Je ne suis pas Charlie…
February 12, 2016
Greeting my fellow time travelers…
Lots to talk about regarding France and the recent terrorist activity there but, in trying to take things chronologically, one of the first things that happened in 2015 was the shootings in Paris aimed at the weekly French publication which calls itself Charlie Hebdo.
I’d like to start by saying that I whole-heartedly and unequivocally condemn the actions of the shooters. No one is a bigger believer in Freedom of Speech and/or Freedom of Expression than me! …and I truly believe that no one should lose their life due to something they said or something they drew.
That said, I am NOT Charlie.
Quite honestly, I’m a little disturbed by everyone who decided to show their support for Charlie Hebdo by declaring “Je suis Charlie” or I am Charlie. Seriously? Charlie Hebdo is an intolerant, disrespectful, vulgar and offensive magazine. So if you are Charlie, that makes you intolerant, disrespectful, vulgar and offensive. N’es pas?
Again, I’m not saying that the shootings in Paris were by any means justified but they were absolutely provoked and no one should have been surprised when this happened. We were all in grade school once. What happened when you kept teasing someone, particularly someone who had a big bully cousin? Answer: Eventually you got your ass kicked, that’s what.
Let’s go back to the things I talked about in my last few articles and try to gain some perspective. Imagine living in a culture where religion is more important to you than your family, your country or your career. Then imagine an organization that continuously insults you and your religion in the deepest way.
The Muslim community had reached out to Charlie Hebdo multiple times asking that they not use images depicting their prophet, Mohammed, as it was something that was inappropriate and highly offensive to Islam. Charlie Hebdo, of course, continued to publish offensive images of Mohammed. What makes matters even worse and what I believe unites the Muslim “home team” against Charlie Hebdo is anger, as Charlie Hebdo continues to frame all Muslims as terrorist and Mohammed as the head/leader of both terrorism and Islam.
Imagine for one second the public outrage that would occur in uber tolerant America if we had a publication that were to continuously insult a particular ethnic or religious group. Imagine a publication that would, on a weekly basis, make fun of Jews, the Torah, or depict rabbis as terrorist and blamed all Jews for the actions of a few fanatic Jews back in Israel. What if there was a publication that picked on blacks and when Freddie Gray was mistreated and subsequently died in Baltimore, the publication’s front page made fun of it and said, “blacks die here – whites get to live”. Of course, if you are anti-Jewish you are antisemitic and if you are anti-black you are racist. But since there’s no cool special name for it, I guess it’s OK to be anti-Muslim. In fact, the whole rest of the world will back you and be Charlie with you.
By the way, my analogy of “blacks die here – whites get to live” is dead on.
Not too long ago, a Syrian child drowned as he and he his family fled the conflicts in their home country. So what did Charlie Hebdo do? Although they rejected the idea of putting it on the front cover, they nevertheless included a cartoon in their magazine that depicted Jesus walking on water next to a drowning child. The captions said, “Proof that Europe is Christian. Christians walk on water…Muslim kids sink.”
Are you still Charlie?
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Now, I get that everyone who stood in solidarity with Charlie Hebdo felt that they were standing for freedom of speech and they were appalled at the actions of the attackers but what we all have to understand is that the freedom to speak is a great power that is not afforded to everyone on Earth …and also that with that great power to speak freely comes great responsibility and Charlie Hebdo is repeatedly, grossly irresponsible with that power.
So to be clear, no one is a bigger advocate for freedom of speech than I am and I am absolutely not saying that anyone deserved to die because of the things they said or wrote and the bad guys were absolutely not justified in anyway… but I am saying that I am absolutely not Charlie. Je ne suis pas Charlie…
In a cartoon that was removed from most Internet search engines immediately after the shootings in Paris at Charlie Hebdo, the paper had run a cartoon that said, “Still No Attack on France”. And the bearded turbin-wearing character is saying to himself, “oh, that’s right, we have until the end of January”.
So, really… You are going to repeatedly insult one of the largest religions on the planet, the one known for having extremist who regularly plan attacks, and then you are going to taunt them and say, “why haven’t you come and attacked my country?”
Two attacks later… How is that working out for you?
Remember, in the US there are no laws preventing you from saying whatever you want, however, these days, you can be sued, you can be fired, etc., etc… No one can regulate what you are thinking but it’s common sense to use your freedom to speak responsibly.
I wish I remember who said this as I would love to give them full credit but I once heard it said, “there are no laws preventing me from calling you a nigger but doing so does not make me a great advocate for freedom of speech”.
Truer words are seldom spoken.
