one thing that is always important to note in these discussions is that being a "Jew" is much more than simply an indication as to religious preference. unlike being a "Christian" or "Muslim", being a "Jew" carries with it certain very distinct racial characteristics. in other words, unlike making fun of "Christians" or "Muslims", making fun of "Jews" is very much racist.

it is also worth noting that the entire world's Jewish population is estimated at less than 15 million people.

Well, personally I don't think it's ok to say that we can criticize or make caricatures of christians and muslims, but not Jews. There are aspects of jewish culture and religion that while non-violent, are also not exactly progressive and forward thinking, and people have as much right to express views on that as much as any other.

I think it's perfectly fine to criticize or make fun of the religious elements of Judaism, and of course it is perfectly fine to criticize or make fun of Israeli political ideologies or foreign policies. but I also think that the vast majority of the people who do so fail to recognize that, unlike being Christian or Muslim, being a Jew is much more than a simple indication of religious preference. I also think they fail to realize that all these decades of "Zionism" have not exactly resulted in the world being overrun by Jews - in fact, the world's Jewish population has remained more or less flat.

P.S. I have no problem whatsoever with people making racist jokes, or criticizing others based upon race, or even expressing racist political ideologies. it doesn't offend me, I merely take it as an indication of the person's intelligence (or lack thereof). but I do think people have a responsibility to know that what they are saying is racist, and to own up to what they have said.

Do you think that being Muslim or Christian is , in anything like the majority of cases a preference in the sense that the practicer of those faiths has taken an arms length choice as to which one to practice ?

I have a problem with any bunch of people that cuts kids including non-religious.

I absolutely agree. The magazine is not at fault. And violence is never an appropriate response to such speech, and governments have to protect citizens' ability to express speech.

But to an individual, the idea of free speech is often blurred by cultural and religious convention.

yes, I think that being a Muslim or Christian is a "preference", and entirely the result of free will. to think anything else would, in my opinion, dishonor what separates man from ape. sure, I recognize that a 12 year old child is not going to be capable of freely exercising their preference, but a 30 year old man certainly should be.

having made the mistake of reading the mainstream news back in the US, I found this article on CNN interesting for a couple of reasons:

1. if we examine the parts of the world where Muslims actually live, I do not think it is accurate to say that the vast majority of the world's Muslims "live peacefully". that is not in any way meant to suggest that the situation in the countries where Muslims live is the result of being Muslim, or that being Muslim is the reason for violence or even war in those countries, but I do think we need to accurately and precisely state the facts, e.g. "the vast majority of Muslims in the US and Europe live peacefully" would be a perfectly accurate statement. probably a gross understatement, actually.

2. I personally tire of the argument that "Muslims invented algebra". Arabs played a very significant role in the development of algebra and a great part of the rest of our maths and sciences, but I don't think you can claim that being Muslim is the reason for those developments and then cry foul when someone claims being Muslim is the reason someone is a terrorist, i.e. I think both claims are disingenuous and false.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/10/li...lam/index.html

just above you mentioned being a Jew is not a preference... so do you realise how it reads now?!?

I can assure you that for my Muslim relatives- being a Muslim is not a preference- the whole family, community, local system- making the choice to 'prefer' another religion, or none - is only possible if you emigrate, as my fil did- and some of our cousins to- the UK, Australia, Tasmania- or be totally ostracized from your family and community. That was of course even more the case at the time of apartheid in South Africa.

Personally, I don't think we should have the right of absolute free speech is it really 'hurts' individuals or groups. With rights should always come responsibility.
But if Charlie Hebdo and others revendicate absolute and total free speech- then Sené should never have been sacked for lampooning zionism or the pseudo conversion of Zarkozy to mary the heiress of a multibillionaire. Either you do- or you don't.

Or be killed - as is the punishment for apostasy under Islam.

Wait what? Being Christian or Muslim is a preference but being a Jew isn't?

That's a new one for me...

no, I don't realize how it reads now?



when you say that being Muslim "is not a preference" for any individual, you realize that you are effectively indicating that the individual is incapable of exercising free will, right? honestly, I can't think of any statement that should offend us as people any more than that.

No, not I am saying at all. What I was saying, and I think it is quite clear- is that if you are part of a close-knit community, be it Jewish in Golders Green, or Muslim where my relatives live, etc, etc,- then 'opting out' of the religion means opting out of the whole community, family, friends, jobs, and more- which can feel pretty uncomfortable or impossible.

Which is why for those relatives that chose to opt out, emigrating to the UK, Tasmania and OZ- to non-Muslim communities, seemed like the only choice to make life bearrable- as life around the family and community (practically 100% Muslims). I'd say the same would be for a Jew from Golders Green. How do you feel the family will react when you refuse to circumcize the new baby boy, or (edit) have a beer with your BBQ, or not adhere to Ramadan? Impossible- no less than if a Jew.

What is more according to a rabbi friend , to convert to Judaism means you must shun and be seen to shun your former family and friends. The day of conversion is then recognized as your day of birth by the congregation.

And yet many Jews - even in Israel - no longer circumcize their boys.

no one said that the exercise of free will was always going to be "comfortable".

