Never
Give In...
Defend
Individual's Right to UNCONDITIONAL Free Speech
***
The Muslim Police defending Free Speech
"I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so," wrote the Twitter user Dyab Abou Jahjah. ***
This is what Historian Tom Holland twitted...
The right 2 draw Muhammad without being shot is as precious to many of us as Muhammad is to the #CharlieHebdo killers
....And the Depressing...News...
In what may prove to be the most depressingly predictable story of the year, we learn that Channel 4 has chosen to cancel a screening of Tom Holland’s programme ‘Islam: the untold story‘ tomorrow night because of threats to the author and presenter.
And we are poorer because of the cancellation...
and ...
As it has been said before, those who are trying to stop this debate [by muzzling free speech]] — even if they succeed for a short time — will lose in the long term. Such people are, essentially, Canutes — albeit dangerous ones. People who try to stop factual, historical, inquiry are shouting — often very unpleasantly — at the waves to stop. But the waves will not stop. They will continue to come roaring in, whether tomorrow night’s screening occurs or not.
Indeed, the waves will not stop and people will demand more of "equality, fraternity and liberty..."
***
Historian Tom Holland was one of those who tweeted Charlie Hebdo's cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad in the wake of the deadly attack on the magazine's office. Here he explains the ramifications of defending free speech.
Tom Holland is a writer, broadcaster and historian. His latest book, In The Shadow of the Sword, is an account of the history of Islam.
... And His Article...
Very Insightful and refreshing...
Voltaire:I
do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the
death your right to say it.
Religions
are not alone in having their martyrs. On 1 July, 1766, in Abbeville
in northern France, a young nobleman named Lefebvre de la Barre was
found guilty of blasphemy. The charges against him were numerous -
that he had defecated on a crucifix, spat on religious images, and
refused to remove his hat as a Church procession went past.
These
crimes, together with the vandalising of a wooden cross on the main
bridge of Abbeville, were sufficient to see him sentenced to death.
Once La Barre's tongue had been cut out and his head chopped off, his
mortal remains were burned by the public executioner, and dumped into
the river Somme. Mingled among the ashes were those of a book that
had been found in La Barre's study, and consigned to the flames
alongside his corpse - the Philosophical Dictionary of the notorious
philosopher, Voltaire.
Voltaire
himself, informed of his reader's fate, was appalled. "Superstition,"
he declared from his refuge in Switzerland, "sets the whole
world in flames."
Two-and-a-half
centuries on, and it is the notion that someone might be put to death
for criticising a religious dogma that is likely to strike a majority
of people in the West as the blasphemy. The values of free speech and
toleration for which Voltaire campaigned all his life have become
enshrined as the very embodiment of what Europeans, as a rule, most
prize about their own civilisation.
Voltaire,
with his mocking smile, still serves as their patron saint. In
France, where secular ideals are particularly treasured, he is
regularly invoked by those who feel the legacy of the Enlightenment
to be under threat.
When
Philippe Val, the editor of Charlie Hebdo, published a book in 2008
defending the right of cartoonists to mock religious taboos, the
title was telling. Reviens, Voltaire, Ils Sont Devenus Fous, he
called it - Come Back, Voltaire, They Have Gone Insane. It was not
Christians, though, whom Val was principally calling mad.
Between
the 18th Century and the 21st, the religious complexion of France had
radically altered. Not only had the power of the Catholic Church gone
into precipitous retreat, but some six million immigrants belonging
to a very different faith had arrived in the country.
Islam,
unlike Catholicism, had inherited from the Jews a profound
disapproval of figurative art. It also commemorated Muhammad - the
prophet believed by his followers to have received God's ultimate
revelation, the Koran - as the very model of human behaviour. Insults
to him were traditionally held by Muslim jurists to be equivalent to
disbelief - and disbelief was a crime that merited Hell.
Not
that there was anything within the Koran itself that necessarily
mandated it as a capital offence. "The truth is from your Lord,
so whoever wills, let him believe; and whoever wills, let him
disbelieve." Nevertheless, a story preserved in the oldest
surviving biography of Muhammad implied a rather more punitive take.
