Cartoons

[Deepwater6]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/08/europe/charlie-hebdo-cartoons/index.html

 

Cartoonists pay tribute to their colleagues who were hit with gunfire. Some of them I find rather poignant, including picture 33. Fascinating how just a few with fringe Muslim beliefs can put a dark cloud over the entire religion. It looks like the French people have joined together in response to this tragedy. That is no doubt an unwanted or unexpected consequence the killers were looking for I suspect.

[Buffy]

The problem is that it is an illusion. President Hollande is trying to get ahead of this and creating that feeling of cohesiveness, declaring a national day of mourning (actually 3 days). Unfortunately far-right-wing candidate Marine LePen whose party is extremely anti-immigrant has a very good chance of unseating him in the next election (think of David Duke actually having a chance at winning the presidency here in the US), and there have already been a couple of attacks on mosques in France in the last day.

 

While the cities in France are quite progressive, the countryside is quite conservative, and while Muslims are a fairly large minority in France, the vast majority are less religious than most Americans (which is to say, not very religious at all, mainly showing up at church only on Easter and Christmas), the terrorists could yet succeed in goading the conservatives into extreme reactionary legal measures that could cause that passive minority to feel threatened enough to start to sympathize with the radicals.

 

There's always hope that things will go better though, and that only happens if we advocate for it. It's important to emphasize that the goal of extremists on both ends of the spectrum to divide people by associating all members of their "enemy" with the acts of the extremists. There's already too much of that going on, and it can take a lot of effort for many to resist the urge to give in to that.

 

 

Here is a good backgrounder on Charlie Hedbo's history, and here's a video translating and explaining some of their more controversial cartoons.

 

It's of course the cartoonists that have come out in force in response to the tragedy, and here are some of the best ones collected by the Washington Post. My favorite so far has been widely attributed to Banksy, but appears to be the work of Lucille Clerc:

 

 

 

 

Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone, :phones:

Buffy

[Deepwater6]

I have read and noticed a large resurgence of right wing groups across Europe lately. Germany, Italy, Turkey, etc. So many people immigrating to different European countries to look for a better life or to escape warfare. I'm sure this massive shift of Muslims puts a strain on the countries benefits such as healthcare. This gives certain political groups a good platform to point and say "Immigrants are why our country is struggling".

 

No doubt this event will help galvanize the right wing. It surely did in the US after the 9/11 attacks. laws were passed to make it much easier for the CIA, FBI, NSA to listen in. That rubber band has retracted a bit since Snowden came forward and said what he knew. 

 

I hear a lot of criticism about the French people. Maybe some of it is deserved, but when it comes to politics good or bad they are extremely passionate. I had a college course a long long time ago, back when I had all my hair and a good memory. I can't remember most of it, but I did take out it that they have been extremely passionately about politics for a long time.