The sentiment Peter conveys is noble, but the reality is not always so clear cut.

As much as we have people ‘throw gasoline on the fires of hatred and bigotry’; we have as many that will be blinded by partisanship for an ideology and use the false claim of racism, bigotry, or hatred to shut down any discussion or debate of uncomfortable realities that they wish not to confront, or lack the intellectual capacity to defend their own ideological frauds (ie the Israeli/Palestinian conflict).

When it comes to isis one can not get around the issues of politics and religion… this is front and center at the core of its being.

I believe isis to be purely a creation of the Obama foreign policy, the Arab sunni/shia conflict, and the religious extremism of the Gulf monarchies. If it takes cartoons to crystallize the reality of the situation where words won’t do it justice, then so be it.

Obama turned his back on the Iraqi sunni population and allowed the shia death squads to run amuck after the American pull out. Then he was weak in supporting more moderate forces in the Syrian conflict giving a vacuum of support for the remnants of the Iraqi sunni uprising in a majority sunni Syria. Clearly Israel and Saudi Arabia in their hate-on for the shia Assad regime was essential in the rapid development of isis from a logistical standpoint at its incubation… and now it is essentially a sunni/shia ethnic cleansing war on a grand scale bubbling at the surface ready to boil over at any time… and we have inserted western forces in the middle at the brink drawing the ire of all sides.

So the best solution is free and open speech that speaks to the truth no matter how uncomfortable it may be. Clearly this involves showing how ludicrous the religious ideologies are that are driving this all from the back seat. Some would naturally take that as hate talk so as to keep on doing what they are doing in the shadows and the dark of the human mind.

BTW Probably the most maligned of all religions by the media is the Catholic religion and one never sees the Catholic population lashing out with violence, but rather looking inward at their own faults and accepting criticism for what it is.

IMO the main actors that fan the flames of conflict, divisions, and atrocious human rights abuses are all getting the kid gloves from our western governments. Clearly in my mind at the top of the list are the Gulf monarchies, Israel, Turkey, and Iran. If we had a balanced foreign policy that called them out on their actions the world would never know of isis and its ilk because they would have no ideological space in which to operate. All for the oil and bankster economy we align with the worlds greatest sponsors of terror and to be damned with the rule of law, common decency to man, and a just world order.

Journalist have stepped far out of line in the name of journalism. Getting a message out to the reader, with facts and truth is what the job of a journalist is. Somewhere in the last years some journalist look at the job as a power trip so to persuade public opinion. The journalist is also a tool used by all levels of government and religious organizations.

As was reported by a local so called journalist that Haldi residents where somehow responsible for the drug trade and prostitution in the City because most did not support the recovery centre is a good example of poor journalism at the local level.

Cartoons are for humour not slander.

cartoons sometimes make people think. if not religion, then maybe not sports figures, politicians etc. humour is in the eye of the beholder. i find many cartoons, humourous articles, standup comedians not to my liking and dare i say repulsive. but guess what kiddies, i will tolerate it because we live in a society that lets us.
Islam must come out of the middle ages. when was the last time a jew, christian, buddhist, shintoist….. killed for drawing a picture of a holy figure in their religion?
FWIW, i am an atheist and religion is ‘out there’.

When a religious organization tells you that they plan on taking over your country through population…you think they are joking. Just look anywhere in the world at % of population numbers and violence that follows. No one can hide this violence. They are not peaceful at all

I appreciated this article…if school children were to draw a cartoon of a classmate it would not be seen as freedom of speech but rather teasing and taunting…

People who commit acts of crime could care less bout your rights, speak up about it and your the bad guy. Go figure!!

Journalism defined as oxymoronic.

Peter have any other religions made this type of response or threats to some drawings? The direct violence might be from a small number of nutcases inside a larger group but it was still spawned from the larger group.

Considering the violence both inside and outside the Muslim group it is due for a renaissance to join the modern world and dump its medieval practices. It is a religion out of pace with an evolving modern world. Other religions have made the jump.