So punitive, indeed, that some Muslim scholars - who are generally
most reluctant to countenance the possibility that the earliest
biography of their prophet might be unreliable - have gone so far as
to question its veracity.
The
story relates the fate of Asma bint Marwan, a poet from the Prophet's
home town of Mecca. After she had mocked Muhammad in her verses, he
cried out, "Who will rid me of Marwan's daughter?" - and
sure enough, that very night, she was killed by one of his followers
in her own bed. The assassin, reporting back on what he had done, was
thanked personally by the Prophet. "You have helped both God and
His messenger!"
"Ecrasez
l'infâme," Voltaire famously urged his admirers: "Crush
what is infamous". Islam, too, makes the same demand. The point
of difference, of course, is over how "l'infâme" is to be
defined. To the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, who in 2011 published
an edition with a swivel-eyed Muhammad on the cover, just as earlier
they had portrayed Jesus as a contestant on I'm a Celebrity Get Me
Out Of Here, and Pope Benedict holding aloft a condom at Mass, it is
the pretensions of authority wherever they may be found - in politics
quite as much as in religion.
To
the gunmen who launch an attack on
the Charlie Hebdo office, it is the mockery of a prophet whom they
feel should exist beyond even a hint of criticism. Between these two
positions, when they are prosecuted with equal passion and conviction
on both sides, there cannot possibly be any accommodation.
It
was the Salman Rushdie affair that served as the first symptom of
this. Since then, like a dull toothache given to periodic flare-ups,
the problem has never gone away. I myself had first-hand experience
of just how intractable it can be in 2012, with a film I made for
Channel 4. Islam: The Untold Story explored the gathering consensus
among historians that much of what Muslims have traditionally
believed about the life of Muhammad is unlikely to be strict
historical fact - and it provoked a firestorm of death threats.
Unlike
Charlie Hebdo, I had not set out to give offence. I am no satirist,
and I do not usually enjoy hurting people's feelings. Nevertheless, I
too feel that some rights are worthy of being defended - and among
them is the freedom of historians to question the origin myths of
religions. That was why, when I heard the news from Paris yesterday,
I chose to do something I would never otherwise have done, and tweet
a Charlie Hebdo cartoon of Muhammad.
The
BBC, by contrast, has decided not to reproduce the cartoon for this
article. Many other media organisations - though not all - have done
the same. I refuse to be bound by a de facto blasphemy taboo.
While
under normal circumstances I am perfectly happy not to mock beliefs
that other people hold dear, these are far from normal circumstances.
As I tweeted yesterday, the right to draw Muhammad without being shot
is quite as precious to many of us in the West as Islam presumably is
to the Charlie Hebdo killers.
We
too have our values - and if we are not willing to stand up for them,
then they risk being lost to us. When it comes to defining l'infâme,
I for one have no doubt whose side I am on.
Shame on BBC...
Giving in to terror induced censorship is indeed sick and depressing...
While today... Prime Minister Cameron is attending the rally-demonstration in Paris the BBC has canceled the "Islam: The Untold Story"...
The Big Brothers are just FAKE...
The BBC cancels and the Prime Minister goes to Paris... The double talk of Big Brothers is indeed sick...
More than a million people take part in a unity march in Paris after 17 people were killed during three days of deadly attacks in the French capital.
The People... Defending their freedoms in Paris...
The leaders were there because the of the PEOPLE POWER...
The people of the world... Defend freedom of speech... in Paris...
Despite the French president calling for “unity” in the light of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, an almighty row broke out on Thursday after the National Front were not invited to Sunday’s Republican rally.
But
Turkey was
invited... and Turkey has bloodied hands
It is the centennial
year of the Armenian Genocide...
Turkey should admit
the Genocide that they commuted against Armenians, Syriacs and
Pontic Greeks...
Turkey is still an
ally to Islamic-Jihadists and is massacring Kurds and imprisoning
journalists for writing about the atrocities of the Genocide which
they committed...
The World leaders who have attended the "Unity March" have usurped the people's demand for Free Speech and Liberty...
The U.S. stood up against terror and distributed "The Interview"...
I did not agree with the theme of the movie... But like Voltaire I DID DEFEND THEIR RIGHT FOR FREE SPEECH...
The BBC should tell the Islamist-Jihadists to buzz off and reinstitute the show...
