Charlie Hebdo

France’s Go Ahead and Go (If You’re Brave) Zones

Mark Noonan9 Comments

I was working the Worst President Twitter account and I came across a tweet by National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke, regarding an article he’s written about Paris. In the article he discusses, among other things, the now-infamous Fox News report about Paris’ no-go zones:

Outside the periphique, it’s dangerous, ugly, tense—often lawless. If you’re Jewish you’re in trouble. There’s little sense of “Frenchness.”

To which I responded, in Twitter form, that if it isn’t French; if Jews better watch out and it is rather lawless then that would fit the definition of a no-go zone, if you ask me. Cooke took exception to that, asserting vigorously that the concept of a no-go zone is untrue. I promised to read his National Review article. Proving definitively that National Review is not part of Obama’s America, I had to pay twenty five cents for the privilege of reading it – and it was well worth the two bits (actually, it is worth quite a bit more than that). If you’ve got a quarter and a little time to spare, I highly recommend it – and you can read it here.

Getting down to no-go brass tacks, the article includes this:

Approximately 80 percent of those who live in Aulnay’s cités are Muslim, I am told. “So,” I ask, “is this one of those sharia-bound no-go areas that we always hear about?”

To my surprise, the question provokes laughter. “That’s a myth,” my hosts exclaim. “It’s impossible.” There are certainly serious “tensions” between the police and the locals, one guide says. “Police won’t go and interfere with women illegally wearing niqabs because they don’t want to prompt retaliation. Definitely, there’s tolerance toward this stuff.” Recently, I learn, a veiled woman who was stopped by police refused to hand over her ID. Instead, she called for help. Quickly, the police in the area were surrounded, and, hoping to defuse the situation, the local commissioner let her go. Angry at the intrusion, a gang came back and burned a copy of the civil code.

This, it seems, is fairly typical. But sharia, as we understand it? “No.”

I have immense respect for Mr. Cooke and enjoy his writing on a regular basis – but, for crying out loud, the wearing of the niqab is required by Sharia law and forbidden by French law…and the French authorities allowed the lady in question to adhere to Sharia law.

I get the point that what is in the public mind when they think “no-go” is an exaggeration; the concept that there are places under French jurisdiction where the police and other authorities never go. If that is what is claimed as a myth, then I concede the point. The French police and military are fully capable of entering any place under French jurisdiction any time they wish and I’m sure that when something the authorities can’t ignore happens, they go in. But, as it actually made pretty clear in Cooke’s article, there is massive criminal activity going on in parts of Paris and the authorities aren’t doing much about it. Cooke’s story of pretty open drug dealing out in front of a Mosque means, to me, that the police know full well that if they try to interfere with this then Muslim radicals in the area will kick up a fuss and lots of elite voices in France will start making accusations of racism…and so they just don’t go. The area is, for practical purposes, a no-go zone for the French authorities. Not because they can’t go, but because they won’t go – and they won’t go because they believe the political costs of going outweigh the benefits of not going.

Don’t be too down on the French about this: there are no-go zones in the United States, as well. Why do you think in places like Chicago there are neighborhoods horrifically crime-ridden while the neighborhood just down the street is nearly crime-free? I can’t think of any other reason than that the police are protecting one area very well, but not too interested in what is going on in the other. Take a look at the crime stats for the Hyde Park and Washington Park areas of Chicago – Hyde Park ranks 44th of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods in violent crime; Washington Park ranks 5th. They are right next to each other. Seriously – you can cross the street from Hyde Park to Washington Park. Criminals can’t cross the street? Of course they can – but for some reason they don’t. In fact, why don’t criminals routinely head to the richest areas of town to rob and burglarize? Its not like criminals don’t have cars – why beat someone for $50 when you can beat someone else ten miles away for $500? One area is protected, another area isn’t. One area is under the laws of the City of Chicago, one area not quite so much. As to why these two neighborhoods are different I’ll leave that to someone with the time for more in-depth research…but, to me, Washington Park is a no-go zone. I won’t go there. Certainly not after dark. So are those neighborhoods of Paris where Mr. Cooke recently toured. They aren’t entirely part of France – I can’t expect a friendly and polite French police officer to protect me in some areas. I can’t even be very certain that if I were killed in one of those areas that an in-depth investigation would be done…after all, it might lead to someone of a certain faith being the prime suspect and arresting him could cause a riot. Better just to send the American stiff back home and close the case as “unsolved”.