Eagleone just what is it you have against Israel? A tiny country surrounded by much larger countries all vowing to destroy it.

Peter makes a lot of assumptions about Charlie Hebdo’s motives – racism, inflaming of tensions, and bigotry against Muslims. Really? How does he know?

Has he seen any of Hebdo’s animal rights cartoons and does he know that he devoted a weekly column to that cause?
(http://www.peta.org/blog/charlie-hebdos-10-best-animal-rights-cartoons/?utm_campaign=010915&utm_source=PETA%20E-Mail&utm_medium=E-News)

Were those designed to inflame tensions and create hatred between meat eaters/ranchers/meat processors and vegetarians or were they, as I suspect, designed to shake people out of their complacency about the way animals are abused en route to their dinner plates? If they caused just one person to change their thinking and speak up on this issue then they did their job, and who better to speak up than meat eaters themselves?

In the name of Islam and depending on the level of extremism, horrible atrocities and injustices are heaped upon women and girls in parts of the Middle East. Women’s hands are cut off if they dare to expose them in public; they are stoned to death for alleged adultery; they must wear black robes from head to foot with merely an eye slit showing the only body parts allowed for public view; girls are denied an education; and women are forbidden from driving.

Is it possible that Charlie Hebdo in his own way was trying to shake people out of their complacency about these atrocities against women committed in the name of Islam and cause them to change their thinking and speak up on this issue, too, and who better to speak up than Muslims themselves, of whom there are many living in France?

Labelling Hebdo’s cartoons as racist and promoting bigotry is playing right into the hands of that nonsense know as “political correctness” which was designed, I’m sure, expressly to stifle freedom of speech and which has done more damage than good to democracy. I haven’t heard that the Muslim extremists who took exception to his cartoons viewed them as “racist” but they did see them as an affront to their religion and felt they had the right to murder because of it.

We had better all be careful throwing around terms like racism and bigotry because there is a fine line to be drawn between them and legitimate criticism, which is inherent and necessary in any properly functioning democracy. Millions of people have given their lives to preserve that democracy for future generations and we must be ever vigilant not to ever let it be compromised.

I guess all the Christians would like to forget jimmy Jones and deaths of 900 in the name of Jesus . they literally and figuratively drank the religious coolaid . The ones that weren’t shot ,that is . I don’t think the Muslims have killed 900 cartoonists yet . As an aethiest , I am offended by my taxes paying for religious indoctrination of children in private schools that further perpetuates intolerance of others (us verse them mentality ) . Who’s got the bestest invisible friend ? No one has . Watch South Park on Mormonism on YouTube and try to keep a straight face . Smith literally pulled the whole thing out of his hat .

While as a Christian (non fundmentalist – i.e., I don’t believe you’re all going to hell for not believing like me), I’d like to believe we have the moral high ground, but if we have, it hasn’t been for long.

First, most Christians in North America and Europe are nominal. So they really don’t care if you mock Jesus because they really don’t believe all that much. On the other hand, Muslims take their religion very seriously and do rise up to defend it, because it means something to them, and any attack on it, they take personally. Most Jews are nominal, but they have their fundamentalists in Israel, and those people in a heart beat would kill every Arab in the land if they could get away with it.

Second, Christianity doesn’t exactly have the cleanest of records. Not too long ago Irish Catholics and Protestants were killing each other over a sectarian title. Fundamentalist Christians were firebombing abortion clinics, and assassinating doctors. And really, not that long ago good Christian politicians were advocating segregation on race – in spite of Jesus being an advocate for inclusiveness.

Third, we see Muslims as barbaric because of beheadings, stonings, whipping etc. They see us as barbaric because of carpet bombing, smart bombs, cruise missles, which have the affect of dismembering both the innocent and the guilty. And further, we justify our actions in defense of something called democracy and freedom, which if we were honest, we do not have in Canada as we watch governments being elected with less than a majority of the votes, and if you dare say something politically incorrect, you can lose your job and your reputation overnight.

