Charlie Hebdo Is Heroic and Racist

[CrawlingChaos]

39. Definitely not heroic

I'm reminded of this exchange which took place on last Thursday's Democracy Now, between Art Spiegelman and Tariq Ramadan:

TARIQ RAMADAN: We are talking here about a policy that was said by Charlie Hebdo over the last years that is mainly targeting the Muslims. My point here is, once again, I’m not—

ART SPIEGELMAN: But why?

TARIQ RAMADAN: I’m not—

ART SPIEGELMAN: Why were they targeting Muslims? Do you think it’s—

TARIQ RAMADAN: I’m not—you know why? You know what? You know why? It’s mainly a question of money. They went bankrupt, and you know this. They went bankrupt over the last two years. And what they did with this controversy is that Islam today and to target Muslims is making money. It has nothing to do with courage. It has to do with making money and targeting the marginalized people in the society.

The point for me now is just to come with you, as somebody who is involved in this, and to come with the principles that you are making now, and to come and to say, look, now, in the United States of America as well as in the West, everywhere, we should be able to target the people the same way and then to find a way to talk to one another in a responsible way, not by throwing on each other our rights, but coming together with our duties, our responsibilities to live together.

I think that what you are saying now could be dangerous if you are not coming to the facts, but just with the impression that their past is similar to the present. Charlie Hebdo is not the satirical magazine of the past. It is now ideologically oriented. And Philippe Val, who was a leftist in the past, now is supporting all the theses of the far-right party, very close to the Front National. So, don’t come with something which is politically completely not accurate.

The leaps and contortions taking place in this thread in a effort to put a good face on what Charlie Hebdo was doing is making me nauseous. The idea that because of their horrific mass murder we must now pretend Charlie Hebdo was doing something noble and heroic is ABSURD.