Quote of the day - “Trumpism is inconsistent with emotionally healthy living”

From the Citizen Therapists’ Manifesto against Trumpism:

As psychotherapists practicing in the United States, we are alarmed by the rise of the ideology of Trumpism, which we see as a threat to the well-being of the people we care for and to American democracy itself. We cannot remain silent as we witness the rise of an American form of fascism. We can leverage this time of crisis to deepen our commitment to American democracy.

…

We must speak out for the well-being of people we treat and care for in our work. Trumpism will undermine the emotional health of those seen as the “other” in America—both historically denigrated groups and those whose turn will come. And it will compromise the integrity of those who are seduced by the illusion that real Americans can only become winners if others become losers. The public rhetoric of Trumpism normalizes what therapists work against in our work: the tendency to blame others in our lives for our personal fears and insecurities and then battle these others instead of taking the healthier but more difficult path of self-awareness and self-responsibility. It also normalizes a kind of hyper-masculinity that is antithetical to the examined life and healthy relationships that psychotherapy helps people achieve. Simply stated, Trumpism is inconsistent with emotionally healthy living—and we have to say so publicly.

We must speak out for the well-being of our democracy, which is both a way of living and acting together and a set of political institutions. Therapists have taken for granted how our work relies on a democratic tradition that gives people a sense of personal agency to create new narratives and take personal and collective responsibility for themselves, their families, and their communities. Reliance on a Strong Man who will solve our problems and deal with internal and external enemies is a direct threat to the democratic basis of psychotherapy. Therapy only flourishes on democratic soil.

…

…[A]s citizen therapists we stand united against the dangerous ideology of Trumpism, and we encourage others to join us in a deepened commitment to a democratic way of life that engages the talents, yearnings, and capacities of all the people.

Quote of the day – “Resist, My People, Resist Them”

Resist, My People, Resist Them

Resist, my people, resist them.

In Jerusalem, I dressed my wounds and breathed my sorrows

And carried the soul in my palm

For an Arab Palestine.

I will not succumb to the “peaceful solution,”

Never lower my flags

Until I evict them from my land.

I cast them aside for a coming time.

Resist, my people, resist them.

Resist the settler’s robbery

And follow the caravan of martyrs.

Shred the disgraceful constitution

Which imposed degradation and humiliation

And deterred us from restoring justice.

They burned blameless children;

As for Hadil, they sniped her in public,

Killed her in broad daylight.

Resist, my people, resist them.

Resist the colonialist’s onslaught.

Pay no mind to his agents among us

Who chain us with the peaceful illusion.

Do not fear doubtful tongues;

The truth in your heart is stronger,

As long as you resist in a land

That has lived through raids and victory.

So Ali called from his grave:

Resist, my rebellious people.

Write me as prose on the agarwood;

My remains have you as a response.

Resist, my people, resist them.

Resist, my people, resist them.

This is an English translation of the work by Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour for which she was arrested by the Israeli government for alleged “incitement to violence,” jailed, and then placed under house arrest with no internet access. Her next hearing is on Monday. She faces a five-year prison sentence.

A petition to free Tatour organized by Jewish Voice for Peace and Adalah-NY has been signed by numerous Pulitzer and Guggenheim recipients.

In the US, the rightists in the Democratic Party are doing their best to support and conceal the crimes of the Israeli government.



True to form, though, the Republicans have managed to be worse.

More news of the dystopian kingdom

Speaking of Saudi Arabia, As’ad AbuKhalil posted a link to video of Saturday’s gigantic demonstration in Sana’a, Yemen, against the Saudi regime on the anniversary of the initiation of US-supported Saudi bombing. Wow.

Meanwhile,

The Saudi Arabia's Bureau of Investigation has announced it is pushing to impose the death penalty for homosexuals who ‘solicit homosexual acts on social media’.

Some social media users have used the Arabic-language hashtag #I’mGayYouWon’tTerroriseMe to express outrage at the proposed legislation and show solidarity with the Saudi LGBT community.

Quote of the day – Caroline Fourest, Judith Butler, and responsibility

“Yes, thank you very much Delphine to…giving me this opportunity to, to speak about this legendary newspaper of…who was already a legend before the seventh of January, before this drama. For the anti-racist left, I do belong to, it’s not only the newspaper that you know today [is] describe[d] as “Islamophobic” just because they, they dare mock fanatics from all religions, including Islamists. Charlie Hebdo is also mostly known in France as one of the most anti-racist newspapers.

