QED

The Equal Opportunity Offender

charlie moCharlie Hebdo is a punch in the face!”

That’s the magazine’s own claim for its unique savaging of current events. And in response to the regular shouts of “Shocking!’,“Lack of respect!, “Racist!” and “Freedom of speech doesn’t make everything acceptable!” Charlie simply replies: “Very nearly everything in life is absurd or preposterous; life being so awfully short it would be a pity to spend it whining in dismay instead of laughing it up a storm.”

Now Charlie has done it again, with a cartoon on the Italian earthquake (below). Bleeding and burnt, a man and his wife are depicted as dished-up penne; the rest of the village is collapsed in layers like lasagna. At a time when Australia is mired in a precious debate about Section 18C and the right to offend, here’s a brilliantly cruel example of how to do it — and to produce, on cue, the flatulent outrage of the morally virtuous. Where have all the “Je suis Charlies” gone, long time passing, long time ago?

But Charlie is not only funny drawings.  Its weekly essays prick the bubble of hypocrisy, jerking the reins to curb society’s bolting political correctness. When France fell apart arguing whether the burkini ban was a restraint of free expression or a defence of secular sanctity, Charlie apportioned blame equally.

“The Left should fight against the burkini the way it fought against the reactionary opponents of gay marriage in France. Because those conservative Catholics who hit the streets in protest at such progressive reform dabble in the same restrictive, narrow view of morality and ‘family values’ demonstrated by woman covered from head to toe on a beach.”

But, “The Right is not going to be much help either with its legal manoeuvres which achieve nothing. For the Islamic moral order, like that of many religions, doesn’t much care about earthly laws and temporal rules. Their tactic is the tactic of the fair accompli. No debate, no vote, no protest. We have no choice. It’s up to us to slip on the veil, grab a burqa or burkini up.”

charlie toon

 

 

 

 

 

The author, Robert McLiam Wilson, concluded with a philosophical observation about the magazine’s craft that is a warning to us all:

“When French justice decides that there can be no legal offense of blasphemy and thus one has the legal right to caricature religion, no one seems to take advantage of that law. Apart from Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, who dared to draw the Prophet? Cartoonists are scared of exercising a right which the law has confirmed and underlined because they are scared they might be killed. Just like the unenforced burqa ban, the law has been completely overtaken by this new Islamist-inspired moral reality. It seem that the law of fear is stronger than fear of the law.”

7 thoughts on “The Equal Opportunity Offender

  • bemartin39@bigpond.com says:

    Dhimmitude is with us already. Slaves can not expect the protection of the law, for it only exists for the benefit of the free, infinitely superior citizens of society. The lives and actions of the untouchables are unrestrained by the law that specifies the rules to be observed by the slaves. While there are frequently reappearing examples all over the western world of non-Muslim dhimmis being charged and convicted for insulting or threatening Islam, no Muslim is ever charged anywhere for advocating violence against the worthless dhimmis. The pattern is clear, unmistakable.

    • ian.macdougall says:

      “While there are frequently reappearing examples all over the western world of non-Muslim dhimmis being charged and convicted for insulting or threatening Islam, no Muslim is ever charged anywhere for advocating violence against the worthless dhimmis.”
      Good point, Bill. The Koran advocates it and justifies it.
      https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

  • Warty says:

    Charlie Hebdo has its own way of underlying hypocrisy of highlighting the absurd, as does Bill Leak. Each has a particular talent and role in society. But Geoffrey Luck hopefully doesn’t expect those of us ‘mired in precious debate about section 18c and the right to offend’ to carbon copy either Charlie Hebdo or Bill Leak?
    My own view is that it takes all sorts and that a good many of the Quadrant articles and readers’ responses form part of the vigorous debate necessary in the defense of what many consider to be right and true with regards to the current state of society.
    Charlie Hebdo is not a moral arbiter and ‘The Right’ in France does not simply rely on ‘legal manoeuvres’, and I assume Mr Luck refers to efforts to ban the burkini, to offset a creeping Islamist take-over of their country. Even dismissing such efforts as achieving nothing is simplistically arrogant. Perhaps the bans are actually aimed at securing conservative votes and not ultimately aimed at causing discomfort to Muslim women, or perhaps it’s both, but that’s by the by.
    I think what is of far more relevance than whether or not the ‘Islamic order’ does or doesn’t care about our temporal rules and earthly laws, is what we are going to do to persuade them that we are prepared to insist they do care, or to get the hell out of here.
    In terms of what matters, I rather wonder what your point is, Geoffrey Luck.

  • Egil Nordang says:

    “It seem that the law of fear is stronger than fear of the law.”
    This happens to be the new way of life in many/most Western nations.
    John Carroll put it like this in today’s The Australian:
    “But who knows to what strange places apathetic and incompetent governance,
    in the face of mounting social and economic crises, may inadvertently lead a country?”
    How many Western “Leaders” would have half a clue these days?
    Strange days/unattractive places coming our way soon, unless, through some very unlikely miracle, rational leadership returns.

  • brian.doak@bigpond.com says:

    Have we behaved dhimmi-like in our extended tolerance of the anti-social behaviour of Hamdi Aqudsi and his two wives. All on benefits and with their extreme covering all dressed inappropriately to secure employment with non-government employers.

  • ian.macdougall says:

    From my Net cruising today: This film looks interesting and timely.

    Europe’s Last Stand is a shocking and graphic documentary by an American film company that examines the Islamic invasion of Western Europe and its threat to European democracy, freedoms, culture and history.
    A continent that once gave birth to the greatest advances in world civilization is now on the verge of being extinguished by an unrivaled foe of religious zealots who are on a quest to establish an Islamic Caliphate across the European continent.
    The film is presented in five parts, revealing each of the Five Pillars of Islamic Conquest:
    1. Infiltration.
    2. Imams.
    3. Isolation.
    4. Islamization.
    5. Implosion.
    Europe’s Last Stand is an epic film about the heroes and villains, the champions and quitters, the bold and the weak in this life-and-death struggle for the heart and soul of Western Europe.
    More than four years in the making — and with more than a dozen European countries visited and investigated — Europe’s Last Stand is the most authoritative film ever produced documenting the rise of Islam in Western Europe.

    http://gatesofvienna.net/2014/08/the-five-pillars-of-islamic-conquest/

  • ian.macdougall says:

    And I strongly recommend Why Islam is Not a Religion by Rebecca Bynum
    (A speech she delivered October 18th to the ACT! for America Chapter in Memphis Tennessee, Nov. 2011)

    http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/100100/sec_id/100100

Leave a Reply