As a citizen of the United States, there should be no part of the United States where it is unsafe for me to travel – any time, day or night. And if I got myself a visa to visit France, I should be able to wander aimlessly about France with never a worry for my safety. That is what government’s which are doing their job ensure. Indeed, it is the prime reason to have a government. Most of the rest of what government does is dross. But, that is not the case. Of course, it has always been like that: there have always been bad neighborhoods that are best to stay out of. But the difference we have today with the past is that a bad neighborhood in the past might have been that way for a multitude of reasons, but some of the bad neighborhoods in Paris (and elsewhere in the Western world) are to be stayed out of simply because of the faith of a majority of the people living there. Safely defended by a craven fear among our elite leadership, areas of the West are being sutured off from our laws and customs. To be sure, a great deal of run-of-the-mill criminal activity is going on in these areas, but the defense of the run-of-the-mill criminals is the fact that they operate out of primarily Muslim areas.

There are various kinds of injustice in the world but one of the worst is when average folks are not afforded protection. In our elite’s desire to not deal with real problems, they have essentially thrown a large number of people to the wolves. In the Muslim neighborhoods of Paris – as Cooke points out – you don’t see a lot of women on the streets and those you do would fit nicely into Mecca. But is that what they really want? Do all Muslim women in those Paris neighborhoods want to wear the niqab? I doubt it. Human nature being what it is, there are certainly some who would prefer to dress like French women – but they dare not, because French law and customs don’t matter and while in theory a Muslim French woman in those areas could appeal to the police for protection, the reality is that she’s at the mercy of those who actually rule the neighborhood. We do it, too, you know? Just for one example we throw people to the criminal wolves on our border because we refuse to enforce our laws – and if we won’t enforce our laws, then someone will enforce their laws. In the case of our border the laws are those of various criminal gangs. If what it would take to ensure the enforcement of French law is an armed French policeman on every corner in the Muslim neighborhoods, then that is what France’s government is morally bound to provide. But, they don’t. Too difficult. Might get called a racist.

It is a paradox of the modern West that as our governments have asserted increasing power over our lives, they have less able to actually protect our lives. This is a sign of civilizational collapse. I’m not at all certain how this is all going to come out in the long run, other than a solid assurance that it can’t go on too much longer, and when the final smash comes, it will be quite astonishing. Whether the remains of western civilization will emerge to rebuild – or be buried forever – remains to be seen. But if we do want our western civilization to survive, then it is a requirement that we look at the facts with a clear eye. Needlessly causing offense is wrong – that is why I asserted a few days ago that the Charlie Hebdo cartoons were wrong – but if telling the truth is offensive, then offend away.

Muslims living in the West have an absolute right to the same freedoms that the rest of us enjoy and if we don’t guarantee them their rights, then we have failed in our duties. Among these rights are, of course, the right to be as devoutly Muslim as they wish to be – but they also have a right to be as slipshod and/or heretical as they wish to be, just as the rest of us have the right to be devout about our beliefs, or ignore them nine days out of ten. Just as, say, a Jew must be in no danger if he doesn’t adhere to Judaism, so much a Muslim be in no danger – no matter where the Muslim lives in the West – for not adhering to Islam. And whatever amount of law enforcement activity is necessary – guided, of course, by a strong sense of justice tempered by mercy – to ensure this state of affairs, that is what must be done. Say, if you wish, that there aren’t any no-go zones in Paris or other Western cities. Fine. Granted. But what are we going to do about those non-no-go zones where a person steps away from the ruling orthodoxy at the peril of their life?

Yes, There are Limits

Mark Noonan13 Comments

There’s been a lot of back and forth on this since the Charlie Hebdo attack, and now Pope Francis has chimed in:

Pope Francis suggested there are limits to freedom of expression, saying in response to the Charlie Hebdo terror attack that “one cannot make fun of faith” and that anyone who throws insults can expect a “punch.”

The pontiff said that both freedom of faith and freedom of speech were fundamental human rights and that “every religion has its dignity.”

“One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people’s faith, one cannot make fun of faith,” he said. “There is a limit. Every religion has its dignity … in freedom of expression there are limits.”