…Between the ‘90s, all the movements against racism, like S.O.S. Racisme, who did fight the anti-Arab racism in France, took their cartoons from Charb, from Honoré, from…from people who are dead today. And not only dead - who are described as Islamophobic and racist after they are dead.

This is incredibly painful. You cannot imagine. It’s even…It’s like if they are dead twice, actually. When I have to explain it again and again, how much those guys were open-minded, were deeply anti-racist, and strongly, strongly open to every culture, and the most brilliant, talented, and funny guys I’ve ever known. And that people can [twist] their intentions, [twist] their cartoons, put them out of their context, to help the propaganda of the killers.

Because this is actually what these people are doing. And I really want to point that out. I really want to…to insist on that. It’s not only unprofessional, for example, as journalists to describe Charlie Hebdo as Islamophobic. It’s not only wrong and false. It is dangerous.

Because this word, “Islamophobia,” who is confusing the secularist intention, the fact that an atheist satirical newspaper wants to be able to laugh about fanatism – whatever it is, fanatics from Islam, fanatism from Judaism, or fanatism from Christianism – describing it as racist against Muslims by calling it Islamophobic is not only wrong and false, it is really, really dangerous. It is putting a target on the head of those journalists, on those cartoonists. It’s already killed those people. It’s maybe going to kill tomorrow the others who are being called Islamophobic still today.

And to answer your question: how is Charlie Hebdo today, how they are living today. They are living like prisoners. They are living in hell. Because they are all under police protection. Riss, the editor-in-chief of Charlie Hebdo, have been… You know that Charb have been really targeted by Al-Qaeda. Now it’s Riss who’s targeted today. And not only by terrorist groups – also by, for example, a Pakistani very famous politician who said he will pay for everyone who is going to kill Riss.

We are in that crazy situation today. And this is why it’s so important first to stop to call secularist, or atheist, or just, again, anti-racist but secularist cartoonists and journalists “Islamophobic,” when they are just…who they are, which is the opposite. It’s important to…even to stop to use that word, actually. If you want to, if you want to target the real racism, which do exist, and that Charlie Hebdo is denouncing, when it’s fighting against the National Front for example, but not only, then you should say…words or acts “anti-Muslims.” And at least it is clear – it’s not saying phobia against Islam but phobia against Muslims. And phobia against Muslims is really speaking about racism, which is something we all want to fight against.”

It happens, fortuitously, that just after I transcribed these remarks by Caroline Fourest from early in the recent Newseum panel discussion I read the chapter “The Charge of Anti-Semitism: Jews, Israel and the Risks of Public Critique” in Judith Butler’s 2004 Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence.* (A shorter version of was printed in the London Review of Books where it can still be read: “No, it’s not anti-semitic.”)

The chapter responds to portrayals of criticisms of the Israeli state as anti-Semitic, taking as its starting point a 2002 comment by Lawrence Summers, then still president of Harvard: “Profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities. Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-semitic in their effect if not their intent.”

Butler’s chapter is as relevant today, in a context of widespread censorious attacks on Palestinian rights activists and the BDS movement, as it was when it was first published. It’s worthwhile for its specific content. But it occurred to me that the response to Charlie Hebdo during the past year has in many ways been analogous to the portrayals and silencing tactics Butler discusses with regard to Israel, and that her arguments about our collective epistemic and political responsibility are also helpful in this context.

Summers’ remarks, Butler suggests, propose a few fundamental claims: first, the insinuation that criticisms of Israel are, or should be assumed to be, anti-Semitic in intent; second, that regardless of the critic’s intent the audience of these criticisms will hear them as anti-Semitic, such that the criticisms unavoidably help to foster and further anti-Semitism; third, that – again, whatever the alleged intentions of the critics themselves - such criticisms are so inherently and easily exploitable by anti-Semites that making them publicly is irresponsible and basically complicit with racism – “effectively” anti-Semitic. Butler contends, rightly, that these sorts of claims lead to a silencing of and self-censorship among those who would be critical of state violence, racism, and injustice. Anti-racists more than anyone fear being charged with racism or with stupidly or callously abetting racists.