I believe that for very religious Muslims, as well as Christians, their religion infuses their life and their culture as much as for religious Jews. Or strongly cultural ones. Jews stand out in a Christian culture because they are different, there are smaller numbers of them and they are not evangelical. As a rule, converts are not encouraged unless they are absolutely sure. So in US, in Europe, it appears that Jews (at least those with strong Jewish identity) appear to be separate. I can point to a lot of highly assimilated Jews in the US who are difficult to distinguish from Christians. Given that about 50% of Jews in the US marry outside their faith (like my father), Jewish leaders try to discourage mixed marriages.

Ultra Orthodox Jews are a very closed society, and they encourage large families. But so do other strongly religious sects. So I'm not sure that I think that religious Jews are any more culturally bound than other groups of religious individuals, or even people who wish to maintain a strong cultural identity. I think it's this exclusivity that makes enemies though. And of course long standing prejudices about money and the idea that Jews killed Christ propagated through history.

I don't know a lot of Muslims, so I can't speak to that, but I've met many Christians for whom their faith and their particular religion is a strong part of daily life, but it doesn't stand out that much against the usual culture (in the US, anyway).

The last several posts just prove my earlier point: there is no such thing as Free Speech, so all this crap about defending it is bollocks.

If there was such a thing as Free Speech, then it wouldn't make any difference whether Muslims or Jews or Communists or gay people or transgender people or black people or Ukippers or the French were born that way or chose to be that way. You'd be able to say what you liked about them regardless. But you can't. Some people - for very good reasons in many cases, for rather stupid reasons in others - are exempt from criticism or ridicule. That's the reality, whether you're in France, the United States, Iran or China.

So be as angry as you like about the fact that 17 people were murdered in the name of "Islam" last week, but don't give me any of this "je suis Charlie" bullshit, because I don't believe a word of it.

Kim Jung-un has a tiny penis and has sex with goats.

Try saying that out loud in North Korea and then carry on with your remarks about no free speech.

Your post makes no sense whatsoever.

Will Self, as usual, as interesting things to say on the subject

For full article on www.vice.com

Let me be clear: the people responsible for murdering the journalists at the offices of Charlie Hebdo on January 7th were the men who pulled the triggers of the Kalashnikovs aimed at them. Moreover, we've no need to reach into our grab-bag of ethical epithets in order to find one that fits these men's characters; we don't need to speak of "barbarism", or a "complete lack of civilised values", or agonise about how they became radicalised – because we know the answer already – but what we can unequivocally assert is that these men, in those rattling, coughing, cordite-stinking moments, were evil. If by evil is understood this: an egotism that grew like a cancer – a lust for status and power and "significance" which metastasised through these murderers' brains. The problem for the staunch defenders of Western values is that each and every one of us possesses this capacity for evil – it's implicit in having an ego at all; so when the demonstrators stood in the Place de la Republique holding placards that read "JE SUIS CHARLIE", they might just as well have held ones reading: "NOUS SOMMES LES TERRORISTES".

The French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville observed that the law exists to restrain our worst impulses, not encourage our best. Those politicians, religious leaders and commentators that in the hours and days since this atrocity have spoken about freedom of speech as a sine qua non of that liberty which is in turn essential for civilisation, would've done well to remember both this and their own history: the birth of the French republic was attended by justice – blindfolded and wearing earplugs: it was called the Terror. When the sans-culottes stormed the Bastille they found a handful of prisoners in the ancient bastion, among them the Marquis de Sade, who soon enough found himself elevated to the position of revolutionary judge, despatching aristos and other reactionaries to the guillotine. It was a nice example of liberation – if by that is meant the freedom to murder for political ends.

The idea that the French secularists have of their political system (and for that matter the British secularists of theirs, the Americans ones of theirs, and so on), is that it not only encourages their best impulses, but that if it's perfected it will render the entire population supremely free and entirely good. This is a process that both right and left seem to feel is unstoppable – whether powered by some sort of moral "natural selection", or historical determinism. For these boosters the Enlightenment project of perfecting man's moral nature is still underway, and will only end when a (godless) heaven has been established on earth. But such rarefied progress is precisely what is mocked, not only by the murdering of Parisian journalists, but by the drone strikes in Syria, Iraq and Waziristan, which are also murders conducted for religio-political ends. It is mocked as well by the clamouring that follows every terrorist outrage for the suspension of precisely those aspects of the law that exist to restrain our worst impulses; in particular the worst impulses of our rulers: namely, due process of law, fair trials, habeas corpus and freedom from state-mandated torture and extra-judicial killing.

Everybody can potentially make a choice as to their religion when reach adulthood, Jews included. The point is that if you are born into a Muslim community, especially in a fundamentalist part of the world, you are no less indoctrinated from birth than a Jewish child is. Islam isn't a "simple denominational choice" for devout muslims, it is how they and everyone around them live their lives. By straying from that path they have the potential to risk their own lives, as well as the love and respect of their families and their friends (or even as we have seen, risk their lives at the hands of their families). That makes the choice of leaving (if it even enters their head at all) incredibly difficult.

In comparison, modern Christianity is much more relaxed with regards to people joining and leaving the faith.

Yeah, free speech would mean you could say anything you like about whoever you like... but I don't think the concept of fully unfettered free speech would work, and there need to be some reasonable limits which is why the incitement of hatred and similar rules were implemented. Free speech is the closest terms we can give what we have, but of course it's not fully accurate.

Nor does yours.

There are varying degrees of free speech (and not no free-speech as you have written).

Living a warm comfortable and safe environment and writing from the comfort of your armchair makes it easy for you to write such ridiculous things as there being no free-speech. You don't know how lucky you are.