The pope was speaking to reporters on a plane as he flew from Sri Lanka to the Philippines on his tour of Asia…

Over at Ace, they are little disappointed about this. Allahpundit is also not too pleased. I’ve seen over the past week plenty of comments from conservative and libertarian people who are really not thinking this thing through. To be sure, there is the understandable desire to defend against Islamists who, after all, will kill us no matter what we do – but just because we’re dealing with people like that doesn’t mean we have no responsibility for our own actions. Too many people are getting themselves into the position that unless we applaud the most vile expressions, we are letting the terrorists win. There’s a word for that – but I won’t use it, because it is vulgar and might cause offense…and because I’m someone making failing, weak efforts at being a Christian gentleman, I try not to be offensive.

I’m five feet, seven inches tall. I weigh about 175 pounds. I’m not exactly of the body-builder sort. Now, suppose I had a neighbor who is six feet, six inches tall; weighs about 280 and bench presses cars. I take a dislike to this neighbor because he’s a jerk – and I express my views about him by drawing insulting pictures of him and posting them on a board out in front of my house. Now, to be sure, my gigantic neighbor – who is a jerk, as I said – should still take my insults in stride. There is no actual justification for him to pound me into a pulp because I drew unflattering pictures of him. On the other hand, if I did get pounded into a pulp, how many of you would be thinking – at least – that I shouldn’t have been writing checks my body can’t cash? Even if you called the police to have the man arrested and were willing to testify against him in court because, still, he shouldn’t have pounded me, wouldn’t any reasonable person say that I had played a role in bringing on the pounding? There are plenty of ways I can deal with a jerk – including if really pressed to it, fighting. But if I’m going to fight, then I’d better be ready to fight. If I’m not prepared to actually fight, then maybe I should seek other means of redress? Thinking is a very important part of deciding what to do.

In our definition of free speech there is no license to print whatever you want. You might have heard the word “libel” from time to time. Also, the famous “you can’t shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” exception is well known. Even in good, old, First Amendment USA, there is no absolute right to say what one pleases. We have these reasonable restrictions on free speech because they are, well, reasonable. Of course, this still allows a very wide latitude for people to write things – and in the United States, we tend to have the widest latitude in the world. And this is a good thing – a thing I would die in the last ditch to defend. There was nothing legally wrong in what Charlie Hebdo printed. No reasonable person in the United States – or even in France, for that matter – would want Charlie Hebdo shut down over the offensive cartoons. Furthermore, no reasonable person would assert a right of the offended party to do violence against Charlie Hebdo for their offensive cartoons. There is no justification for what happened – and if it had happened in the United States and the perpetrators were caught and brought to trial, I would be only too pleased to pronounce a guilty verdict against them in court…nor would I shed tears if the perpetrators wound up killed by the police, as the French perpetrators ultimately did. But with all those caveats, I still have to say – as unpopular as it might be – that Charlie Hedbo did play a role in bringing on the attack. And they played that role without having made any provision for repelling an attack. I’m guessing because they never imagined that there would be such an attack – or, perhaps, they thought that the French government, which has been slack as all European governments, would protect them?

Choose your battles: that is an old saw; but none the less wise for having been used often. People who have read my stuff over the years know that I’m on board with fighting Islamist terrorists. In fact, I’m in favor of much more vigorous war than we’re doing – and even much more vigorous war than President Bush engaged in. I’m incensed on a regular basis at the crimes of the Islamists – especially, these days, the horrific massacres of Christians. I’d like us to really take the fight to the enemy. But I’m not going to sit here and just write nasty things about Muslims and think I’m doing something against Islamist terrorism. It might make a person feel good – though I really can’t imagine why – to do such things, but I don’t see any point in it. All it does is take our eye off the ball and, additionally, provide additional recruiting tools for the very people we want destroyed. We are, indeed, supposed to be better than the enemy – true, we should be physically stronger and better able to apply force against them, but we should also be more just, more merciful and more respectful of their innate, human dignity. Better. You see?

We’re doing it all wrong, in my view. Obama and the liberals are wrong in that they believe that Muslims are the offended party and if we’ll just show forbearance, they’ll quit. Plenty of conservatives are wrong in that they believe if we just give brag and insult and drop bombs, they’ll quit. Other people are a combination of these things. Me? I want to win the war. I want Islamism destroyed. To do that will take intelligence, foresight, courage and a fine and sensitive touch with the great mass of the Muslim people.

