This is becoming waay too loaded.


This is obviously a very personal issue here, so every one please remember to keep it civil or you may be asked to excuse yourselves from the discussion.

Actually there was a lot of squawking about that episode, so much so that it was pulled from syndication and is not available on I-tunes, the south park website, hulu or netflix due to the sheer amount of threats they received 

I'm still upset at him, guardian.

Where Sacco errs on the matter is in assuming that "these people" means muslims, or easterners, or any other ethnic or cultural group (hence his reference to "throwing them back into the sea"). It's exactly the type of amalgamation that's so dangerous after a crazed member of any group does something that can then be attributed to the entire group. "These people" in this context should mean the kind of fanatic who is ready to commit murder over a cartoon, not their entire community.  

"We're right and they're wrong" is actually something I'm quite comfortable with when "we" are saying that people should be treated equally irrespective of their gender, their sexual orientation, their religion or their origin and "they" say women should be subservient to men, gays should me killed, and apostates should be executed. When "we" say that we have the right to express our ideas and "they" say that certain ideas deserve death. When "we" say that no religion should take precedence over the others and "they" say that their religion trumps the laws of society. "They", in this case, obviously does not mean muslims; it means the violent sociopaths who would pretend that their actions are dictated by their religion. There are more than a billion decent, law-abiding and peaceful muslims that put the lie to these fanatics' assertion.

If Sacco suggests that we should have a better dialog between cultures, then more power to him. But if that's the case, he has a very strange way of putting it.

The point is that the ship has sailed. Islam for many people on the margins of society or in west africa has been the only thing left for them. They have tried democracy - failed, communism - failed, military regimes - failed, planned states - failed, capitalism - failed - literally every idea has failed so for many its the classic inward looking solution to the problem - like a counter reformation of some sort - if you look at say sudan in 60s - they started dancing on stage, beauty pagents etc. by 90s and 2000s music was banned women covered up etc. For a certain set of people who have been let down by every ideology this hardline attitude is seen as a salvation to kick start things - maybe akin to black power. This new fantacism or renaissance in hardline islam is relatively new. It didnt spring out of nowhere - it has its causes - and usually those causes are poverty, undervelopment, oppression, and no avenue for escape. 

Lets be honest Mali, Tchad, Burkina FAso, Niger, the Toureg - there is no way out for them - the optomism of 60s and 70s has long gone into crushing debt, mindbending poverty, and dreams of escaping to france. Where more likely than not for many 10,000s they find an equally hostile regime waiting them there. And i dont think Iraq 2 helped things at all - and then we are shocked when they become militant. And then satirise their salvation philosophy. So no i dont think Hebdo had its finger on the pulse at all there - just seemed to be some uncle tom cartoon to be honest - be meek and mild and get raped for next 100 years too. Oh and by the way here is a drawing of the prophet (which even very moderate stoned out their head sufis would probably blanch at) - so to me its pointlessly confrontational and uncle tomming it - if thats french arab and african muslims friend i wouldnt like to see their enemy

Let's not forget that this isn't Islam as a whole. This is a radicalized strain of Islam that has largely been spread by use of Saudi money. Y'know...Saudi Arabia...that despotic hole that is one of the U.S.'s closest allies because they happen to sit on a shit-ton of petroleum. We are reaping the harvest of Wahhabism having almost immeasurable wealth.

The second Gulf War has little to do with the conversation at hand. Due to the fact that this is largely a cultural conflict I know it can be tempting to use this as a springboard for a broader discussion but let's try and keep the conversation focused specifically on the situation at hand. Any posts that deviate from the Charlie Hebdo affair will be deleted, and further personal remarks may merit disciplinary action.

No not all. UK and USA are just so wildly different on some points

It's important to remember that for Iraq 2 the UK, with a socialist government, needed to make the war "legal". It was very different from USA. So the produced a document and took it to UN, had it ratified and then had a mandate to fight. Meanwhile there were up to a million people on the streets demonstrating against it. When the man involved in writing the document went on TV to say the government had taken his words and "sexed them up" - i believe his term was - he was found dead a few weeks later (his name was david ross) and the government refused to release the autopsy report. It is commonly held belief that it was UK Intelligence Services who had him killed before he said more. By then end of the debacle the Prime Minister was dragged before a special enquiry which was so weak that he escaped easily and now is making £10ms as a middle east peace envoy while there is a lot of people here who believe he should actually be tried for war crimes. Here we also believe that 10,000s of civilians were killed in the bombing of baghdad. Totally different dynamic to USA where the combatants are treated as heroes - here its a very mixed reaction - and thats just amongst "white" britains

throw that and a 100 years of other stuff into the cauldron of north and west african muslims areas of paris, add in a pretty brutal police force and watch it simmer then spill over into riots. Then add in what i see personally as a pretty weak satire and then watch it explode.

The satire that South Park did of mohammed in a bear costume was witty and thought provoking i thought and caused no problems at all - this just seems lazy tired dig at working class arabs in desparate straits who have been made radicalised by just endless crap thrown at them from all sides.

Of course we should be allowed to satirise mohammed and draw him too - and legally we can (ironically we could be tried for blasphemy if we did it with christianity but so very rarely are) - but its got to be subtle and make a point deeper than "radicals bad" with mohammed (at this juncture in time here in europe). Doing that you are guaranteed death threats and very likely action - and respect to anyone who stands up and says fine i will take the risk - but it's not just them taking the risk - it's some guys 20 year old daughter on the reception desk, its the guy in the kiosk outside, its passers by in the street, the janitor. The magazine doesnt have the right to drag those people into their private war. If i found out "oh yeah des was blown up in a bomb attack on that magazine" - i'd be less than amused at everyone involved - the bomber and the magazine. Everyone play nice and if you need to poke fun at society (and god bless if you do) then do it with more panache than that crappy cover otherwise you are just picking at open wounds on some often times poor, oppressed, frustrated, angry, traumatised people.  

Other people will see what is tantamount to f'them - i'll do what i want - thats fine - but then they will do what they want too and soon the city is inflame again and people have lost their shops, their liveloods, their houses, warehouse stock, jobs and its chaos (which is what happened to friends in london during a bigg riot). All because one person wanted to make what i personally think is a weak cartoon.