The concept of "Islamophobia" gains new ground
PARIS. The 9/11 anniversary jihad operation was quite successful in France as in the rest of the world. An act of war–the attack against the American Consulate in Benghazi – was marketed as a spontaneous popular demonstration against an Islamophobe film that inadvertently led to the demise of three Americans including the ambassador to Libya.
Primary
responsibility for the cover up lies of course with the Obama
administration but French media willingly obliged. While gruesome photos
of Ambassador Chris Stevens, still alive, dragged through the streets
like a bagged animal, manhandled, photographed like a trophy, and
probably subjected to the ultimate outrage were circulating on the Net,
UN Ambassador Susan Rice engaged in grotesque damage control and French
reporters in Benghazi peddled the same version, which they called the
“real story” based on inside information from Libyan authorities.
The story eventually collapsed but it had served its purpose: The good people of our beleaguered free world, who heard virtually nothing about an act of war (most probably don’t know there is such a thing), are now steeped in the concept of Islamophobia. The couplet is engraved in press agency stone, repeated from morning to night: “The attack against the American embassy in reaction to an Islamophobe film. …” The ambassador and his countrymen “lost their lives” the way someone loses an umbrella. Muslims are on the rampage, burning flags and embassies, and it is all about an Islamophobe film.
Paris had the distinction, on September 15, of being one of the rare European countries to have its own mini-demonstration: some 250 “extremists” bearing the black flag of Islam, horrified by the Islamophobe film, tried to approach the American Embassy. A symbolic gesture. They lacked the means to storm the fortress and were no match for the French police, though they managed to injure a few in an outburst of violence that no one, it seems, captured on film. There is a video of high points of the demonstration, including the inevitable “get the Jews” chant, “Khaybar, Khaybar ya yahud.” And even if they didn’t go on to the next line, we know what it is: “Jaish Mohamed saya’ud” [Mohamed’s army is on its way]. The mainstream media censored that portion, the same way they censor footage of the humiliations of the murdered American ambassador. Interior Minister Manuel Valls, however, has on several occasions referred to that “unacceptable slogan”. Incidentally, his popularity increases as the president’s ratings plunge. An archetypical punk jihadi featured on the cleaned-up reports of the demonstration (that did include street prayers on the Champs Elysées), proudly displayed his ignorance of the laws of the République. “Yer not allowed t’make images of the prophet y’know, ye can’t insult him. …”
In his own naïve way he showed us that wherever he stands, that’s umma land, and ye better toe the line. And the fact is, journalists can no longer mention Mohamed these days without the “prophet” moniker. A 24 year-old convert to Islam, who works for the state-owned railroad, was arrested and sentenced to three months in jail (that he will never serve, but that’s another story), for bringing a telescopic club to the demonstration. He complained to the court and the media that he was unjustly punished to serve as an example. Why was he armed? That’s simple – he was afraid Jewish extremists would mingle with the demonstrators and attack them.
The French scandal magazine Closer put Princess Kate’s naked breasts on its cover that same week when embassies were burning, snapped by a paparazzo while the young royals were taking a brief vacation on what they thought was a secluded property in the gorgeous Lubéron region of France. The scraggly-haired editor in chief of the magazine, Laurence Pieau, argued that there was nothing scandalous about showing a loving young couple smooching by the swimming pool in the South of France. The magazine hit the stands just as a demurely veiled Kate and barefoot William visited the Assiyakrina mosque in Kuala Lumpur on their Diamond Jubilee tour. The royal couple didn’t set fire to the mosque or to the nearest French embassy. They took Closer to court and won an injunction in a civil suit. A criminal complaint for invasion of privacy is pending.
So what about Charlie Hebdo? The below-the-belt weekly dove right into the fray with its predictable attributes—hairy private parts and orifices, buggy eyes and phallic tongues, the stubbly impudence of grown men playing sweaty locker room grab-ass games. Was it all that impertinent? Judging by the reaction, the answer is no. French troops in cooperation with local authorities in twenty potential hot spots set up impressive protective dispositions around embassies, consulates, and schools. French families were exasperated… not with their host populations but with Charlie Hebdo for putting them in danger, and they have a point. The magazine staff and building have police protection but the barbed wire and tanks have already been withdrawn, the schools reopened, and parents can be forgiven for dreading the possibility of a Bezlan type operation. So far, Charlie Hebdo has not had the same effect as the “blasphemous Islamophobe film”.
