Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie Hebdo – I Am Not Charlie Hebdo

 

Blessed is the man, who sits not in the company of mockers.
(Psalm 1:1 – parsed and paraphrased)

How repugnant is this thoughtless stampede to self-identify with those journalistic mongrels at Charlie Hebdo. Or these pompous European and North American scribes, pontificating their right to blasphemy and chafing at the bit that their corporate masters are pixelating these cartoon images of Muhammad or the Entities of other Faiths. Or even of obtuse Crusaders, whose antipathy to Islam drives them into the arms of their secularist adversaries. True Christianity ought to have no interest in choosing between radical Islamists and radical secularists; the equivalent of a Stalinist-Hitlerian choice.

Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie Hebdo.

The State of American Establishment Opinion

The problem with subjectivist (“subjectivity is truth, truth is subjectivity”) or existentialist (“I create my own reality”) truth is that the world’s real actors always miss your cues.

The narcissistic, parochial insanity that is the ideologically gated community of the American Versailles, whose heartland stretches from Boston to Washington, never ceases to astonish and amuse. Or its sycophantic audacity. The ignorance, stupidity, folly, mendacity and all-round mediocrity of its Ivy League elite has become downright dangerous in foreign policy. And it behooves my country to quickly pursue an independent trade, economic, political and military policy before our all too integrated ties with this unhinged behemoth takes us down with it.

According to a self-proclaimed expert on Russian affairs, writing in the venerable Washington Post, Russia is not living in the reality-based community. To whatever extent that that is true; one of this columnist’s immediate example drips with supreme irony.

On almost any other issue you can think of, Russian views differ radically from the consensus here in America. Russians have extremely different opinions about the conflict in Syria, viewing the war in that unlucky country not as a brave struggle for freedom but as a chaotic war of all against all. They have different views about the war in Libya, where they see the overthrow of Gaddafi not as a new beginning but as the start of chaos and disorder.

I must confess to deep envy for not emanating from a family that could put me through Harvard or the connections that would have me groomed to write for Salon, The National Interest, Forbes, The Atlantic Monthly or the Washington Post, even before I finished post-graduate studies. But laying aside such personal pique, might not these media outlets, these major opinion makers be more circumspect as to whom they wish to represent them? Or do they share in this lad’s wide perceptual variance from objective and actual reality, otherwise known as insanity?

Two days after this ridiculing of Russian perspectives on Syria and Libya, the U.S. State Department issues this travel warning as it shutters its embassy.

The security situation in Libya remains unpredictable and unstable. The Libyan government has not been able to adequately build its military and police forces and improve security following the 2011 revolution. Many military-grade weapons remain in the hands of private individuals, including antiaircraft weapons that may be used against civilian aviation. Crime levels remain high in many parts of the country. In addition to the threat of crime, various groups have called for attacks against U.S. citizens and U.S. interests in Libya. Extremist groups in Libya have made several specific threats this year against U.S. government officials, citizens, and interests in Libya. Because of the presumption that foreigners, especially U.S. citizens, in Libya may be associated with the U.S. government or U.S. NGOs, travelers should be aware that they may be targeted for kidnapping, violent attacks, or death. U.S. citizens currently in Libya should exercise extreme caution and depart immediately.

Sporadic episodes of civil unrest have occurred throughout the country and attacks by armed groups can occur in many different areas; hotels frequented by westerners have been caught in the crossfire. Armed clashes have occurred in the areas near Tripoli International Airport, Airport Road, and Swani Road. Checkpoints controlled by militias are common outside of Tripoli, and at times inside the capital. Closures or threats of closures of international airports occur regularly, whether for maintenance, labor, or security-related incidents. Along with airports, seaports and roads can close with little or no warning. U.S. citizens should closely monitor news and check with airlines to try to travel out of Libya as quickly and safely as possible.

The status of the country’s interim government remains uncertain. The newly elected Council of Representatives is scheduled to convene by August 4, but political jockeying continues over where and when to seat the parliament. Heavy clashes between rival factions erupted in May 2014 in Benghazi and other eastern cities. In Tripoli, armed groups have contested territory near Tripoli International Airport since July 13, rendering the airport non-operational. State security institutions lack basic capabilities to prevent conflict, and there remains a possibility of further escalation.

U.S. citizens should avoid areas of demonstrations and exercise caution if in the vicinity of any large gatherings, protests, or demonstrations, as even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and escalate into violence. U.S. citizens traveling to or remaining in Libya, despite this Travel Warning, should use caution and limit nonessential travel within the country, make their own contingency emergency plans, and maintain security awareness at all times.