She takes issue with the premise of these claims. With regard to intent, she offers:

[W]hereas Summers himself introduces a distinction between intentional and effective anti-Semitism, it would seem that effective anti-Semitism can be understood only by conjuring a seamless world of listeners and readers who take certain statements critical of Israel to be tacitly or overtly intended as anti-Semitic expression. The only way to understand effective anti-Semitism would be to presuppose intentional anti-Semitism. The effective anti-Semitism of any criticism of Israel will turn out to reside in the intention of the speaker as it is retrospectively attributed by the one who receives – listens to or reads – that criticism. The intention of a speech, then, does not belong to the one who speaks, but is attributed to that speaker later by the one who listens. The intention of the speech act is thus determined belatedly by the listener. (105-106; emphasis in original)

And despite making this distinction which ostensibly allows for a nonracist intent, as Butler points out, Summers himself, as listener, assumes, proffers, and models a reading of all criticisms of the state of Israel as anti-Semitic: “[N]ot only, it seems, will Summers regard such criticisms as anti-Semitic, but he is, by his example, and by the normative status of his utterance, recommending that others regard such utterances that way as well” (108). “His understanding of what constitutes anti-Semitic rhetoric,” she argues,

depends upon a very specific and very questionable reading of the field of reception for such speech. He seems, through his statement, to be describing a sociological condition under which speech acts occur and are interpreted, that is, describing the fact that we are living in a world where, for better or worse, criticisms of Israel are simply heard as anti-Semitic. He is, however, also speaking as one who is doing the hearing, and so modeling the very hearing he describes. (108)

In other words, he himself is priming the audience to hear these criticisms in precisely the way he’s arguing they’re inevitably heard. Regarding Summers’ depiction of the audience’s response – which assumes that the audience will naturally understand these criticisms as anti-Semitic or actively use them in promotion of anti-Semitism - Butler argues that “to claim that the only meaning that such criticism can have is to be taken up as negative comments about Jews is to attribute to that particular interpretation an enormous power to monopolize the field of reception for that criticism.” And of course such selective attention has the effect of promoting the interpretation favored by the Israeli government and the Right generally.

Of great importance here is what Butler goes on to argue about responsibility. Note that Summers’ argument places all of the responsibility on the critic of Israel (even for the intent attributed to her!) and, despite the powerful interpretive role he attributes to the audience, none whatsoever on them. You’re left with the impression that while these criticisms are so dangerous that would-be critics are best off refraining from voicing them publicly, potential hearers and interpreters are under no epistemic or political obligation to base their interpretations on facts or to challenge misrepresentations. This is a very convenient situation for those who seek to silence dissent.

As Butler sensibly offers: “According to Summers, there are some forms of anti-Semitism that are characterized retroactively by those who decide upon their status. This means that nothing should be said or done that will be taken to be anti-Semitic by others. But what if the others who are listening are wrong?” (110; emphasis added). It seems so plainly obvious that we have a responsibility to try our best not to be wrong, particularly in situations in which there are reputations and lives at stake, that it never ceases to amaze me how passive and irresponsible audiences are expected and encouraged to be.

Moreover, people in positions of power or influence, those putting forward interpretations for large audiences, have both a “negative” obligation not to promote misreadings and a “positive” one to educate actual and potential audiences. Butler doesn’t deny the very real potential for criticisms of Israel to be misread, misrepresented, or exploited, and argues that critics should be on guard for and seek to counteract such misuse. But that many people can and do misunderstand or misrepresent criticisms of Israel as anti-Semitic isn’t a fact of nature to which critics and other public speakers must resign themselves but a social and political problem everyone needs to address:

[E]ven if one did believe that criticisms of Israel are by and large heard as anti-Semitic (by Jews, by anti-Semites, by people who could be described as neither), it would then become the responsibility of all of us to change the conditions of reception so that the public might begin to learn a crucial political distinction between a criticism of Israel, on the one hand, and a hatred of Jews, on the other (106: emphasis added).

Arguments like Summers’ have deleterious consequences:

If the possibility of…exploitation serves as a reason to quell political dissent, then one has effectively given the domain of public discourse over to those who accept and perpetrate the view that anti-Semitism is authorized by criticisms of Israel, including those who seek to perpetuate anti-Semitism through such criticisms and those who seek to quell such criticisms for fear that they perpetuate anti-Semitism…. To remain silent for fear of anti-Semitic appropriation that one deems to be certain is to give up on the possibility of combating anti-Semitism by other means.

