This, from Robert McLiam Wilson, is really excellent. You need to know who he is.
And people should read the whole of this article too. It's in English.
I’m the Irish guy who writes for Charlie Hebdo. I’m conscious that this sounds like the beginning of a joke. Frankly, it’s beginning to feel a little like that too.And he continues,
Much of this anti-Charlie prissiness comes from how the magazine has been typified in the Anglo press. ie, idiotically for the most part. An infinity of pundits have made blithe diagnoses of general knavishness while not speaking any French at all.Quite.
This bears repeating. No. French. At. All. The point about language is absolutely crucial. Indeed, it may well be the only real point. It is so preposterous that it makes my head spin. How can you make any sensible judgement about Charlie if you cannot read it?
And people should read the whole of this article too. It's in English.
8 comments:
Well I read the whole article and I couldn't find the bit where the guy acknowledges that many of Charlie Hebdo's detractors don't just speak French, they are French. Nor could I find the bit where he acknowledges that a great many of Charlie Hebdo's supporters probably don't speak French.
Still if you say the article is excellent it couldn't possibly have just amounted to a crass generalisation based on the author's ludicrous presumption, could it?
By the way, you might find Tony Greenstein's take on the Charlie Hebdo affair calming: http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/je-suis-charlie.html
A bit of a change from the red-baiting stereotypes...
Here
Oh look, a non sequitur. Quelle surprise!
The problem with dealing with trolls such as levi9909 is that no weight of evidence will shift their opinions; or, in this case, rancid prejudices.
Two video testaments from straight up ant-racists following this post will require levi9909 to disappear as in a collision of matter with anti-matter should he be unwise enough to view them.
Thank you Peter.
I wasn't trolling and I didn't express a prejudice, rancid or otherwise. I merely pointed out that there are many Charlie Hebdo detractors who speak French. The article Peter praised as excellent claimed that "An infinity of pundits have made blithe diagnoses of general knavishness while not speaking any French at all."
Peter's response to me was not to present "evidence" but to offer a non sequitur in that the French speaking chap in his video claimed Charlie Hebdo was anti-racist. But I didn't say anything about whether or not Charlie Hebdo is racist and I didn't say that it had no French speaking supporters. Obviously it did.
Both you and Peter have behaved more like trolls than I have. In your case, Anton, it may be that you lack comprehension skills but Peter often promotes adult literacy. A lack of integrity seems to be the problem here.
Neither of the clips Peter provided justified your response which was essentially a claim that Peter was misrepresenting the views of the speakers; or, that he was deliberately falsifying the inferences of their words.
You clearly do not believe either of the speakers (whose knowledge of French racism is, I suggest greater than yours, Peter's or my own) nor the clear inference of their spoken words. In short they are stooges in your eyes, motivated by a false narrative regarding Charlie Hebdo, one you have sniffed out. What is far more interesting than slandering the living whilst dishonouring the dead, is why you might wish this distortion of fact in plain sight to be true.
Greenstein's post is OK, this is spot on: "the criticism of religion is a fundamental right of any free society". (I think he is absolutely wrong to call Al Qaeda and ISIS the product of US foreign policy though).
But I bet he isn't in the SWP or Respect or any other of those unlovely organisations that have been flooding the internet with accusations of racism. Nor would he be part of part of the smug liberal left who blanch at anything that might be labelled "islamophobic", the worst sin of polite liberals. Nor would he have much truck with someone who I know who, in the wake of the murders, put up as his Facebook status "Je suis Jim Davidson." This is not red-baiting it is a recognition of reality. Greenstein is in a minority along with groups like the AWL. Racism is very much the point as it has been the tool of deligitimisation of CH by the apologist left, liberals and Islamists. It is a viral campaign to blame the victims. My, how they would blanch at his line, "the fascist trash who carried out these murders deserve to be shot like the rats they were".
The point is that virtually none of those arseholes would have read CH or even have been able to read it. The French know where CH stands, but that does not stop French Islamist sympathisers trying to spread the same shite. (Of course it is much harder in France compared to here where people don't have the knowledge of language or politics). Hence it is very relevant to point to the head of SOS Racisme, the foremost anti-racist organisation in France, taking them apart.
And non-French speaking sympathisers did at least do some bloody research on the iconography. The general point that if you want to criticise something at least read the fucking thing first, read it properly and in context, because if you just rely on cherry picking by people trying to manipulate your opinions it will go horribly wrong. And if you can't, look at credible secondary sources. That is what the article is saying.
And please note that this happens in spades in academic areas where second-hand tosh is repeated over and over again. It irritates me and I am irritated - ça suffit!!
Anton, I see what's happened here. You are commenting on the wrong post and therefore you really haven't understood what I said about either the article that Peter said was excellent (http://fatmanonakeyboard.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/the-obvious.html) or Peter's response to my comment or my response to his response.
You seem to think I was commenting on the videos in this post: http://fatmanonakeyboard.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/other-voices.html
I wasn't.
As it happens I have no opinion on Charlie Hebdo magazine itself. I was merely stating the objective fact that there are French speakers among its detractors and among its supporters.
You have either been blinded by your own rancid prejudice or you are sitting too close to your screen.
Just to recap:
Peter linked to an article claiming that no-one accusing Charlie Hebdo of racism speaks French. I said that that was clearly not the case. Peter linked to a person speaking in French in favour of Charlie Hebdo. I pointed out that that was a non sequitur. I did this because someone praising Charlie Hebdo in French does not prove that none of Charlie Hebdo's detractors can speak French.
You then came along and started ranting about me being a rancidly prejudiced troll without yourself connecting even tangentially with anything I actually said.
Peter, I'm glad you like Tony Greenstein's post but I'm not sure he'd like being bracketed with the AWL.
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