We strongly recommend that U.S. citizens traveling to or residing in Libya enroll in the Department of State’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP). STEP enrollment gives you the latest security updates and makes it easier to contact you in an emergency. If you don’t have internet access, enroll directly with the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate.

You should make plans to depart as soon as possible. Travelers should check with their airlines prior to their planned travel to verify the flight schedule. Flight cancellations occur frequently. There are no plans for charter flights or other U.S. government-sponsored evacuations. U.S. citizens seeking to depart Libya are responsible for making their own travel arrangements. Land port closures occur frequently.

The warning is actually not that significantly different from the one issued on May 27, 2014. Of course, if any American networks had covered the recent Libyan conflagration in as great detail and insight as well as Aljazeera had, (which reminded me of American reportage on the Viet Nam War); such continued deceits and self-deceits that Libya was on a new beginning to a Westernized liberalism democracy would have been disabused from the beginning. As much as Muammar Gaddafi was unhinged himself, the country was peaceable. The autocracy was not too oppressive or murderous. Why rock the boat? Has no one amongst the Washington Establishment watched and absorbed the lesson of Woody Allen’s “Bananas” (1971)?

Who really is not living in the reality-based community?

Keeping the Terry Jones out of the Country

On October 11, 2012, the border guards stopped self-styled hillbilly prophet, Terry Jones, at the Detroit-Windsor crossing by clever pretext. Mr. Jones, as missionary in Germany, had some technical legal problems; cases which he won. However, until completing a criminal check with English transcript of the German proceedings, he remains barred from the country. ¹ It is dishonest and violates the spirit of the laws. However, one must admire the chutzpah.

However, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney is advancing amendments (Bill C-43) – Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, which would give legal sanction to such state discretion. And it is to that which this blog entry focuses.

Terry Jones, pastor of a 50-odd member Dove World Outreach Center Charismatic Church in Gainesville, Florida is a publicity-seeking, pompous ass who thought promulgation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is best promoted by burning the paper, upon which contains the ideas of another ‘faith tradition’. It naturally instigated the convenient wrath of rabble, half way round the world, who couldn’t even locate Florida on a map. It led to the unnecessary deaths of U.N. personnel.

Anyone who has visited the church and associated sites will soon notice that Herr Doctor Jones really has a bad case of politicized ‘Christianity’. Indeed, there is significantly more mention of Islam, even if in a negative manner, than on Jesus Christ or Christianity.

The best response to nobodies who seek public stage through outlandish assertions and outrage is to ignore them. In this, Doctor Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Baptist Church concurs. His point is that negative criticism, even by the Christian community, simply reinforces the importance and self-importance of these charlatans. ² Those who receive such reproof will simply categorize their Christian counterparts as being in cahoots with the Devil and the World. (Sometimes this might be true. The question is when such characterizations are valid.) It is the frustrating Parable of the Tares.³

The problem of Terry Jones is irresponsible journalism. Some post-menopausal crank, worried about not leaving a legacy, who stages outrageous symbolic acts, is not newsworthy, even on a slow news day in the dog days of summer. He plays into the prejudices of elements of the secularist liberal media, who will traverse West Virginian back country and Louisiana swamps to pull out simple-minded bumpkins, snake charmers, unscrupulous snake-oil, ‘anointed’ Apostolic leaders and their gullible congregants, in their campaign to discredit Christianity and religion in general.

Arguments that media ought not to be selective upon what is covered are full of hypocritical flatulence. What constitutes the ‘news’ is largely governed by the agendas of these priestly media gatekeepers. My first realization occurred when reading a British tabloid in a Barcelona sidewalk café on the outbreak of Chinese-Vietnamese hostilities, which had the potential of superpower struggle (Viet Nam was client to the U.S.S.R.) The war was placed on the very back pages of the paper, while some minor bomb scare in a 2^nd tier British city monopolized the front page. Don’t tell us that selectivity doesn’t figure in the contents of our media output. If Terry Jones has responsibility in the deaths of U.N. and other Western nationals, so does his media accomplices.

The best way to put this man out of our misery is not to give him a camera or microphone. Suicides are not reported on Toronto subway stations for similar reasons; to discourage the self-abuser from obtaining ‘importance’ in leaving a mark in this world while he/she leaves it.

“Islam is not compatible with Western society.” One need not be prejudicial to see that a faith tradition, which in its purest form, subscribes to a theocratic state; where religious principles and regulations are sacrosanct above the whims of popular sovereignty and individual autonomy; is diametrically opposed to Western pluralism. Those who sweep the clear logic of the contradiction under politically correct rugs discredit their credibility.

