is it bad to hear all sides of the story? Why is the article saying this will cause all these people to go away and never criticise islam?

It seems to me the writer of the article is indicating that people shouldn't be able to express their positive opinion on and/or educate people about islam and cultures surrounding it, and that these students are that easy to essentially brainwash that one lecture will stop them saying anything critical about islam for the rest of their lives.

For all we know this is one of a series of lectures designed to give education about all areas of modern politics and political issues.
 
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I don't agree with some of the points in it but don't know about the others yet - I don't agree with any of it at this point.

He makes the point of the bakery and burqa. If you don't like the bakery - don't go there - the bakery has any right to do as they please as long as it doesn't remove or infringe on peoples rights (not selling them pork is not one of them). The dislike of burqas is natural as I think they dominate areas with large black objects - doesn't matters that there's a person under there. This doesn't mean you can tell someone not to wear what they wish.

What is the crux of all this in my opinion is of two opinions of 'freedom' and the 'freedom' we want to share in the west. Do we want freedom for ourselves only? As in only the people who happen to 'own' a piece of land because of fortunate birth place etc get to choose what happens there or do you go for true freedom where anyone can walk anywhere freely? You may say 'well we wouldn't get that in their country' but that is a bit petty - you have to start somewhere.
 
Soldato
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I don't agree with some of the points in it but don't know about the others yet - I don't agree with any of it at this point.

He makes the point of the bakery and burqa. If you don't like the bakery - don't go there - the bakery has any right to do as they please as long as it doesn't remove or infringe on peoples rights (not selling them pork is not one of them). The dislike of burqas is natural as I think they dominate areas with large black objects - doesn't matters that there's a person under there. This doesn't mean you can tell someone not to wear what they wish.

What is the crux of all this in my opinion is of two opinions of 'freedom' and the 'freedom' we want to share in the west. Do we want freedom for ourselves only? As in only the people who happen to 'own' a piece of land because of fortunate birth place etc get to choose what happens there or do you go for true freedom where anyone can walk anywhere freely? You may say 'well we wouldn't get that in their country' but that is a bit petty - you have to start somewhere.

Man, in GD when these threads pop up, the following definition of freedom is often implicit: 'Freedom is whatever the heck I like to do and say, and if it does or incites harm -- good, because I'm special and I don't like the target for whatever [insert tinfoil] reason.' Or as Russians aptly put it: 'For my friends -- everything; for my enemies -- the law.' Hence the frequent confusion.

As for the article itself, it basically plays right into the hands of those who use terrorism as a political tool. What good has creating a moral panic ever done? By going down that route you only lose freedoms, and empower the enemies of the western liberal democratic tradition. That's just my 2p.
 
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