We forget, they are here, because we first went over there. If we didn’t insist on fighting in the middle east and messing around with their society, we wouldn’t be obligated to take the refugees that we created, and the conspirators that helped us when we were over there.

Finally, People talk about the brave WWII veterans who fought for democracy and freedom. In my experience, they did no such thing. My uncle and both grandfathers served in combat rolls in WWII (British Army), and according to my father, they went because some nut job was just on the other side of the channel and he had to be stopped. They didn’t even know a holocaust was going on when they joined up. And Hitler was a “Christian” so it certainly wasn’t a religious war. They fought because their backs were to the wall.

I have no doubt that Islam is both an ideology and a religion, and generally it only assimilates well when it’s % of the population is very low, so I am concerned about the growing influx of that faith, and do suspect the generation after me will find it’s way of life – less free – and less safe, but unless someone is willing to take the political hit, draw a line in the sand, and say, no more, we will be supplanted through immigration and birth, and that’s just the way it’ll be.

Well put butterfly . Turkeys leader just weeks ago said that woman are not equal to men and never will be . This is a so called modern Muslim country ? India doesn’t respect woman much better either . They seem to have a rape culture .

I would be tempted to agree with the article, but apparently they kill innocent people in the absence of inflammatory cartoons also. Which makes me think it was just a convenient excuse.

The thing about Christians, Muslims, athiests, etc. is that they all have a small minority of extremists, nut cases, and people who look down their noses at the rest thinking ‘they’ have it figured out and examples of bad things that have been committed by one group or another.

Unfortunately, those are the people that get all the attention and perpetuate the biases and stereotypes.

If you want to put a journalist out of work obey the 10 Commandment. Also there would be no need for the 6 o’clock news. My two cents worth

@johnnybelt have you got an example of an aethiest extremist ? I have never heard Of or met one . Also if you look it up in wikipedia . You will find aethieism is the fastest growing demographic far out stripping the growth of Islam . The higher educated the population is ,the more aethieism grows . See the demographic maps . aethieism is realism , religion is fantasy . for example . The new year starts dec 22 , but the christians needed that week for their fantasy . Reality verses fantasy ? Easy choice .

Since we’re looking things up, try bigotry (Oxford dictionary): “obstinate and intolerant belief in a religion.” Now doesn’t that describe religious extremists who kill out of their intolerance and not those who criticize them? Let’s not turn the tables.

If words and cartoons can make someone kill another human being, than these people should be seperated from the rest of civilized society.

According to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (section 2.(b)). “Everyone has the freedom of though, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication”

Are you suggesting we edit it and add “unless it offends somebody”?

Rex Murphy had a great comment in the National Post today.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/01/10/rex-murphy-we-are-not-charlie-hebdo/

It is my understanding that Charlie Hebdo is a satirical publication, not a “news” organization per se. One definition of satire that I found was “to use humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.” Let’s recognize that distinction. Charlie Hebdo is not “news” or “journalism” in the traditional sense and I don’t think it should be lumped into the same category as “legitimate” news organizations when discussing what is acceptable to publish or not.

IMHO, Charlie Hebdo and other similar outlets should certainly be looked at differently than the CBC, CNN, the BBC or O250. They serve a different purpose and I don’t think we can really debate the underlying issues if we don’t at least acknowledge that.

I find it ironic that certain posters respond to an article about intolerance by taking pot shots at religion, Christianity mostly. Certainly Athieism is growing as a belief system, there have always been those who do not believe in the existence of god (or gods). What is almost comical is how some Athieists are approaching the same kind of foam at the mouth extremism that they heap scorn & ridicule towards main stream religion & the extremists associated with.

So you agree religion is extremism?

What is religion? A set or code of beliefs? By definition I guess Atheism could not be a religion, but the new wave of “Atheists” certainly is coming close. Any set of beliefs has fanatics, that is the danger.

Seamutt what do I have against poor little Israel? I guess if we were to self censor no one would ever know.

This is a nation that was funded in its creation by the most corrupt central bankers in the world for the purpose of a safe haven from their financial crimes. They require their population to feel threatened by the world in order to have an army to protect them and their crimes.

