Le MAlin 76 on 29/1/2015 at 00:43
Quote Posted by Pyrian
I imagine Charlie Hebdo would've simply found another way to insult their culture in the first place. "Death before dishonor" and insult as a deadly offense requiring redress in blood is actually a historically quite common attitude, whether the insult is religious or not.
No need religious grievances. If yes, why Stalin killed polish priests ? Communism is not religion and it's kill. Capitalism kill many poors in Asia, capitalism is not religion.
Henry the IIIrd killed Henry De Guise because he just execrable seditious against the King and the Nation of France, and he was allied of Spain, the ennemy of France since Francis Ist, and because this fool man deserved this death because of is insolence. To kill a rebel against the Nation is not religious.
Tony_Tarantula on 29/1/2015 at 00:44
Quote Posted by faetal
Tony, are you honestly wondering why they don't simultaneously kill everyone who draws Mohammed (rhetorical question, not actual straw man)? Do you think the shooters had something personal against the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo? They happened to get the shooters' attention somehow - years of drawing Mohammed will probably do the trick. This particular incident involved people who were living in France - they're not going to consult a tick list and say "well, we have to kill every last person who drew Mohammed and South Park is higher up the list, I guess we're going to have to save for plane tickets".
Without religion, why would these people have targeted Charlie Hebdo?
I'm referring to the general pattern of outrage. Keep in mind that there was huge media uproar the first time Charlie Hebdo did it, whereas the first South Park episode didn't even get mentioned aside from a few butthurt evangelical columns. The second time South Park showed Mohammed (Episodes "200" and "201") there was loud outrage and Comedy Central censored the episode. It was pretty ludicrous because anyone could just hop onto their website and see Mohammed uncensored in the original episode.
Something's changed between then and now that has resulted in extremist muslims being dramatically more outspoken and militant than they were just a decade ago, and it's not Sunni doctrine.
faetal on 29/1/2015 at 09:54
South Park has always got away with a lot. I don't think that something has changed, I just think that by way of an alignment of circumstances, Charlie Hebdo crossed paths nearly fatally with some religious extremists, whereas for whatever reason, South Park has not. Without the religious crime of "never depict the prophet", I don't think disgruntlement towards an irreverant office of cartoonists will have reached the death threat / assassination stage. Likewise, it's only religious extremists who shoot abortion doctors and firebomb clinics. I'm not saying that religion is the cause, I'm saying that it's a rationale, which unlike more earthly rationale, can be used by anyone to justify anything so long as it can be referenced or interpreted from some ancient literature. Sure there have been atheist despots and murderers, but there is no atheist doctrine which can be cherry-picked from to start killing people on ideological grounds. Unless someone has an example?
Of course there are non-religious excuses to kill as well, I'm not debating that. I'm saying that in the case of the Charlie Hebdo killings and also many previous death threats against Danish cartoonists, fire-bombing of offices etc.. were launched from a platform of extremist Muslim interpretations of Islam. It's not like they picked random people and then said "yeah, Islam made me do it", they picked targets based on an extremist interpretation of Islam. I totally agree that these are people who are probably violent and intolerant to begin with, but I think that without religion to act as a focussing lens, these people might not get to the stage where they become organised and turn their violent natures towards planned assassinations, or their acts of violence would essentially be restricted to things they personally disagree with, rather than a pretext born or religious interpretation.
faetal on 29/1/2015 at 10:06
Let me attempt an analogy:
It's kind of like cancer - you don't just get smoke in your lungs and BAM! cancer, there needs to be sequence of various cellular processes being perverted to create a cell or cluster of cells which are going to metastasise and kill the organism. In this instance, you have a background level of diplomatic unrest between cultures. This creates a toxic environment, where certain individuals who are violent, or who have been affected by some event, such as relatives being killed by accident (or on purpose if they were militants or looked the wrong way at a soldier) or homes being destroyed or whatever, which can create people who want some way to fight against something. If these people are highly religious or just easily led by others and probably with a cultural or national background which favours a certain religion, it makes sense that the something may as well be something which offends their beliefs, rather than something more mundane and mechanistic (like taking out some bankers or holding up a bank or whatever).
