Lego,

"Only a few years ago, a Canberra art exhibition displayed a sculpture depicting our Queen and her husband Prince Phillip, sitting naked on a park bench. In addition, an "artist" in Sydney placed an exhibit entitled "Piss Christ" on display, which was a crucifix submersed in a bottle of human urine. There was a public outcry about both of these works of "art", but the ABC luvvie types laughed their heads off and defended the artists right to parody the Royal family, religion, and anybody else they took aim at. But with Islam, a different rule applies."

I question that, and this attitude does not apply to me. The Adelaide Festival of Arts in the 1990's put out as its poster design an image of Mother Mary playing an accordion.

Many people were offended by it - including myself, and as one person put it - in a letter to the Advertiser, it was not about if Mother Mary was playing an accordion, it was the fact she was "used" in principle.

The poster and program front cover was eventually not used, and simply an accordion image. So a lot of re-printing required in that regard.

I assume you'll still accuse me of being elitist, of which I am not - and I have tried very much to break down the elite element of the arts in principle - and by the way I do play "accordion" - and also piano. People can see the poster below at:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/d4/48/ca/d448cab5874fe5a1c6afc3d1219b7603.jpg

runner,

"I must say I find Charlie Hebdo work disgusting, ugly and unhelpful. In saying that he has shown far more courage and consistency than most progressives who have for years demonstrated total hyprocrsisy in trashing Christ, His teachings and followers. Very sad and ironic that the ones who have defended the religion of peace for so long and encouraged its immigration into the West have not been spared. Its only the start folks even if the hundreds of cases are 'lone wolves'who have been operating for 1400 years...."

It's not a "he"...it's a satirical magazine.

On the subject of trashing Christianity, what about Dave Allen and Father Ted - both emanating from a country which takes its religion very seriously? Satirizing religion and religion's adherents has a lot of form in the West. Friends of mine tell me of nuns they knew who would laugh themselves silly at the unfolding irreverence of Father Ted.

Point being that in Western tradition we can pick and choose what to put in front of our eyes and next to our ears...we can ignore or not seek out that which we find offensive.

You finish with this:

"....I dare say it will be to much to ask the Q&A hypocrites to swallow their filthy pride and take the smirks off their faces."

You're quite adept at unleashing the odd intemperate post, aren't you, runner.

Poirot,
Yes but the Irish are known for their sense of humour, Muslims aren't, you've just pointed out yet another irreconcilable difference between us and then...or between them and everyone else.
When I was about 17 and in my "goth" phase I used to wear rosary beads around my neck, they were really nice ones too, black glass with silver cross. While walking down Bourke St with a similarly attired girlfriend one afternoon we were accosted by a very drunk, very elderly Irishman who declared "It's a feckin disgrace, a boy wearin' da rosary like dat!".I said something like "It's a free country" and he grimaced and said "Ach! suit yerself" as he staggered away, he didn't hit me or try to behead me or even tell me to take it off.
Lebanese on the other hand..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7hjLWBSc68

Here's another great article, prophetic as it was written about 18 months ago:
THE FAILURE OF THE CULTURAL DEATH CAMPS
http://alternative-right.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-failure-of-cultural-death-camps.html

The point which I clearly made, NathanJ, and which you completely missed, is that we in the west have a tradition of freedom of speech. That includes criticising and satirising authority figures, religions, and cultures. Freedom of Speech has always been a sacred cow of the liberal Left, but now we see that they are willing to throw the whole principle overboard to protect the greater good of multiculturalism.

It may offend many people to denigrate the Queen or Jesus Christ. "The Life of Brian" was very offensive to Christians, as it insulted their Messiah. But Christians did not react violently to the movie because their religion forbids it. This is completely different to Islam. In Islamic countries, it is illegal under Sharia law or even civil law for 1400 years, to criticise Islam or insult the Prophet. And the sentence for daring to do so is death. So when you bring in large numbers of immigrants from these Islamic countries, and somebody deliberately (or even inadvertenty) insults their Prophet, they are going to kill you for it. This is hardly the multicultural utopia that the liberal humanitarians envisioned.

The problem for the liberal Left, is that they are in a quandary. If they support their tradional sacred cow of Freedom of Speech, they would have to admit that the importation of Muslims into western society was utterly stupid. Because it can now be demonstrated that Muslims can intimidate the west through violence into forcing us to dispense with our most cherished rights and freedoms. Since the trendies know that they are so intelligent, and they are never wrong, they just can't admit that the "racists" were right all along about Muslim immigration.

So, what we see on these pages and the ABC from the trendies, is this incredible attitude that it is wrong to even verbally attack or criticise Islam or the Muslim Prophet, because it upsets Muslims. Insulting everybody and everything else is still OK. The Muslim leaders are probably amazed at how easily the left has abandoned it most sacred of cows and become Islam's prison bitches.

Dear SPQR,

Now mate, much more of that and I will have to get the nurse to wipe the spittle off your chin.

Dear Killarney,

You wrote;

“This is not free speech or satire. It's deliberate provocation and grotesque cultural insult – not brave irreverance.”

I take the point regarding the Charlie Hebdo crew courting disaster, and about their cultural insensitivities. For instance the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh had, in one of his later films, the words of the Koran running across the naked bodies of prostitutes.

Leaving aside sartire I am not sure either van Gogh or the mob at Charlie Hebdo could be called great active defenders of free speech, but in exercising their own so forthrightly I think they helped keep the notion very much alive.

As to whether their actions were either “deliberate provocation and grotesque cultural insult” or “brave irreverance” - why can't they be both?

Indeed being prepared to die for the cause seems to be a common thread by both sides. Editor Stephane Charbonnier had said; “I am not afraid of retaliations. I don’t have kids. I don’t have a wife, no car, no credit. It may seem pompous, but I’d rather die standing than live on my knees.”. Actually it is not too hard to think a similar statement might have been made by the attackers.

But drawing an offensive cartoon is not the same as shooting a severely wounded, helpless human being. The first has the capacity to offend some, the latter deeply offends the vast majority of us, even characters like Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah “BEIRUT (AP) — The leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah group says Islamic extremists have insulted Islam and the Prophet Muhammad more than those who published satirical cartoons mocking the religion.”

Cont...

cont...

I am certainly not an absolutist when it comes to free speech, and I understand that for a mainstream paper to have a single columnist being as provocative as Charlie Hebdo thus endangering other staff who didn't sign up for that kind of danger is not really an option. But these guys knew what they were getting themselves into and an armed police guard would have stopped any lingering misconceptions of those who worked there.

Therefore I think we have to be careful assessing the role of a magazine like CH. Can a case be made that they were peddling hatred and racism with their issues? Difficult. Does humour and satire have a role in changing hypocritical behaviour be it the actions of politicians or religious leaders? Most certainly, no one likes being laughed at. Are we able to concede an ultimate benefit to a society from publications like CH? I think so.

These guys did believe in what they were doing and carried on regardless.

I'm sticking with brave.