This week we’re in the midst of yet another wave of performative outrage and self-righteous denunciations of Charlie Hebdo’s “racist” cartoons. Article after article after article after article after article after article after article after article rushing to join the chorus of condemnation and rebuke and to offer stupidly earnest responses to so-called racist provocations.**

I have no idea what Butler’s views are on Charlie Hebdo. (Of course I also have no idea how knowledgeable she is on the subject and thus of what weight I would give her views.) But it seems to me that the response to the magazine over the past year strongly resembles the sorts of comments Butler is addressing and that her arguments are useful in understanding this phenomenon. We see the same claims of “effective racism” intermingled with insinuations of intentional racism, the same attribution of overwhelming power to a single interpretation, the same refusal to accept responsibility for making claims of racist intent, the same priming of audiences for attributions of racist intent or effect under the guise of mere sociological observation, and the same propensity to encourage self-censorship and hostility toward challenging voices.

I’ve argued for a long while, fairly fruitlessly it appears, for a recognition of our epistemic responsibilities in this context. I and others have repeatedly called on people to refrain from uncritically accepting superficial interpretations, to actively investigate Charlie Hebdo’s history and mission; its primary audience (the French anti-racist, atheist, and secularist Left); its primary targets (political figures and institutions, primarily the Right); the nature of its satire and the history of its form of humor in France; the fact that the cartoons are connected to pages and pages of text which informs their meaning;*** the powerful people and groups who have a strong interest in misrepresenting the magazine and alienating its potential supporters, and the way they’ve altered its cartoons and encouraged others to interpret them as racist; and so on. I’ve called on influential people to work themselves to make, and educate others about, crucial distinctions between satire of powerful people and institutions or mockery of ideologies on the one hand and racism on the other. I’ve asked that at the very least people appreciate their own level of ignorance before making consequential declarations and judgments.

But the journalists and opinionators involved in round after round of ignorant denunciations have willfully ignored any such requests and persisted in misrepresenting Charlie Hebdo and encouraging others to do the same. Maybe the most ironic and galling aspect of these boilerplate condemnations is their preening judgment of the alleged irresponsibility and callousness of the magazine’s cartoonists. These people, whose colleagues and friends have been massacred, work every day under immediate threat of violence and death. They live the responsibility for their actions and choices in the starkest possible terms. Their supposedly sensitive and responsible judges, on the other hand, can’t be bothered to investigate whether their public statements are true or false, whether they’re blithely destroying the reputations of murder victims, whether they’re being used by censorious and authoritarian forces, or whether they’re contributing to an environment of abandonment and hostility toward the magazine which increases the chances of further violence against them and others as well. That is as irresponsible and callous as I can imagine.

* A book which I recommend highly despite its significant flaws (rampant speciesism in particular).

** As usual, there have been a handful of dissenting voices, but far too few.

*** At the panel discussion in New York last spring, Gérard Biard joked that it sometimes felt like people thought that the magazine consisted entirely of cover cartoons; I’m starting to suspect that, with the addition of a few images plucked from inside pages (but often misrepresented as covers), this might actually be the case.

AMA calls for ban on DTC drug ads

Better late than never, I suppose.

Terrifying rightwing mobs rampage in Israel

US media remain silent. State officials continue to encourage racist rioting. As Rania Khalek argues, “As Israel’s culture of hatred spirals out of control, the media outlets concealing the incitement from top Israeli leaders and the ‘death to Arabs’ riots they help spawn are complicit, again.”

Meanwhile, this is the march the vegwashers want some activists to see.

“The Bangladesh Blogger Murders” on BBC

BBC Our World is showing a report on the murders of atheist and secularist bloggers in Bangladesh. It describes the strong Bangladeshi secular traditions the courageous bloggers and others are determined to preserve and defend.

Our World: The Bangladesh Blogger Murders will be broadcast this weekend on BBC World News, at 11.30, 16.30 & 22.30 GMT on Saturday, 26th September and at 17.30 GMT on Sunday, 27th September.

I’ll post the video if/when it becomes available.

Quote of the day – the mediatization of the death of a child

“This drawing did not mock migrants but our liberal and hypocritical society… this rich, hyper-consumerist Europe that had to wait for the mediatisation of the death of a child to reflect on the fate of migrants.”

- Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Luz, who will leave the magazine next week, discussing the most recent issue

Another round

More of this nonsense. I would ask whether people really believe xenophobia or “mocking the death of Aylan Kurdi” is the point of the cartoons, but I’m all too aware that self-satisfied, self-righteous ignorance (and its cynical exploitation) is the norm.

Also disappointing is how many people think journalism consists of pitting a series of tweets attacking the magazine against a series of tweets defending it (or worse, simply reporting the allegedly justified outrage). It hasn’t occurred to these people to try to understand the satirical purpose of the images, by, say, reading the magazine or seeking comment from those who are more informed? Of course not. What was I thinking? Reporting on and goading a social-media mob while briefly alluding to a few people suggesting the images are being misread is all that’s required.