Of course, our real handicap is that far too many people in the West – and probably a majority; especially in Europe – don’t really believe in anything. They don’t believe in honesty. Don’t believe in decency. Don’t believe in self-sacrifice. All they want is their creature comforts and a life free from responsibility – and they’ll bury their heads as deep in the sand as necessary to live like that. We’re easy pickings for people like the Islamists – I am the person entirely unsurprised when Western people volunteer to join them. People, if they are not utterly craven, want to believe. We in the West offer nothing to believe in – just more gadgets and more moral disintegration. Those in the West who do have good beliefs are ridiculed, and absurdly compared to the terrorists, as well. A kid who has been taught to believe in nothing worthy – who, indeed, has been told that worthy beliefs are flat out wrong – and who has been fed a steady diet of nonsense is especially prone to fall for the first charlatan who comes along.

The Islamists offer something to believe in, and a lot of people go for it – and that we know it is stupid and destructive doesn’t alter our position or our peril. The Islamists are not the first people to sucker large numbers into doing evil, while thinking they are doing good. Ultimately, we won’t win this war unless we start to believe in something superior to the Islamists. We’d better figure out real quick who we are and what we believe. Defending a vulgar, little paper like Charlie Hebdo won’t do the trick – in fact, it is our celebration of such that is at the heart of our problem. It is a sign of strength if we tolerate such things in our midst, it is suicide if we praise such things…and while a collection of liberals apparently had a long held feeling of hate towards Charlie Hedbo, that was more a function of cowardice than a desire for standards of decency…we know this because the only thing liberals didn’t like about Charlie Hedbo was that it insulted Islam. This is just a species of “please cut my throat last” cowardice. If we were a people who condemned Charlie Hebdo for all its insults – you know, including the insults against Jews and Christians – while never making a move to suppress it, then we would be morally healthy, and better able to fight and win against Islamists. But that would also be a people who condemned 80%+ of what is in popular culture these days.

I’m getting a little long in the tooth at age 50. No one in their right mind is going to place me on the battlefield – but I assure one and all that I am ready to defend Judeo-Christian, Western civilization. I’m not so willing to die to defend the right of adolescent jerks to insult people. Do you see the difference? I’ll fight and die for “We hold these truths to be self evident…” and “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth…”, but I’m not really pleased at the thought of dying so that the next vulgar little reality series can be broadcast on television. In fact, no one is willing to die for that. The Islamists have their dogmas they are willing to fight and die for – what dogmas are we willing to fight and die for? And if we do have some people believing in dogmas worth fighting for, are there enough of them?

Ultimately, there are limits – because there have to be. The limits are necessary for us to have civilization. You can’t have it all. You can either hold to rigid standards of conduct or you can be destroyed by people who hold to rigid standards of conduct. Those are your choices, boiled down. Among the rigid standards of conduct in our civilization is a cautious courtesy of speech – an unwillingness to cause needless offense. Gracious, there are enough things to offend us all just in day to day living – we don’t need to add to it. Yes, at times we must take the course of King St. Louis – when someone is insanely persistent in demanding death and destruction, we must drive a sword through him as far as it will go. But good King St. Louis also would never have dreamed of just insulting people for the fun of it – and he was a Crusader, my friends; a more devoted enemy of Islamic aggression you will not find in the annals of history.

I really do love this country of ours – warts and all. I really do think that in secular terms, we offer the best that humanity has to offer. I do think our nation worth defending. But it is worth defending only if we live up to the standards upon which it was founded. Look through the Declaration and the Constitution and you’ll see it shot through from start to finish with decency. Even when Jefferson condemned George III before the bar of history, he didn’t offer insult. No one reading that sublime document could conclude other than that the king was in the wrong, and right and justice were on our side. Jefferson offered truth, well written to appeal to the better angels of human nature. Contrast it to the cowardly tripe of modern liberals, or the school-yard insults hurled by some. We’re better than that. At all events, we had better be better – because if we aren’t better than the enemy, we won’t beat him.

What I Think About the Hebdo Attack

Mark Noonan29 Comments

First off, the Charlie Hebdo drawings are rather crude and not at all to my taste.

Secondly, to call this an attack upon free speech when we’re decades into Political Correctness in the West is an absurdity.