Now I'd suggest that in the majority of cases, since these are still people we are talking about, the simmering anger never gets past the stage or property damage, violent protesting, civil unrest, aggravated assault etc.. which are still bad, but not the same level of newsworthy. Now in some situations, you get just the right circumstances - in this case two violent, disaffected ex-convicts who have recently converted to Islam and are "moved" by the ideological unrest between Islam & The West to do "something". These guys are in France. Charlie Hebdo is in France and has a long history of offending everyone they can (though, some might argue that they took a particular focus on Islam after 9/11). What you then have is a perfect combination of events to lead to a planned assassination and eventual SBC of two violent, disenfranchised idiots who got caught up in a faction of Islamic extremism. Perhaps South Park, while being a "heavy smoker" (to favour the analogy), just hasn't seen the exact combination of events, individuals and impetus which Charlie Hebdo fell victim to.
This is speculative of course, but I'd say it bears considering. My overall point is that with violent people, you get violence, but with violent religious people, you get galvanised and focussed violence.
faetal on 29/1/2015 at 11:38
Quote Posted by Le MAlin 76
No need religious grievances. If yes, why Stalin killed polish priests ? Communism is not religion and it's kill. Capitalism kill many poors in Asia, capitalism is not religion.
Henry the IIIrd killed Henry De Guise because he just execrable seditious against the King and the Nation of France, and he was allied of Spain, the ennemy of France since Francis Ist, and because this fool man deserved this death because of is insolence. To kill a rebel against the Nation is not religious.
Communism is an ideology, but not religious, no. Capitalism doesn't target people for death, it just doesn't care if people die in a way which won't impact on profits.
As for the rest, if you're having to reach far back into history to find secular assassinations, what does that say?
Tony_Tarantula on 29/1/2015 at 14:41
Still not perfect, because your entire post is predicated on the assumption that they "got away with it" at all times.
They did not. Numerous death threats were issued against South Park and comedy central because of the second time they were going to show Mohammed, whereas nobody noticed the first time.
Quote:
As for the rest, if you're having to reach far back into history to find secular assassinations, what does that say?
That statement doesn't even make sense. If you honestly meant it then you are far too naive to be reasoned with. The overwhelming majority of assassinations are "secular" and motivated by threats to political power or money, not religious. Was that Argentine prosecutor assassinated for "religious" or "secular reasons".
Le MAlin 76 on 29/1/2015 at 23:00
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
I'm referring to the general pattern of outrage. Keep in mind that there was huge media uproar the first time Charlie Hebdo did it, whereas the first South Park episode didn't even get mentioned aside from a few butthurt evangelical columns. The second time South Park showed Mohammed (Episodes "200" and "201") there was loud outrage and Comedy Central censored the episode. It was pretty ludicrous because anyone could just hop onto their website and see Mohammed uncensored in the original episode.
Something's changed between then and now that has resulted in extremist muslims being dramatically more outspoken and militant than they were just a decade ago, and it's not Sunni doctrine.
"it's not Sunni doctrine"
If the extremist "ortodox-like" are chi'it, Al Qaida and Daesh are Sunnites.
Le MAlin 76 on 29/1/2015 at 23:04
Quote Posted by faetal
Communism is an ideology, but not religious, no. Capitalism doesn't target people for death, it just doesn't care if people die in a way which won't impact on profits.
As for the rest, if you're having to reach far back into history to find secular assassinations, what does that say?
Their are assassination in all history, in all part of societies, there are no good men or bad men just men. If the science of humans is to say who is good, who is bad, it will be no science, and we have not to judge the old societies it would be anachronistic. Many value of todays would be not understand by the men of XVIth century, and value of centuries are not understand by the men of today.
faetal on 1/2/2015 at 16:00
My point was that if your best example was literally centuries ago, you need a better example. I for example haven't reference The Crusades re religious violence as I believe it is not useful in the context of contemporary society. Tony - I've offered a fairly cogent hypothesis of why Parker and Stone haven't been assassinated. If you feel there's a flaw in my reasoning, feel free to point it out rather than split hairs with the precise wording I've used. That they've had death threats doesn't surprise me, but the difference between a threat and a plan to carry out that threat is vast. I suspect the reason no one has followed through with P&S is because there hasn't been that perfect storm of combined factors in their vicinity.
Tony_Tarantula on 2/2/2015 at 04:02
That they haven't been assassinated isn't the point.
The point is that the same people did the exact same thing (show Mohammed), but nobody even noticed at one point in time while a few years later it was the cause for a massive controversy. A lack of "the perfect storm of factors" doesn't explain that.