The question is, so what of it? Muslims constitute less than 3% of the Canadian population, less than 1% in the United States. So long as they constitute a small minority of the population, the prospect of Sharia Law, beyond their own community, is an Atwood-type dystopian fantasy. Islam is not a particularly attractive and appealing religion. Its spread has consistently required conquest and soft and hard coercive sociopolitical measures. In consideration of the relative intellectual, cultural and social backwardness and political and military powerlessness of Muslim nations, Islam does not pose real threat to Western independence and survival. Amongst their numbers, there is a small Fifth Column; which might periodically take occasional lives. However, as has been generally the case beyond the 8th Century; except for when reversals of fortune occur, the zeal of the typical Muslim is moderated by objective reality and the desire for everyday enjoyment of life. Islam, in itself, does not threaten Western civilization. Western civilization is more threatened by the moral decrepitude of its people; such that threats like Islam could actually become real.

This brings me back to the main theme the day; forbidding rabble-rousers like Terry Jones or Louis Farrakhan (Nation of Islam) from entering the country on pre-emptive speculation of potential and real civil disturbance, especially in light of its absence in times past. It sets precedent that invariable proliferates into the abusive exclusion of mere sociopolitical adversaries of the current powers-that-be. It is curious that under an administration that had just eliminated an HRC power that progressed from prosecuting the extremes to selectively persecuting the more mainstream (i.e. Ezra Levant (Western Standard), Mark Steyn (Macleans)); this government would erect another regimen that will, no doubt, follow along the same path.

In March 2010, a conservative firebrand (Ann Coulter) was politely threatened by a University of Ottawa provost, Francois Houle; no doubt with consent and even urging of a former Liberal Cabinet Minister, Alan Rock, who is President of that University.

I would, however, like to inform you, or perhaps remind you, that our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or “free speech”) in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here. You will realize that Canadian law puts reasonable limits on the freedom of expression. For example, promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges. Outside of the criminal realm, Canadian defamation laws also limit freedom of expression and may differ somewhat from those to which you are accustomed. I therefore ask you, while you are a guest on our campus, to weigh your words with respect and civility in mind.

Another leaked private communiqué from Alan Rock about her was not so polite. In a politically charged environment, more like the U.S. milieu then Canada currently, is there any doubt that Coulter might have been the recipient of cross border shenanigans, if Alan Rock and his Liberals were still in power? When one institutes laws, it would be a little politically astute to consider their potential for blowback in the hands of one’s political adversaries!

It is bad law unless circumscribed with extremely explicit particulars as to what constitutes a threat to civil disturbance.

Postscript

For reasons beyond common sense, many in the Christian community are taken with this threat of Islam. Some still seem to believe that we remain a member of Christendom, which Islam apparently threatens. The far greater sociopolitical threat to Christianity and Christians in the West is a creeping secularism that is turning totalitarian and tyrannical. But as Christ said, “the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.”⁴

In dealing with Muslims, (or persons practicing homosexuality etc), the Scriptures give better counsel in the name of the Gospel of Christ. Instead of moralist opprobrium and alienation of such persons; it is written “Show proper respect to everyone”⁵ and “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”⁶ Yes; we believe them to be wrong in their beliefs and praxis. And in that error, they are hurting themselves foremost and others and God’s creation as well. But Muslims, homosexuals, secularists, etc. are just people like us; from whom we were called “out of darkness into His wonderful light”.⁷

Footnotes:

1. Stewart Bell, “Koran Burning Site’: Signs seized from anti-Islam pastor Terry Jones during failed Windsor border crossing”, National Post, October 11, 2012
2. Albert Mohler, “What He Wanted All Along: The Real Scandal of Pastor Terry Jones”, April 8, 2011, http://www.albertmohler.com/2011/04/08/what-he-wanted-all-along-the-real-scandal-of-pastor-terry-jones/
3. Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
4. Luke 16:8
5. 1 Peter 2:17
6. Colossians 4:5-6
7. 1 Peter 2:9

Letter to Robert Fulford Concerning “In Praise of Blasphemy”

Private Transmission: 25 September, 2012

Dear Mr. Robert Fulford:

You are one of the very few columnists with which I anticipate a good and intelligible read. And you have your own entry on my list of memorable lines concerning a piece you did on Nietzsche a couple of years back where you said “Most philosophers write such dense prose that you need considerable training just to misunderstand them.” Having got lost in Kierkegaard’s labyrinthine meanderings and anesthetized by Kant’s definitions, it has special resonance. Who would have known that there was a comedic genre for philosophy; although I cannot imagine that it pays well?