Well, at least there’s this.

Mr. Robot

Good show.



Good soundtrack.

In PR and censorship news…

The sleazy, repressive, illegitimate regime in Honduras has hired Ketchum (for more about which, see here, here, here, here, and here) to do its spin. It also helps to silence real journalists.

MyTransHealth

Via Our Hen House, I discovered Chickpeas and Change (now added to my blog list on the left). Via Chickpeas and Change, I learned about MyTransHealth, which is dedicated to “Connecting the Trans Community with Doctors Who Care.”



They’ve already exceeded their initial $20,000 fundraising goal on Kickstarter



and will evidently launch in the fall. They’ve been featured in Business Insider and The Daily Dot, so it doesn’t appear to be a scam (I’m always suspicious everything is a scam). Sounds like a useful service.

The Saudi Cables and the TPP Healthcare Annex

Two new troves of documents published by Wikileaks: the Saudi Cables, of which a portion were released yesterday (evidently the most damning are to appear any moment now...), and the TPP Healthcare Annex (to the “transparency” chapter), which was released last week.

The Saudi Cables:

Today, Friday 19th June at 1pm GMT, WikiLeaks began publishing The Saudi Cables: more than half a million cables and other documents from the Saudi Foreign Ministry that contain secret communications from various Saudi Embassies around the world. The publication includes “Top Secret” reports from other Saudi State institutions, including the Ministry of Interior and the Kingdom’s General Intelligence Services. The massive cache of data also contains a large number of email communications between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and foreign entities. The Saudi Cables are being published in tranches of tens of thousands of documents at a time over the coming weeks. Today WikiLeaks is releasing around 70,000 documents from the trove as the first tranche.

…

The Saudi Cables provide key insights into the Kingdom’s operations and how it has managed its alliances and consolidated its position as a regional Middle East superpower, including through bribing and co-opting key individuals and institutions. The cables also illustrate the highly centralised bureaucratic structure of the Kingdom, where even the most minute issues are addressed by the most senior officials.

[Source]

As’ad AbuKhalil has a post today about the Saudi regime’s comical – well, they would be comical were the regime not in the habit of imprisoning, torturing, and beheading noncompliant “citizens” – warnings:

This is hilarious. The Saudi foreign ministry issued this directive to its citizens: It reads: ‘Dear Aware Citizen: Avoid entering any site for the purpose of obtaining leaked documents or information that may be untrue, for harming the security of the homeland’. Kid you not. The second one reads: ‘Dear Aware Citizen: Don’t publish any documents that may be untrue which could aid the enemies of the homeland in attaining their goals’. Kid you not.

The TPP Healthcare Annex:

Today, Wednesday 10 June 2015, WikiLeaks publishes the Healthcare Annex to the secret draft “Transparency” Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), along with each country's negotiating position. The Healthcare Annex seeks to regulate state schemes for medicines and medical devices. It forces healthcare authorities to give big pharmaceutical companies more information about national decisions on public access to medicine, and grants corporations greater powers to challenge decisions they perceive as harmful to their interests.

Expert policy analysis, published by WikiLeaks today, shows that the Annex appears to be designed to cripple New Zealand's strong public healthcare programme and to inhibit the adoption of similar programmes in developing countries. The Annex will also tie the hands of the US Congress in its ability to pursue reforms of the Medicare programme.

The draft is restricted from release for four years after the passage of the TPP into law.

…

Few people, even within the negotiating countries' governments, have access to the full text of the draft agreement and the public, who it will affect most, have none at all. Hundreds of large corporations, however, have been given access to portions of the text, generating a powerful lobby to effect changes on behalf of these groups.

[Source]

Quote of the day

“My opinion is that it's a medieval sentence. It's a medieval method that does not have its place in a society that allows a free media and allows people to express their point of view.”

- Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström, reiterating her view of the punishment of blogger Raif Badawi by the Saudi government

(Get spinning, Qorvis!)

Indecent: my position on (the response to) Charlie Hebdo

“Tignous and his from now on inseparable comrades. Journalists, cartoonists, economist, psychoanalyst, proofreader, guards—they were the sentinels, the watchmen, the lookouts even, who kept watch over democracy to make sure it didn’t fall asleep. Constantly, relentlessly denouncing intolerance, discrimination, simplification. Uncompromising. Armed only with their intelligence, with their sharp eyes, with this art of making it possible to see. Armed with only their pencils. Inseparable. United in irreverence, in a gentle cruelty. They brought about the awakening of three generations. The awakening of the consciences of three generations. They taught us, sometimes without our knowing it, about the virtues of freedom of thought and speech. They nurtured our capacity for indignation. And they led us sometimes into the dizzy pleasure of forbidden laughter.

