Stephane Charbonnier on the Freedom of Speech

Stephane Charbonnier, Chief Editor of the French satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo", was one of France's leading cartoonists who created under the pen name "Charb".   Charbonnier was also an outspoken advocate for free speech who fiercely defended his right to push material that others, particularly Muslims, deemed offensive. 

In 2011, Charbonnier invited the Prophet Muhammad to be a guest editor to Charlie Hebdo. This prompted a firebombing which destroyed Charlie Hebdo's offices and put Charb on an Al-Qaeda hit list. 

Stephane Charbonnier defiantly posing after Charlie Hebdo firebombing,  Nov. 2011

The three Islamic terrorists who brutally attacked Charlie Hebdo's offices on January 7, 2015 reportedly asked for Charb by name as they slaughtered twelve people. 

Some Muslim spokesmen justify a rabid response like the terrorist attack as Charlie Hebdo published pieces which were offensive to the Prophet Muhammad.  Bill Donahue,  President of the (American) Catholic League, condemned the killings but stated that "Muslims have a right to be angry" over Charlie Hebdo's provocative publications.

Many media outlets are quick to point out that Charlie Hebdo is a French satirical publication, which is true but is misleading.  This Charlie Hebdo massacre was an attack on Free Speech.  It was cultural jihad which is imposing tenants of sharia law (among which is to not to offend Muslims) on Western society.  This movement is being aided and accelerated by Political Correctness, which seeks to not  provoke favored minorities but is happy to taunt traditional mores.

The fact that many media sources were self-censoring about showing "provocative" Charlie Hebdo covers, but had no problems publicizing Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" (1987) or Chris Orfill's depiction of the Virgin Mary covered in elephant dung (1996) shows the double standard from the supposed guardians of the First Amendment.

Such spurious self-censoring of provocative content towards a violent minority which seeks to apply sharia law is an early stage of dhimmitude. 

So Much for Being Guardians of the First Amendment

The Mainstream Media loves to trumpet the trope that they are Guardians of First Amendment rights for Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press.  However, the timorous self-censoring displayed by major media outlets in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terror attack in Paris exposes this ideal as an intellectual chimera.

CNN Senior Editorial Director Richard Griffin issued an internal memo which dictated that the media outlet not show images that could be considered offensive to Muslims.  The Politico released Griffin's email:

Although we are not at this time showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Prophet considered offensive by many Muslims, platforms are encouraged to verbally describe the cartoons in detail. This is key to understanding the nature of the attack on the magazine and the tension between free expression and respect for religion. 

Video or stills of street protests showing Parisians holding up copies of the offensive cartoons, if shot wide, are also OK. Avoid close-ups of the cartoons that make them clearly legible.

It's also OK to show most of the protest cartoons making the rounds online, though care should be taken to avoid examples that include within them detailed depictions of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

NBC News mimicked this tact by guiding their outlets to neither show headlines nor cartoons which could be deemed insensitive or offensive.

In the print medium, the Associated Press applied an internal policy of "not moving deliberately provocative images" so it removed Charlie Hebdo images from their database. However, it only took the Associate Press 27 years and an embarrassing exposure by the Washington Examiner for the same standard to be applied to Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" (1987).   Was this because a crucifix dipped in urine and displayed as art is not deliberately provocative? Do elitist editors think that anti-Christian imagery is not provocative but that they dare not offend adherents to the Prophet Mohammad?  Or does publishing some provocative pictures might put their lives on the line by radical terrorists?

The New York Daily News covered the source material which provoked these three Islamic terrorists to assassinate twelve French citizens by pixillating the Prophet Mohammad's image.

Stephane Charbonnier posing with satirical cover pixillated in NY Daily News {photo FRED DUFOUR/AFP}

As Mark Steyn remarked, the New York Daily News put Mohammad in the witness protection program with their editorial sensitivity, yet the editors did not obscure the hook nose caricature of a Jew which shared the frame. So much for sensitivity or avoiding provocative pictures.

It is galling that the media outlets are proud as a peacock as being protectors of Free Speech while acting in a duplicitous and cowardly manner.  While these Charlie Hedbo pictures are provocative, they are no longer a polemic point of view but now are a news story. None the less, the major media acts in a Milquetoast manner towards the prophet Mohammad.  No wonder why they can derisively known as the "Lamestream Media".

In 2013, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) sought to limit who can be a journalist. Feinstein argued that a federal shield law should only apply to "real reporters".  But what if these paid journalists refuse to report the news?

These pusillanimous journalists should review what dhimmitude means.  This second class citizenship of non-Muslims acknowledges the dominance of sharia law and does not allow anything to offend those within the Dar-Islam.   Self-censorship so as not to give offense to Muslims is a major step in accepting those social shackles.

In Paris, many protesters to the Charlie Hebdo atrocity carried pencils to symbolize that the pencil is mightier than the sword and that they are not afraid. The cartoon of the Twin Tower of Pencils links terrorism from America's 9/11 attack to the Parisian terrorism.  Sadly this cartoon has another connection.  American news networks stopped showing the terrorist planes hitting the World Trade Center except briefly during the 9/11 anniversary to supposedly not to show provocative images. Of course, such horrific footage might remind people about the consequences of unchecked terrorism.