However, I believe that your piece “In Praise of Blasphemy” seriously misses the mark. It is not that I favor the creep of censorship at both a state and corporate level (Thank God for the Internet!). If civilization was going to go down in flames, I would rather that it go down with liberty of expression intact than without it. At least, I might be able to consider other people’s opinions as to cause; or even know that it happened. (The impression from the history books is that the Romans didn’t particularly detect the death of the Western Empire.)

However, in your praise of one facet of the Western political cant, you and others forget another star in that constellation; the consent of the governed; that the virtue of a free press depends, perhaps unfortunately, but ultimately on the by-your-leave of the Sovereign; however that sovereignty is defined.

You state:

Instead we should be praising blasphemy, in fact proclaiming its many virtues, rather than sheepishly apologizing for it as a necessary evil we must reluctantly tolerate because of our belief in the freedom of speech.

That is not an attitude, which ultimately, is a safe or wise for a beneficiary as well as ambassador of the Fifth Estate to take. For, you are advocating the very irresponsibility that abets and gives comfort to those who would like to circumscribe the limits of speech. For, in the world of Realpolitik, Constitutional niceties and legalities do not amount to a hill of beans, if the ambassadors of any particular high position have lost their moral authority.

Some of the most eloquent speeches extolling the virtues of the Roman Republic were spoken by the last generation of advocates for its retention; of whom many of it members had been grossly abusing it for self-serving ends. And before the overthrow of every institution; of the Roman Senate, of Emperors, of nobility, of kings, of ecclesiastics; a loss of moral authority preceded each; provoked by abuse of position. When I studied the rise of the Nazis in Germany; one observation taken away was the total political weakness of potential islands of resistance (judiciary, military, press, unions, church, Wiemar Republic) because all had compromised their moral standing in the eyes of an aroused populace.

I believe that the mass media, amongst other institutions, is currently in that state of disrepute. I have heard from many corners of this disgust with lack of intellectual integrity; of this “I don’t know who to trust?” lament. The general news no longer discloses objective realities to their impartial and competent best; but advocates propaganda from one side or the other of the culture wars; with a few tidbits of selective facts to adorn. I am of conservative bent; but I had to agree with Hillary Clinton that the reporting of the Libyan skirmish last year by Al Jazeera (English) was far and away better than I have seen of anything in the West since perhaps Viet Nam / Watergate.

Instead of allowing the coherent understanding of the world’s actors to be presented, one gets cheap and misdirected pot shots at practices for which second and third-rate journalists have no understanding. I might poke fun at a religion (Islam) or one of its sub-denominations or cultural subgroups, which require women to protect men from their own lustful waywardness, when speaking of the burka. However, I am at least resonating to the real rationales of a deep concern by official Islam for modesty.

The meaning of ‘blasphemy’ has been extended over the centuries to mean religious heresy and public unbelief amongst other stretches. Although, according to the Greek (“abusive or scurrilous language”), it seems to have very wide latitude of meaning. Although not Catholic, I think their definition is probably the best one that I have seen; that being of “gross irreverence towards any person or thing worthy of exalted esteem”. And thus, were I to advise these Muslims in the East, I would advise them to get a trademark in the U.S. to sell toilet paper with the American flag, Constitutional Script or the Gettysburg Address imprinted thereupon. The Charter of Rights, or a comic impression of nude Pierre Trudeau or Tommy Douglas, sucking on a ram’s appendage or Ezra Levant’s wrinkly mother being porked by an elephant, might do the trick in Canada. Do you not think that the local reaction would be any more sedate than that occurring in Arab and Muslim cities and towns? It would be attack on what our people revere.

There is a difference between legitimate critique and the frivolous and blatant provocation of the kind by Ezra Levant, Jyllands-Posten, Charlie Hebdo and company. Mention the verses in the Koran about genies, and most Muslim apologists will take great pains and do great contortionist somersaults of reasoning to inoculate the obvious absurdity. Mention that Mohammed married a six year old and they will speculate, without substantiation, that sexual relations didn’t occur until much later. Take on Islam, truthfully, fairly and on its own terms, and you have both an interlocutor; at least in the West; and a good case on its own. However, cheap, senseless insults for the pre-pubescent pleasure of the rabble, merely demonstrate that toddlers are occupying the ramparts of opinion. And the mind of the sensible will merely conclude that the journalism is too important to be left with the journalists.

For rationales of foot-in-the-door, we might have to tolerate such scurrilous nonsense. But it should never be praised or promoted. It will undermine the good will of those who you and I need to support that liberty.