…And at the end of these horrible crimes, we can see that something was in the process of going lax in us. And this alarm reminds of our ambitions—which have been too long silent, too easily abandoned—for social justice, equality, education, and attention to others. We must find again that humanity and that uncompromising outlook that characterized Tignous.”

I’ve been asked to clarify my argument with regard to Charlie Hebdo and the various claims that have been made about the magazine since many of its staff were murdered by an Islamist death squad in January. I have never claimed, as this comment insinuates, that my views about various individual cartoons, whatever they may be, are the only decent ones. My argument all along has concerned the ethics of learning and speaking about the magazine.

See, for example,

• “A bad epistemic approach is anti-humanist, unwise, and unkind”

• “Guest post: The problem with ‘Je ne suis pas Charlie’”

What I’ve consistently found indecent is the approach so many have taken, one in which they were immediately prepared to believe the worst claims about Charlie Hebdo and to coldly repeat them. One in which people who knew nothing or virtually nothing (or less than nothing, having seen altered images and read false reports) about the publication set themselves up as implacable judges. One in which upon learning that the claims of intentional racism were false, people immediately shifted to accusations of negligent, callous, or irresponsible racism, propped up by clichés about intent not being magic, punching down, and splash damage.

I expected better. I expected that people would show a modicum of intellectual humility and responsibility, especially when they began to see indications that their early suspicions didn’t hold up on further inspection. First, because our community is supposed to be about humility, questioning, curiosity, evidence, and care in our claims-making. Second, because having been murdered the people they were discussing were no longer here to defend themselves. Third, because tossing out irresponsible claims about the willful or negligent racism of people who were just massacred for drawing cartoons and whose families and colleagues are grieving is disrespectful and cruel - not to mention hypocritical - and so the only decent way to proceed is to take great care in our public statements so as not to perpetuate falsehoods. (I think this is what we’d want for ourselves in similar circumstances.) Fourth, because isolating the victims and targets of Islamist hit men on the basis of an ignorantly-applied purity test endangers us all.

Certainly, the fact that Charlie Hebdo is and is well known in France to be a leftwing, anti-racist publication whose primary target is the racist, xenophobic Right, was information easily available to anyone who cared to look, and is relevant not only to understanding their intent but to understanding the likely reception of the images in context. If nothing else, I would have expected that fact to give people pause before they continued to comment on the subject. No one was being compelled to declare themselves Charlie. It makes sense for people who don’t feel they have enough information to step back before taking a position. But in that case the decent approach is to remain silent while you seek out more information, including the statements of the survivors and of the victims before their deaths, and listen to those who perhaps know more. It’s also to conscientiously retract previous public statements or insinuations that have turned out to be unsupported.

At the time the people of Charlie Hebdo were being isolated on the Left on the basis of some image-mined cartoons of which the self-appointed critics had little understanding, their funerals were ongoing. The person rendering the moving tribute at the funeral of Tignous quoted at the top of this post was Christiane Taubira, the French Justice Minister who now seems to be known on the English-speaking internet as “the black woman they drew as a monkey.”



I think we can all agree that her understanding of the image, its intent, context, and effects is probably greater than ours. But many of Charlie’s critics were either ignorant of or unconcerned with her views. Those who thought the publication of the images of Mohammed was racist or purely provocative in intent or consequence didn’t care to hear from those of us who knew better. Those who had claimed the magazine targeted Muslims weren’t generally provoked to correct themselves when this appeared. In fact, in general the self-appointed prosecutors went silent – not, as I’d hoped, in order to learn more so as to correct misconceptions, but evidently more for a lack of continuing interest.

Then came the controversy surrounding the PEN award. Shortly before the awards gala, several writers who were members of PEN wrote an open letter explaining their objection to the magazine’s receiving the award and announcing their intent to boycott the awards gala. They had clearly done little research since January to determine whether or not their beliefs about CH were correct. They refused to support their claims or to engage with those pointing out their ignorance. They evidently weren’t interested in the strong words of Dominique Sopo, head of the French anti-racist organization SOS Racisme, who attempted to set the record straight:



Translation:

We’ve reached an incredibly high level of stupidity and intellectual dishonesty.