The BBC and other cultural outlets should not succumb to the bullet... Otherwise we will never have heroines like Malala...
***
A notable absence from the Paris SOLIDARITY DEMONSTRATION was the US of A... neither the President nor the Secretary of State were there...
People just wonder WHY...?
May be you know the answer... May be you don't... !
Washington (CNN) reports...
The heads of England, Germany and Israel were there.
But president Barack Obama didn't attend a unity march in Paris on Sunday... Nor did his Secretary of State, John Kerry...
***
Turkish Prime Minister Davidoglu second from the right... Turkey is an ally of Islamic-Jihadists and also has imprisoned many journalists in 2014...
Check the rest of this solidarity photo... It is impressive by the presence of leaders who have imprisoned journalists ad reporters in their own countries...
The double talk of the Big brothers is just
NOISE POLLUTION
If indeed they mean for what they are walking in Paris...
Let them abolish ALL censorship in their countries...
The arm in arm march demonstrates the hypocrisy of the Biggies...
Some even have blood on their hands... Like Turkey who denies the Armenian Genocide...
***
Here are couple of Samples to Illustrate what I mean...
1. I may not agree with the ad below... But I will always defend the right for its publication...
Never
Give In...
Defend
Individual's Right to UNCONDITIONAL Free Speech
***
"I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so," wrote the Twitter user Dyab Abou Jahjah. ***
This is what Historian Tom Holland twitted...
The right 2 draw Muhammad without being shot is as precious to many of us as Muhammad is to the #CharlieHebdo killers
....And the Depressing...News...
In what may prove to be the most depressingly predictable story of the year, we learn that Channel 4 has chosen to cancel a screening of Tom Holland’s programme ‘Islam: the untold story‘ tomorrow night because of threats to the author and presenter.
And we are poorer because of the cancellation...
and ...
As it has been said before, those who are trying to stop this debate [by muzzling free speech]] — even if they succeed for a short time — will lose in the long term. Such people are, essentially, Canutes — albeit dangerous ones. People who try to stop factual, historical, inquiry are shouting — often very unpleasantly — at the waves to stop. But the waves will not stop. They will continue to come roaring in, whether tomorrow night’s screening occurs or not.
Indeed, the waves will not stop and people will demand more of "equality, fraternity and liberty..."
***
Historian Tom Holland was one of those who tweeted Charlie Hebdo's cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad in the wake of the deadly attack on the magazine's office. Here he explains the ramifications of defending free speech.... And His Article...
Very Insightful and refreshing...
Voltaire:I
do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the
death your right to say it.
Religions
are not alone in having their martyrs. On 1 July, 1766, in Abbeville
in northern France, a young nobleman named Lefebvre de la Barre was
found guilty of blasphemy. The charges against him were numerous -
that he had defecated on a crucifix, spat on religious images, and
refused to remove his hat as a Church procession went past.
These crimes, together with the vandalising of a wooden cross on the main bridge of Abbeville, were sufficient to see him sentenced to death. Once La Barre's tongue had been cut out and his head chopped off, his mortal remains were burned by the public executioner, and dumped into the river Somme. Mingled among the ashes were those of a book that had been found in La Barre's study, and consigned to the flames alongside his corpse - the Philosophical Dictionary of the notorious philosopher, Voltaire.
Voltaire himself, informed of his reader's fate, was appalled. "Superstition," he declared from his refuge in Switzerland, "sets the whole world in flames."
Two-and-a-half centuries on, and it is the notion that someone might be put to death for criticising a religious dogma that is likely to strike a majority of people in the West as the blasphemy. The values of free speech and toleration for which Voltaire campaigned all his life have become enshrined as the very embodiment of what Europeans, as a rule, most prize about their own civilisation.
These crimes, together with the vandalising of a wooden cross on the main bridge of Abbeville, were sufficient to see him sentenced to death. Once La Barre's tongue had been cut out and his head chopped off, his mortal remains were burned by the public executioner, and dumped into the river Somme. Mingled among the ashes were those of a book that had been found in La Barre's study, and consigned to the flames alongside his corpse - the Philosophical Dictionary of the notorious philosopher, Voltaire.
