Grindy, I have absolutely no idea what you're asking. So one guy doesn't salute: what does that prove and what does that have to do with this discussion?

I see we're back to generalizing again. Can't we stick to the specifics since it's an extremely unique set of circumstances that led up to what happened?

ON A SIDE NOTE: This is probably the most serious thread I've seen since I joined here and although there's been discourse, everyone's being civil and not resorting to personal attacks or name calling.

Nice! :clap:

He is demonstratively and openly doing something that opposes violent extremists, risking his own well-being and the well-being of his family and friends.
This photo is pretty famous and many people consider him some kind of hero.

Your analogy is flawed. Bullying or threatening people who disagree with you isn't like putting a "beware of dog" sign in your yard. It's more like putting that same sign on a public sidewalk, and then harassing people who pass by (people who have every right to use that sidewalk). People have a right to speak their minds, and compromising that right is a very slippery slope.

Kowtowing to murderers and bullies never works out well. History has proven this sentiment time and again, but people never learn. All it does is make temporary peace, all while making the bullies even stronger for when violence inevitably breaks out.

It's because most of the usual name callers either haven't entered into the thread yet or they've been banned in the last six months ;)

............ or maybe the simpleton just forgot to salute, now and again some sheep forget to follow,

Trollheart's analogy might not be perfect here, BUT I agree with his use of common sense in these circumstances and it's something that society needs to use more of. Everybody knows that freedom of speech and liberty of actions within reason are acceptable in our society, but now and again restraint needs to be used, some people are aware of when to but others aren't and that's where the problem often is. For example the Police serve as a good example, as they often remove a person/persons in the interest of 'public order' regardless of who's at fault. In the example of the incident that's being discussed here, it's the product of a society that encourages free-speech in most aspects and we have a magazine that excelled in this, sadly they've paid the price for this, when a bit of initial common sense may have saved some lives here.

But these people wouldn't be bullying if the West weren't in the Middle East, as they would have no reason to. Using the historical context of expansionist bullies and dictators is not a good example here, as the subjugation of the west is not being sought by these extremists, so the "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" idiom is not really suitable here.

Seems highly unlikely, but we are not debating this guy, but risky gestures of defiance in general, so we may still assume for the sake of argument, that it was one.

Here are my thoughts:

This was an event that, yes, was really really awful. Others have expressed that here, and so I don't feel the need to spend a lot of time saying so, but I agree entirely. However, let's not set these cartoonists up as martyrs of some kind - they did publish virulently Islamophobic cartoons, which was a (much less) terrible thing to do. Trollheart and Chula Vista are right that they could have seen this coming, but I buy James's (I think) argument that that isn't a good reason to stop. The reason to stop should have been that they were engaging in horribly Islamophobic behavior, which, um, is a bad thing. They didn't at all deserve to die - again, this was a tragedy - and I wouldn't even argue that it's right to stop drawing your cartoons (or speaking out in any way) just because you're afraid. Free speech is important. But that doesn't make these cartoonists heroes - and them not being heroes doesn't make their deaths any less tragic.

(There's something else I'd like to address, but James, when you say society has moved past Islam (paraphrasing), you should just note that what we consider "radical Islam" is an invention of the last century.)

I also think it's time for the French people to take a long hard look at themselves and think about how their culture makes stuff like this so common. I gather that French society is much more communitarian than America's (for example), and so our problems with racism manifest themselves differently than France's. In France (or so I've been told - if you have firsthand experience feel free to tell me how stupid what I'm saying is), people are focused on a "French culture" - but that translates to "white Christian/"enlightened" atheist culture" because they're the majority, and that directly leads to there being so few voices saying "Hey, maybe you shouldn't do something just for the sake of pissing off Muslims, who, just like anyone else, are a group that ought to feel safe and able to be who they are in our 21st century liberal society" in the mainstream, along with leading to anti-Semitic violence and anti-immigrant rhetoric.

I don't think the "long hard look" I talk about is going to happen, and in some ways I think that's the real tragedy of this event - the culture hurts Muslims, a couple radicals strike back, causing people's prejudices to increase, and so the cycle continues. However you look at it, this is awful, but I think we need to be careful to to walk the line between Islamophobic bigotry and defending the attackers.

They mocked other religions as well mate. Islam deserves the mocking it gets.

By the way I'm interested to see where people are calling these cartoonists heroes?

If they would have published only anti-islam cartoons, I would have absolutely agreed with you about the islamophobia, but they were mocking other religions as well. Since they were criticising religious fundamentalism in general, and islamic fundamentalism seems to be the predominant form of religious extremism in France, I also don't think that concentrating on islam (if that was happening) was motivated by primarily xenophobic attitudes.

This video shows the footage of the policeman being shot in the head so if you're uncomfortable with that, don't watch.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEYVkaDAlMc

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