This must stop. Charlie Hebdo is the greatest antiracist weekly magazine in this country. Every week in Charlie Hebdo, every week, half [of the magazine’s articles] is against racism, against antisemitism, against hatred towards Muslims… I mean, [some people didn’t like a caricature and said “Well, okay but…”] There is no “but”. Charlie Hebdo fought against all kinds of racisms. Cabu drew cartoons for us, he even made a book for us. Charb drew cartoons for us, they [the cartoonists] gave us drawings on a regular basis, every time we asked; we used those drawings as we wished. Wolinski did the same. [Take a look at the past and ask] every antiracist organisation, they’ll tell you [that] they [Charlie Hebdo] really were antiracist and obviously everyone knows it. And so, people who argue that “Ah, Charlie Hebdo, so full of hate…” Did you know that Charlie Hebdo petitioned to ask for Claude Guéant [then minister of the Interior] to resign right after his anti-Muslim words? For an islamophobic weekly magazine, honestly, that’s quite unusual. So actually, this must stop, okay? And these people who try to make you believe that Charlie Hebdo was a racist magazine, honestly, this is scandalous, they insult the memories and the fights of the ones we lost, most of whom we knew on a personal level, needless to say, and you have to stop insulting the living and the dead. Because when you insult, and when you spread an ideology full of hate, when you lash out at journalists like a pack, this is what happens. So this must stop, everyone is called to its personal responsibility.

The morning of the awards gala in New York there was a panel discussion on “Charlie Hebdo and Challenges to Free Expression.” I went, reported back, and posted the video of the event.* I was hoping that at least one or two of the more than 200 writers who had sanctimoniously denounced the magazine would accept the invitation to come and discuss the matter with Charlie Hebdo’s editor and film critic. But none did. Not a single one. I don’t think anything could have been a bigger insult to the dead and to the survivors at CH than this refusal even to talk with them. That was indecent.

They went ahead with the boycott. Dominique Sopo was among the speakers at the presentation of the award:

I think that for us tonight, in honoring Charlie Hebdo, we honor the magazine, we honor the talent and the courage of the people who work for it, and above all we honor their antiracist commitment which has been consistent throughout their existence. Charlie Hebdo in France is something that has stood for the antiracist voice in many kinds of combat, whether it be combat due to religious dogma, a rising up against anti-Semitism, against violence, against Jews, against the Roma people, against Arabs. Charlie Hebdo is always in the forefront of all of these battles. I speak both on behalf of my own organization, SOS Racisme, but also for all of the other organizations—we know this.

Fortunately, Biard and Thoret, accepting the award, received a standing ovation. And then, from the boycotters, silence. There was a bit of self-righteous muttering about how the protest had been necessary, but now it was over and can’t we all just move on? I was thrilled last week to see that one of those who’d signed the letter, Jennifer Cody Epstein, asked for her name to be removed, apologizing and acknowledging that she had failed to adequately inform herself before taking a public position. This was admirable, but so far she’s the only one. That’s indecent.

There are new books by Caroline Fourest, Charb (posthumously), and Luz. I’ve yet to read these last two, although I’ve read excerpts from Charb’s, but I have read Fourest’s, which was published earlier this week. It gives a good deal of background which would be useful to those trying to sort out their understanding of Charlie Hebdo. But again, I haven’t seen people who were so keen to interrogate CH going out of their way to engage with them.

And guess what? Both Fourest and Charb, as well as others I agree with in general, say several things with which I disagree. There are probably also many individual CH cartoons I’d find cringeworthy or offensive or “problematic” (not the ones I’ve seen shared around, but surely some). And I’ve never seen any representative of CH dismiss that reaction or treat it as invalid. In fact, even in the face of the most vicious attacks and unfair criticisms, they’ve been entirely decent.

As I said at the beginning of this post, my concern here isn’t about any specific content. My idea of what’s decent, as I’ve said all along, doesn’t necessarily concern any particular opinion, but the way in which opinions are reached, expressed, and revised. I think it’s decent, when people have just been massacred, to avoid rushing to judgment about them. To appreciate the limits of our knowledge, recognizing when we might not have the requisite information or skills to form a proper opinion. To hold off on making public suggestions about their motives, actions, or impact until we’ve learned more. To treat the question holistically instead of plucking a handful of superficially questionable images out of context. To approach the matter, not with a prosecutorial zeal, but with a high level of care that we not erroneously smear people (we could still in the end conclude that they’re intentional or negligent racists, but this is different from beginning with this presumption and then expecting to have to be convinced out of it).