Was the Charlie Hebdo operation opportune, opportunistic, gratuitous, courageous, pertinent or impertinent? Reactions ranged from sharia-compliant outrage to total laissez-faire free speech but the middle ground is not so easily dismissed. Many, myself included, who would not lift a finger against the freedom to insult any and all sensitivities, reserve the right to criticize the free speakers. I am not surprised to find the usual CH bundling of “religious extremists” on the cover. A cartoon shows the Mohamed character complaining: “Stop hassling me, I’m Jewish.” A kosher grocery store in the banlieue of Sarcelles – known as little Jerusalem – was attacked with a grenade; fortunately no one was killed, but the message was loud and clear.
Marine Le Pen, too, uses Jews as leavening but she is more open about it. Her big issue of the moment is the total ban of headscarves and kippas in public. If I just called for a ban of [Muslim] headscarves, she says, I’d be burned at the stake for Islamophobia. The kippa doesn’t cause any problems, she admits, but it’s not too much to ask our Jewish compatriots to make this tiny sacrifice for the sake of the general welfare. And, she adds, fewer and fewer men are wearing it in our streets these days, because they are harassed by Muslims.
What is the upshot of all these exhibitions of jihad at work? There were no demonstrations in Paris last Saturday. Forgetting that the bad guys are a tiny minority, political figures from right to left profusely congratulated the entire Muslim population for its supreme sense of responsibility. Charlie Hebdo, with its let it all hang out smear of the cons [literally cunts], actually joins the chorus of those who congratulate Islam for its trouble-free contribution to humanity. The problem isn’t Islam, it’s the extremists, right? A small minority in Benghazi, Tunis, Islamabad, Kano, Cairo, Beirut, etc. This week, President Hollande inaugurated the magnificent new Islamic Arts wing of the Louvre financed by, among others, the ubiquitous Alwaleed bin Talal.
Polls show that opposition to voting rights for non-European foreigners in municipal elections – an important campaign promise of François Hollande – rose from one half to two thirds since September 11.
PARIS. The 9/11 anniversary jihad operation was quite successful in France as in the rest of the world. An act of war–the attack against the American Consulate in Benghazi – was marketed as a spontaneous popular demonstration against an Islamophobe film that inadvertently led to the demise of three Americans including the ambassador to Libya.
Primary
responsibility for the cover up lies of course with the Obama
administration but French media willingly obliged. While gruesome photos
of Ambassador Chris Stevens, still alive, dragged through the streets
like a bagged animal, manhandled, photographed like a trophy, and
probably subjected to the ultimate outrage were circulating on the Net,
UN Ambassador Susan Rice engaged in grotesque damage control and French
reporters in Benghazi peddled the same version, which they called the
“real story” based on inside information from Libyan authorities.The story eventually collapsed but it had served its purpose: The good people of our beleaguered free world, who heard virtually nothing about an act of war (most probably don’t know there is such a thing), are now steeped in the concept of Islamophobia. The couplet is engraved in press agency stone, repeated from morning to night: “The attack against the American embassy in reaction to an Islamophobe film. …” The ambassador and his countrymen “lost their lives” the way someone loses an umbrella. Muslims are on the rampage, burning flags and embassies, and it is all about an Islamophobe film.
Paris had the distinction, on September 15, of being one of the rare European countries to have its own mini-demonstration: some 250 “extremists” bearing the black flag of Islam, horrified by the Islamophobe film, tried to approach the American Embassy. A symbolic gesture. They lacked the means to storm the fortress and were no match for the French police, though they managed to injure a few in an outburst of violence that no one, it seems, captured on film. There is a video of high points of the demonstration, including the inevitable “get the Jews” chant, “Khaybar, Khaybar ya yahud.” And even if they didn’t go on to the next line, we know what it is: “Jaish Mohamed saya’ud” [Mohamed’s army is on its way]. The mainstream media censored that portion, the same way they censor footage of the humiliations of the murdered American ambassador. Interior Minister Manuel Valls, however, has on several occasions referred to that “unacceptable slogan”. Incidentally, his popularity increases as the president’s ratings plunge. An archetypical punk jihadi featured on the cleaned-up reports of the demonstration (that did include street prayers on the Champs Elysées), proudly displayed his ignorance of the laws of the République. “Yer not allowed t’make images of the prophet y’know, ye can’t insult him. …”
In his own naïve way he showed us that wherever he stands, that’s umma land, and ye better toe the line. And the fact is, journalists can no longer mention Mohamed these days without the “prophet” moniker. A 24 year-old convert to Islam, who works for the state-owned railroad, was arrested and sentenced to three months in jail (that he will never serve, but that’s another story), for bringing a telescopic club to the demonstration. He complained to the court and the media that he was unjustly punished to serve as an example. Why was he armed? That’s simple – he was afraid Jewish extremists would mingle with the demonstrators and attack them.