The mossad intelligence agency for Israel was created by the amalgamation of Jewish terrorist organizations from the Palestinian mandate and criminal syndicates from America that operate under the banner of ‘war through deception’… and has been caught on a number of occasions using planted passports, illegal (even using Canadian passports) to commit crimes and has a history of creating atrocities to false flag blame on the Muslim populations so as to incite violence, hatred and discrimination policies against them.

Israel is a country that has more nuclear weapons with the means to deliver them in its arsenal than 60% of the veto member nations of the UN security council. More than France, Britain, or China… for a nation of 6-million people… and a Sampson policy that targets every national capital in the world if their existence becomes threatened.

This is a country that commits war crimes of collective punishment regularly against its captive Palestinian population. The bombing of UN schools, UN hospitals, and entire 20-story apartment blocks that they write off as mistakes or errant weapons targeting. War crimes designed to facilitate the further theft of land for extremists. This is the army with their finger on the trigger of the worlds third largest nuclear arsenal.

Israel is a country that just recently passed a law declaring it to be a Jewish only state. Relegating its Christian and Muslim populations as second class citizens without the same rights. Had we done that in Canada we would be considered racist and the pariahs of the world.

In Israel dozens of times every single day of the year young Palestinian boys are kidnapped by the Israeli military (some as young as 12), taken to prison without their parents knowledge, tried on trumped up charges without a lawyer or any advocate present on their behalf in proceedings done in Hebrew without any interpreter for the accused, sentenced for their crimes and radicalized in their jails… so as to always have an enemy for the next generation… an enemy that believes their is no justice other than violence, because their are raised in an environment that shows them no justice, no human dignity, and no rules to war when it comes to attacking their peers.

All of this from a state that refuses to define its boarders, so as to leave the option open for further future violence, corruption, and dehumanization of surrounding populations. All of this ferments extremism, creates conditions for hatred and terror, and empower the radicals on both sides to perpetuate the cycle of violence that spills over into the west.

Now if we talk about these things there will always be those that cry anti-semitism as a slur designed to shut down any debate that acknowledges any of the reality of the situation. Those that would call for limits to freedom of speech or a more robust police state are almost always those who would apologize for Israeli crimes as a necessary evil. I do not put Peter into that category, but I think his line of thinking on this issue can easily fall into that trap.

“What is almost comical is how some Athieists are approaching the same kind of foam at the mouth extremism that they heap scorn & ridicule towards main stream religion & the extremists associated with”

====================

Until those Atheists start killing other people for what they say in the name of Atheism, I’m not so sure I’d be inclined to compare them to the extremist factions within the mainstream religious. It’s a gargantuan leap IMHO.

NMG, I wrote ” approaching”. Not there yet but with all belief systems you will get the lunatic fringe. There are those out there that latch onto the words of popular Atheists like Dawkins or Hitchens & start braying those words as if gospel. JB’s post hit it on the head. No one has it all figured out because really, no one really knows (except my wife… ;) ).

A very interesting catch-22 to contemplate is the Harper policy on Ukraine as it relates to his speech he gave to the Israeli parliamentarians recently. Harper said anyone that advocates anything that could harm Israeli’s or Jews is an anti-semite.

Yet Harper it can be said is the biggest supporter among world leaders for the new regime in Kiev… a regime that uses paramilitaries like the right sector and svaboda to terrorize the Eastern Ukrainians out of their homes and farms and off their land. These paramilitaries pledge allegiance to nazism and are labeled as terrorist organizations by the EU. These same paramilitary groups in recent months have been hunting Jews and targeting Jews in Eastern Ukraine and they operate under orders from Kiev… and yet how does Harper reconcile his support of the regime in Kiev with his statements he made in Israel? Or do those words only apply when it is not in the service of globalist banksters out to steal another peoples resources?

So because the Muslim’s can’t take a joke, we should stop poking fun at them via cartoons? Gotcha. Nice liberal stance. lol