To correct previous statements if they prove to have been exaggerated or mistaken, and to correct other people when they make those errors. To apologize if we’ve said something ignorant and potentially damaging. To seek out more information, especially from the people about whom we’re forming our views, and to take that information fully into account. To appreciate that our intentions are (ha – not magic!) irrelevant, no matter how good or well-meaning, if their application is based on misinformation and stubborn ignorance. To recognize that it doesn’t show a weaker commitment to social justice or give comfort to racists to admit that our initial judgments were mistaken in any particular instance.

To proceed otherwise is, yes, offensive and indecent.

* Incidentally, Voltaire’s play Fanaticism was mentioned there. I’ve now read it and have been writing about it: part 1, part 2.

17

The percentage of individual atheist blogs at Patheos written by women, by my rough count.*

Just an observation.

* There are 37 total, of which two are the work of “various contributors.” Of the remaining 35, it appears that 29 are written by men and six by women.

We call on all countries

A third Bangladeshi atheist blogger, Ananta Bijoy Das, has been murdered by machete-wielding fanatics. The Swedish embassy had denied him a visa to travel to Sweden at the invitation of Swedish PEN. The International Humanist and Ethical Union, to whom he had reached out, released a statement today, reading in part:

We call on all countries to recognise the legitimacy and sometimes the urgency and moral necessity of asylum claims made by humanists, atheists and secularists who are being persecuted for daring to express those views.

We’ve been in contact with several Bangladeshi humanists, in particular since Avijit Roy was killed in February. These writers are not hateful, not intolerant; they write about science and politics, they are proponents of secularism, they voice skeptical and rationalist arguments, they call for justice and for humanism. They are desperately and increasingly concerned that they, too, have been named on the Islamist death lists.

No, that’s not a reason to love Ricky Gervais

Ecorazzi is gleefully reporting on a “Twitter war” sparked by a tweet by Ricky Gervais targeting a trophy hunter. Trophy hunters (and hunters in general) are overwhelmingly male, and the majority of animal liberation activists are women (not that you’d know it from all of the attention paid to male voices or the misogynistic stunts of some organizations); but Gervais chose to “call out” a woman, Rebecca Francis.

He had to know that his tweet would lead to Francis being barraged with threats. The Ecorazzi writer, pleased that the conflict is bringing attention to wildlife-protection organizations, breezes right past this inevitable result - “It wasn’t long before some of his over 7.5 million followers started posting death threats to Francis saying she should be the one shot…” – without a word of objection. In some of the first responses to Gervais’ original tweet people call Francis an “ugly bitch” and a “massive cunt” and write “disgusting trash box I hope the rifle backfires and explodes in that cunt’s face,” eliciting no negative response from Gervais. (This isn’t especially surprising - not long ago, he came up with the hilarious idea to rename hunters “cunters.”)

I’m sure there are many reasons to like Gervais, including his commitment to animals and his humor (some of his tweets in this episode would be funny and useful in another context). But this isn’t one of them. We don’t advance the cause of compassion by riling up threatening, misogynistic mobs. Targeting and harassing others, leading them to fear for their safety, is what hunters do. Surely it should be obvious to vegans that this sport shaming is contrary to our values.

#ObamaYankeeGoHome

...has been trending on Twitter.

“…where politics is only for the tough, and the crude, and the calloused”

From Jack Danforth’s eulogy for Tom Schweich, who committed suicide:

…Since Thursday some good people have said, ‘Well, that’s just politics, and Tom should’ve been less sensitive, he should’ve been tougher, he should’ve been able to take it’. Well, that is accepting politics in its present state. And that we cannot do. It amounts to blaming the victim. And it creates a new normal, where politics is only for the tough, and the crude, and the calloused.

I’ll post the background from Rachel Maddow when it’s available, but here’s a relevant post.

UPDATE: The Rachel Maddow video:



I disagree with Danforth on one key point.* The problem isn’t a politics of the hardened or the tough. It’s a politics, as I’ve suggested, of those traumatized by an abusive childhood or a traumatic culture to the point that they identify with victimizers (the “strong”) and condemn, run from, and attack victims (the “weak”). We contribute to this ideology by perpetuating the myth that it’s a culture of toughness and strength. It’s not. It’s a sad, compulsive culture of bullying with fear at its heart – not tough but raw and scarred.

* In this context, that is. I’m certain I disagree with him on a vast number of unrelated points.