The French scandal magazine Closer put Princess Kate’s naked breasts on its cover that same week when embassies were burning, snapped by a paparazzo while the young royals were taking a brief vacation on what they thought was a secluded property in the gorgeous Lubéron region of France. The scraggly-haired editor in chief of the magazine, Laurence Pieau, argued that there was nothing scandalous about showing a loving young couple smooching by the swimming pool in the South of France. The magazine hit the stands just as a demurely veiled Kate and barefoot William visited the Assiyakrina mosque in Kuala Lumpur on their Diamond Jubilee tour. The royal couple didn’t set fire to the mosque or to the nearest French embassy. They took Closer to court and won an injunction in a civil suit. A criminal complaint for invasion of privacy is pending.
So what about Charlie Hebdo? The below-the-belt weekly dove right into the fray with its predictable attributes—hairy private parts and orifices, buggy eyes and phallic tongues, the stubbly impudence of grown men playing sweaty locker room grab-ass games. Was it all that impertinent? Judging by the reaction, the answer is no. French troops in cooperation with local authorities in twenty potential hot spots set up impressive protective dispositions around embassies, consulates, and schools. French families were exasperated… not with their host populations but with Charlie Hebdo for putting them in danger, and they have a point. The magazine staff and building have police protection but the barbed wire and tanks have already been withdrawn, the schools reopened, and parents can be forgiven for dreading the possibility of a Bezlan type operation. So far, Charlie Hebdo has not had the same effect as the “blasphemous Islamophobe film”.
Was the Charlie Hebdo operation opportune, opportunistic, gratuitous, courageous, pertinent or impertinent? Reactions ranged from sharia-compliant outrage to total laissez-faire free speech but the middle ground is not so easily dismissed. Many, myself included, who would not lift a finger against the freedom to insult any and all sensitivities, reserve the right to criticize the free speakers. I am not surprised to find the usual CH bundling of “religious extremists” on the cover. A cartoon shows the Mohamed character complaining: “Stop hassling me, I’m Jewish.” A kosher grocery store in the banlieue of Sarcelles – known as little Jerusalem – was attacked with a grenade; fortunately no one was killed, but the message was loud and clear.
Marine Le Pen, too, uses Jews as leavening but she is more open about it. Her big issue of the moment is the total ban of headscarves and kippas in public. If I just called for a ban of [Muslim] headscarves, she says, I’d be burned at the stake for Islamophobia. The kippa doesn’t cause any problems, she admits, but it’s not too much to ask our Jewish compatriots to make this tiny sacrifice for the sake of the general welfare. And, she adds, fewer and fewer men are wearing it in our streets these days, because they are harassed by Muslims.
What is the upshot of all these exhibitions of jihad at work? There were no demonstrations in Paris last Saturday. Forgetting that the bad guys are a tiny minority, political figures from right to left profusely congratulated the entire Muslim population for its supreme sense of responsibility. Charlie Hebdo, with its let it all hang out smear of the cons [literally cunts], actually joins the chorus of those who congratulate Islam for its trouble-free contribution to humanity. The problem isn’t Islam, it’s the extremists, right? A small minority in Benghazi, Tunis, Islamabad, Kano, Cairo, Beirut, etc. This week, President Hollande inaugurated the magnificent new Islamic Arts wing of the Louvre financed by, among others, the ubiquitous Alwaleed bin Talal.
Polls show that opposition to voting rights for non-European foreigners in municipal elections – an important campaign promise of François Hollande – rose from one half to two thirds since September 11.
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