Twelve people dead in a planned shooting spree is something that needs to be mourned. It doesn’t need to be dissected and analyzed. The perpetrators need to be caught.
And we need to see what’s really happening.
Charlie Hebdo is being called a satirist magazine. Along the lines of what The Onion is. But Charlie Hebdo would only wish it could be The Onion. Scratch at the surface, and really you don’t even need to do that, and you find a magazine filled with racist jargon. Charlie Hebdo likes to bait and they like to make stereotypes that are so far over the top it’s hard not to see it as racist.
Organizations like Charlie Hebdo and political parties like Front National and even the Republican Party in the United States and the Conservative Party here in Canada play right into the playbook of Al-Qaeda. As a point of reference, those organizations and political parties are allies of Al-Qaeda without even knowing it.
By putting forward racist commentary, by trying to push through legislation that targets immigrants, by tightening security and restricting freedoms in the name of security, these right wing organizations are doing Al-Qaeda a big favour.
Al-Qaeda is manipulative, and they have a target; young men. During the recession in North America, it was easy to convince young men of Muslim faith and Middle Eastern ancestry to “join the cause”. There was little faith in the dollar, unemployment was growing as job creation began to stagnate, and there was an incredible feeling of loss and hopelessness for a time among the working class and poorer classes in the United States and Canada. For Al-Qaeda this was easy pickings.
Young men of the Muslim faith were already disenchanted (along with the rest of us) regarding the capabilities of the government and it’s ability to pull us out of the recession. Couple that with the fact that many right wing politicians were finding it safe to publicly say things against Muslims and use a broad brush to paint every Muslim in a bad light, and you’ve suddenly found targets to “join the cause”.
The same can be said in France. An extreme right wing party in Front National that has said disparaging things against Muslims, previous legislation which banned the burka and a racist magazine parading itself as satire under an umbrella of free speech and you’ve got a good recipe for Al-Qaeda to start recruiting.
The right wing media in the west will continue with it’s grand standing against all things Muslim and repeat how evil such a religion is without even mentioning that Islam, Christianity and Judaism all have their roots in the same religion (they are the three Abrahamic religions). Which will only give more fuel for Al-Qaeda to recruit more young men to it’s cause.
But I’m not going to use the phrase “Je suis Charlie” because I’m not going to ally myself with a racist magazine that hides under an umbrella of free speech. I’ll ally myself with the 12 dead, with their families and loved ones.
But not with Charlie Hebdo.
Turn the Page 
3boxesofbs
January 8, 2015 at 10:15 am
How can you align yourself with 10 of the 12 when they worked for — and supposedly according to you were racists?
I don’t get it. You want support the magazine but you’ll support the people who drew the cartons, wrote, edited and published the magazine?
Bob S.
Tim
January 8, 2015 at 10:41 am
I’ll support the people who were killed, because ultimately a loss of life is incredibly tragic and unnecessary. Those 12, whether they drew racist cartoons or wrote racist editorials, is irrelevant when they were killed senselessly. They deserved life, and I can support them and their families without supporting Charlie Hebdo one bit. They were living, breathing people, whereas the magazine doesn’t mean anything.
3boxesofbs
January 8, 2015 at 10:53 am
They were living, breathing people, whereas the magazine doesn’t mean anything.
I think you are confusing things. The magazine was a medium, not a separate entity. That is like saying I don’t support your blog because the things it says are wrong but I support you because you are a person.
Does it matter if they said something in the magazine, in person, or over the phone? It was the thoughts and ideas, the beliefs and views of the people simply expressed in the magazine.
Do I think they died senselessly? NO. The stood up, for whatever reasons, to a bunch of murderous, intolerant thugs. Not all muslims are that way but those who threaten people, those who kill people simply for saying something disagreeable are the real villains here.
Not the writers or editors of the magazine.
How about condemning those people instead of the magazine.
Tim
January 8, 2015 at 11:36 am
The magazine still needs to be held up as the racist thing it is. Were the deaths senseless? Yeah they were because it’s a senseless act that took their lives. Were the terrorists justified in their act? Hell no!
The ones who died should be mourned, but don’t for a second forget that the magazine uses racist imagery. Satire is used against an oppressive power, such as a government or corporation that pushes forward oppressive ideals and legislation. What the magazine was pushing forward was stereotypes against an often oppressed group. They painted that one target as though all Muslims were exactly the same. That is a racist view.
3boxesofbs
January 8, 2015 at 11:54 am
Why do you keep saying “the magazine” ?
Did the ‘magazine’ write itself? Draw the pictures?
The people, the very ones you are mourning, did those things.
Satire is used against an oppressive power, such as a government or corporation that pushes forward oppressive ideals and legislation
And you don’t think the Muslim religion qualifies as an oppressive power? — Isn’t it in many countries a government?
Tim
January 8, 2015 at 12:00 pm
Is it an oppressive power in France? No, it’s not. Is it an oppressive power in Iran? At one time it was, though I doubt the current regime is using Islam to back their power base. There are countries where Islam does influence the government (just as Christianity does in others). But in France, or the United States or in Canada, Islam is far from an oppressive power. And I keep calling it a magazine because it’s easier to type than saying “those guys who like to draw funny pictures”. Charlie Hebdo is a magazine, that’s what it is, and it as a whole put forward racist stereotypes. Did some of the people who wrote articles or draw pictures die? Quite assuredly? Did they deserve to die? Hell no! I can mourn someone’s death and still realize that something they did was racist.