Voltaire himself, informed of his reader's fate, was appalled. "Superstition," he declared from his refuge in Switzerland, "sets the whole world in flames."
Two-and-a-half centuries on, and it is the notion that someone might be put to death for criticising a religious dogma that is likely to strike a majority of people in the West as the blasphemy. The values of free speech and toleration for which Voltaire campaigned all his life have become enshrined as the very embodiment of what Europeans, as a rule, most prize about their own civilisation.
Voltaire,
with his mocking smile, still serves as their patron saint. In
France, where secular ideals are particularly treasured, he is
regularly invoked by those who feel the legacy of the Enlightenment
to be under threat.
When
Philippe Val, the editor of Charlie Hebdo, published a book in 2008
defending the right of cartoonists to mock religious taboos, the
title was telling. Reviens, Voltaire, Ils Sont Devenus Fous, he
called it - Come Back, Voltaire, They Have Gone Insane. It was not
Christians, though, whom Val was principally calling mad.
Between
the 18th Century and the 21st, the religious complexion of France had
radically altered. Not only had the power of the Catholic Church gone
into precipitous retreat, but some six million immigrants belonging
to a very different faith had arrived in the country.
Islam,
unlike Catholicism, had inherited from the Jews a profound
disapproval of figurative art. It also commemorated Muhammad - the
prophet believed by his followers to have received God's ultimate
revelation, the Koran - as the very model of human behaviour. Insults
to him were traditionally held by Muslim jurists to be equivalent to
disbelief - and disbelief was a crime that merited Hell.
Not
that there was anything within the Koran itself that necessarily
mandated it as a capital offence. "The truth is from your Lord,
so whoever wills, let him believe; and whoever wills, let him
disbelieve." Nevertheless, a story preserved in the oldest
surviving biography of Muhammad implied a rather more punitive take.
So punitive, indeed, that some Muslim scholars - who are generally
most reluctant to countenance the possibility that the earliest
biography of their prophet might be unreliable - have gone so far as
to question its veracity.
The
story relates the fate of Asma bint Marwan, a poet from the Prophet's
home town of Mecca. After she had mocked Muhammad in her verses, he
cried out, "Who will rid me of Marwan's daughter?" - and
sure enough, that very night, she was killed by one of his followers
in her own bed. The assassin, reporting back on what he had done, was
thanked personally by the Prophet. "You have helped both God and
His messenger!"
"Ecrasez
l'infâme," Voltaire famously urged his admirers: "Crush
what is infamous". Islam, too, makes the same demand. The point
of difference, of course, is over how "l'infâme" is to be
defined. To the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, who in 2011 published
an edition with a swivel-eyed Muhammad on the cover, just as earlier
they had portrayed Jesus as a contestant on I'm a Celebrity Get Me
Out Of Here, and Pope Benedict holding aloft a condom at Mass, it is
the pretensions of authority wherever they may be found - in politics
quite as much as in religion.
To
the gunmen who launch an attack on
the Charlie Hebdo office, it is the mockery of a prophet whom they
feel should exist beyond even a hint of criticism. Between these two
positions, when they are prosecuted with equal passion and conviction
on both sides, there cannot possibly be any accommodation.
It
was the Salman Rushdie affair that served as the first symptom of
this. Since then, like a dull toothache given to periodic flare-ups,
the problem has never gone away. I myself had first-hand experience
of just how intractable it can be in 2012, with a film I made for
Channel 4. Islam: The Untold Story explored the gathering consensus
among historians that much of what Muslims have traditionally
believed about the life of Muhammad is unlikely to be strict
historical fact - and it provoked a firestorm of death threats.
Unlike
Charlie Hebdo, I had not set out to give offence. I am no satirist,
and I do not usually enjoy hurting people's feelings. Nevertheless, I
too feel that some rights are worthy of being defended - and among
them is the freedom of historians to question the origin myths of
religions. That was why, when I heard the news from Paris yesterday,
I chose to do something I would never otherwise have done, and tweet
a Charlie Hebdo cartoon of Muhammad.
The
BBC, by contrast, has decided not to reproduce the cartoon for this
article. Many other media organisations - though not all - have done
the same. I refuse to be bound by a de facto blasphemy taboo.
