“We Are All Charlie” – But Is That Story so Simple? - TopicsExpress



          

“We Are All Charlie” – But Is That Story so Simple? b4in.org/iEuj By Jan Oberg – Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research ‘U.S., NATO and EU’s agenda at the moment is – “we kill people who kill people because it is wrong to kill people” and thus we bomb IS, fight terrorist groups we have nurtured to quite an extent ourselves and move from one crisis (mis)management to the next.’ Photo: US Army soldiers in a firefight near Al Doura, Baghdad” by Sean A. Foley – Wikimedia Commons Eleven points as a reflection on the terror in Paris and – not the least – the reactions to it*: 1. What was this an attack on? Was that attack an attack on freedom of speech as such, on democracy, even on the whole Western culture and lifestyle, as was maintained throughout? Or was it, more limited, a revenge directed at one weekly magazine for what some perceive as blasphemy? 2. Is freedom of expression practised or curtailed for various reasons? How real is that freedom in the West? Just a couple of days before the Paris massacre PEN in the U.S. published a report – Global Chilling – finding that about 75% of writers report that they are influenced by the NSA listening and abstain from taking up certain subjects or perspectives? Self-censorship, in other words. Finally, most of the political leaders marching in Paris on Sunday January 11 have clamped down on media, such as Turkey and Egypt. I must admit that I have experienced limitations in the practise of that freedom in my work with Western media and it is decades ago that I drew the conclusion that things like political correctness, ownership, commercial/market considerations and journalists’ need for good relations with power – e.g. to obtain interviews – play a role. I’ve been on the ground in conflict zones and returning home to see reports so biased that tell very little of what I’ve seen myself. And we’ve recently seen lots of cases from the U.S. academic world where there’s been a clampdown on certain views, publications, courses and professors – not the least in relation to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Or, you look at the proportions between government funds available for peace research and that for military research in virtually every Western society; free research is a vital element in the self-understanding of the West. But how much of do we have? 3. Freedom doesn’t mean duty. Is freedom of expression really 100% irrespective of how much the practise of that freedom is hurtful, offending, humiliating or discriminatory against other peoples, religions and cultures? Even if you can express your opinions freely it is not always what we should do. I can still abstain from making a remark about somebody’s religious or political beliefs because I see no point in offending that person in regard to something he or she holds dear, even part of the identity. But, sure, I have the right to do so. Using a right to the maximum isn’t necessarily the wisest or most mature thing to do. I draw the distinction between issues that touch personal identity – e.g. religion, nationality, gender – and other issues. It is neither fun nor wise to make a satire about what people are. One must indeed ask in the – chilling – times we live: What happened to words such as solidarity, respect, empathy and to the values of common humanity? There can be no rights without duties as Mohandas K. Gandhi briliantly expressed it. 4. Are anti-Semitic cartoons OK now? Why is it so important to some media people and Je Suis Charlie people to accept or practise disdain, blaspheme, ridicule or depict (even naked) Muhamad when we know that that is offending at least to quite a few of the 1600 million Muslims around the world. What – constructive – purposes does it serve? Really, why is that OK when anything similar against Jews would immediately be categorized as anti-Semitism and found appalling by the same people – not the least advocates of the free press. One, after the Muhamad caricatures, shouldn’t we have learnt something – in Denmark in particular where all main dailies except Jyllands-Posten chose to publish drawings from Charlie Hebdo the day after to manifest their expression of freedom. Two, the West – spearheaded by NATO countries – is in violent conflict with many Muslim countries – on their territory, not the other way around – all these years. Much can be seen as rooted in about 100 years of colonialism, interventionism, chopping up empires – think Sykes-Picot, Balfour – and the Western press has just said less about the death of more than 2000 Palestinians than about 17 killed in Paris. 5. What is satire? More b4in.org/iEuj
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 06:38:36 +0000

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