Third, One might like to think that such a brazen crime as this will wake people up, but it won’t: we’ll have our candle light vigils and our hand wringing…and maybe someone will lob a few missiles in the general direction of Islamists, somewhere; but we won’t actually face up to the facts. To do so would call forth a whole series of very inconvenient things which would distract politicians from grafting, corporations from squeezing profits and average folks from watching mindless television programs.

One thing that caught my eye over the course of the day was the furious reaction – mostly on the right, as far as I can tell – to the head of the Catholic League’s statement on the matter. To quote a bit:

…While some Muslims today object to any depiction of the Prophet, others do not. Moreover, visual representations of him are not proscribed by the Koran. What unites Muslims in their anger against Charlie Hebdo is the vulgar manner in which Muhammad has been portrayed. What they object to is being intentionally insulted over the course of many years. On this aspect, I am in total agreement with them…

That is bound to make people mad. Partially because it appears to excuse the killers (though it doesn’t actually do that, if you read the whole thing), partially because lots of people are dead and we’re supposed to be agog at the heroism of Charlie Hebdo from now on.

Charlie Hebdo did create some rather vulgar depictions of a lot of things – including Catholic things. Of course, vulgar depictions of Christians of any sort are common in popular media. Its a sort of go-to thing for anyone wanting to (safely) make a name for themselves as transgressive. Sure, when you insult a Christian there might be a Christian or two who complains, but its not like Christians are going to kill you over it. To give a bit of credit to Charlie Hebdo, the insults were directed a lot of people, including Muslims – in a world where most people walk on eggshells around Muslim issues, that says something. But, it also doesn’t excuse crude insults.

Just to make myself clear: a person is not properly exercising his or her right to free speech when they are hurling an insult. To be sure, such things happen – and no one possessed of their wits will ever try to prevent someone from saying something because it might be insulting. But, here’s the thing: our entire Western world does precisely that. And, yes, that does make us rather witless. We’re making Charlie Hebdo into a hero for being ecumenically insulting but we’ll drive out of corporate America a person who once donated to a pro-traditional marriage cause. Yeah, that makes sense. People at Charlie Hebdo abuse the privilege of free speech and it is accounted heroic – someone properly exercises their right to free speech and he’s socially unacceptable. Am I the only one who sees a problem here?

My guess is that my more libertarian friends would say that both Charlie Hebdo and the corporate boss should have been left alone. And they would be right for saying that. Still, one man was fired for quietly expressing his opinion, the other were people gainfully employed for loudly shouting insults.

The drawings of Charlie Hebdo remind me of nothing so much as a the crude pictures in the anti-Semitic Der Sturmer; they shouldn’t have been printed in any decent publication in the world. If you have something to say against, then it is your bound duty to say it in a manner which provides information in a non-insulting manner. Like most social duties, this cannot be enforced; as per usual, being decent is something which pretty much has to be done voluntarily. If someone wants to wallow in the gutter, there’s not much anyone can do about it. But such people aren’t being brave or heroic – they’re just being jerks. Additionally, if something can’t be said politely then it is probably at least partially incorrect on factual grounds.

At the end of the day, Charlie Hebdo should have found different themes to draw upon. They could well have used art to provoke discussion – including discussion about the very serious problems the world confronts in Islamic radicalism. In a very small way, the world would be a better place had things gone like that. Of course, the Hebdo massacre could well have been done by Islamists for even carefully reasoned and polite criticism of Islam – the Islamist enemy is like that. But the old saw is that it costs nothing to be polite – and it can cost a lot to be insulting. Better, on the whole, to be polite.

Freedom is the ability to freely choose to do the right thing, or it is nothing. We know that shooting up a news office is not the right thing and thus anyone who uses his God-given right of choice to do such a thing has done wrong. I am hopeful that most people will also hold that insulting people is to freely choose to do the wrong thing – not nearly as wrong as killing, of course, but still wrong. Anyone out there want to lay odds on who will win in a fight between those who want to insult and those who want to kill those who insult?

The fight, I think, would have a different outcome if the Islamists were confronted with people who firmly but politely stated their views and demonstrated their willingness to kill or die for them.

(Ed Note: Updated to make it clear that Charlie Hebdo is a magazine, not a person. My excuse is that it was late at night and the original concept of this was to write specifically about Stéphane Charbonnier, but I felt that was to get too personal into it and re-worked the whole article…but forgetting that I was talking about a magazine, not a person. Sorry for being a bonehead. Not the first time it happened, won’t be the last!)