While
under normal circumstances I am perfectly happy not to mock beliefs
that other people hold dear, these are far from normal circumstances.
As I tweeted yesterday, the right to draw Muhammad without being shot
is quite as precious to many of us in the West as Islam presumably is
to the Charlie Hebdo killers.
We
too have our values - and if we are not willing to stand up for them,
then they risk being lost to us. When it comes to defining l'infâme,
I for one have no doubt whose side I am on.
Giving in to terror induced censorship is indeed sick and depressing...
While today... Prime Minister Cameron is attending the rally-demonstration in Paris the BBC has canceled the "Islam: The Untold Story"...
The BBC cancels and the Prime Minister goes to Paris... The double talk of Big Brothers is indeed sick...
More than a million people take part in a unity march in Paris after 17 people were killed during three days of deadly attacks in the French capital.
The leaders were there because the of the PEOPLE POWER...
But
Turkey was
invited... and Turkey has bloodied hands
It is the centennial
year of the Armenian Genocide...
Turkey should admit
the Genocide that they commuted against Armenians, Syriacs and
Pontic Greeks...
Turkey is still an
ally to Islamic-Jihadists and is massacring Kurds and imprisoning
journalists for writing about the atrocities of the Genocide which
they committed...
The World leaders who have attended the "Unity March" have usurped the people's demand for Free Speech and Liberty...
I did not agree with the theme of the movie... But like Voltaire I DID DEFEND THEIR RIGHT FOR FREE SPEECH...
The BBC should tell the Islamist-Jihadists to buzz off and reinstitute the show...
The BBC and other cultural outlets should not succumb to the bullet... Otherwise we will never have heroines like Malala...
***
A notable absence from the Paris SOLIDARITY DEMONSTRATION was the US of A... neither the President nor the Secretary of State were there...
People just wonder WHY...?
May be you know the answer... May be you don't... !
Washington (CNN) reports...
The heads of England, Germany and Israel were there.
But president Barack Obama didn't attend a unity march in Paris on Sunday... Nor did his Secretary of State, John Kerry...
***
Turkish Prime Minister Davidoglu second from the right... Turkey is an ally of Islamic-Jihadists and also has imprisoned many journalists in 2014...
Check the rest of this solidarity photo... It is impressive by the presence of leaders who have imprisoned journalists ad reporters in their own countries...
The double talk of the Big brothers is just
NOISE POLLUTION
If indeed they mean for what they are walking in Paris...
Let them abolish ALL censorship in their countries...
The arm in arm march demonstrates the hypocrisy of the Biggies...
Some even have blood on their hands... Like Turkey who denies the Armenian Genocide...
***
Here are couple of Samples to Illustrate what I mean...
1. I may not agree with the ad below... But I will always defend the right for its publication...
2. I may find child pornography abhorrent... But I will try to convince people not to publish pornographic photos...especially child pornography...
Japan's comics and cartoons - known as manga and anime - are a huge cultural industry and famous around the world. But some are shocking, featuring children in sexually explicit scenarios. Why has Japan decided against banning this material?
Japan apparently does not share my views... So I will try harder to convince them...
Banning things opens up a Pandora's box...
It is a slippery slope and we will not know where to stop...
I will never delegate my rights to Big Brothers... They are not reliable...
Japan does not share my views... and they have Child pornography ...
I apparently our collective efforts have failed...
So we will try harder...
Banning and bullets are not the answer...
An analyst drew a parallel between drugs and terrorism... We could not ban drugs... and he argued that we will have the Islamist-Jihadist terror for some time to come...
The drugs are banned... but to no avail...
And one final thought...
If we do not agree with something... we should educate people not to do it... not to publish it...
But if they still do it... or publish it... that definitely show our failure... So we have to redouble our efforts and convince people...
If we terrorize and resort to bullets... that will indicate how much we value our logic and our reasoning... Guns and bullets demonstrate out utter failure in our proving our point of view...
That's what happened in Paris this week... The Islamist-Jihadists demonstrated their utter lack of logic and reasoning...
They demonstrated their failure to convince us... and in order to cover up their utter failure from their followers...they resorted to barbarism and violence and to bullets...
After all,
Blood begets blood and does not solve anything...
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