As a final thought, although it was a relatively small and ill-planned terrorist attack, the United States recently had a little ISIS inspired event in California. I checked all over Facebook for French people who had Americanized their profile. Didn’t see any. Perhaps the terrorist will have to take out someone deeply offensive, like Justin Bieber, before we get the attention of the general French population?
That’s all I have for today. Gotta run.
Vive la France!
– Arch
Putting “perspective” into perspective…
February 5, 2016
We previously covered The Butterfly Effect and Rooting for The Home Team…
The next concept that we need to discuss is perspective. Everyone has a different perspective on just about everything. It’s the basis for the old joke that a camel is just a horse that was put together by a committee. It’s really quite remarkable that anyone ever sees eye-to-eye with anyone else on anything. And remember, the more different you are from someone, the more skewed your perspectives may be from theirs.
It Could Happen to You…
Does anyone remember the movie, “It Could Happen to You” with Nicolas Cage and Bridget Fonda? As I recall, the general movie plot was that Nicolas Cage gives Bridget Fonda, who plays a struggling waitress, a lottery ticket or maybe agrees to split it with her, I don’t remember the details …but the ticket ends up being a winner and she is going to potentially win some crazy amount of cash, like $10 million. Somewhere in the movie, however, they run into another potential winner and we find out why winning the lottery is equally important to that guy. He says, “winning this $10 million would double my existing fortune”. Of course, he wants to win and couldn’t care less about the waitress, her kid, or whatever else was going on in her life.
So for the waitress, $10 million was a pie in the sky dream world but for (let’s call him) “the Wall Street businessman”, having $10 million isn’t enough and he really needs this additional $10 million or his life just wouldn’t be complete. It’s all just perspective.
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A few years ago, I attended a destination wedding in Antigua, Guatemala. The day before the wedding, a handful of us climbed Volcano Picaya. Near the top, we stood in an area that had been molten just 30 days before and roasted marshmallows on currently molten lava. The heat was incredible. The whole place made you feel like a tiny piece of chicken on a giant charcoal grill and we all got a weird reverse “sunburn” where our legs felt sunburned but not our heads. It was truly an amazing experience that could never happen in the US.
On the climb down, my troublesome knee started to hurt so I decided to take a mule down. Along side the mule walked a little boy who could not have been a day over 14 years old. Since I speak Spanish, we had a lengthy conversation on the way down. First, he was convinced that he was 18. Told me he wouldn’t be allowed to work there if he wasn’t 18. He told me that he was very lucky to have this job and that he and his mule climb the volcano two or three times everyday. On a good day, he could make about $60 ($20 per round trip) and he gets to keep about half. The other half went to the owner of the mule. So $30 is a great day. Next we talked about his town. He lived in a city, near the base of the volcano, called Santa Elena Barillas. His words were, “I live in the greatest place in the world”. Naturally, I needed to know what made Santa Elena Barillas such a great place.
He explained to me that everyone in his family lived on the same street. He had an uncle who was an excellent fisherman and goes fishing everyday. Several other family members also have jobs so that they can buy rice and vegetables. He told me that no one can cook fish like his grandmother. “It’s delicious”, he said, and I could tell his mouth was watering. Then he told me that his older sister has been cooking the rice and vegetables and that she is starting to get pretty good at it – particularly when it goes with grandma’s fish. His dad was one of the workers – he worked “in the fields”. Mom was mostly in charge of clothing. She found clothes for them, she made clothes for them and she washed their clothes.
“As you can see”, he continued, “we are very lucky. We have everything that we need and we know that there are many places and many people who don’t have all that we have. Again, we are very lucky and I’ll probably never leave Santa Elena.”
I pondered the whole thing and remember thinking to myself, he really does live in the greatest place in the world.
Side Note: About six months after I was there, Picaya erupted. I read that several people died and that 1600 people had to be temporarily relocated from nearby villages as volcano ash filled their streets. That said, I have no doubt that my little Guatemalan friend and his family did just fine. I doubt that even a volcano could ruin the greatest place on Earth.
So again, as YOU can see, when you start looking at the world, other people and other cultures, it’s important to gain perspective and see things through their eyes, understand their point of view. Under different circumstances, without the opportunity to gain his perspective, I may have dismissed him as a nutty little kid who just didn’t know what it took to make a great village. Instead, HE re-educated ME on what it takes to make a great village.
It’s all about perspective.
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Well, it’s about perspective and DNA
When I say DNA, of course, I’m not talking about DNA like we might learn about in science class, although it is similar. I’m talking about the things that make people who they are, most of which has been taught to us/them by influences from family, our surroundings, our culture, religion religion or maybe our country.
In our general American culture, one DNA influence is: Get an Education, Get a Job, Start a Family, Educate Your Children so that they can get good jobs and someday start a family.
Another of our DNA influences is: Live and Let Live – you can do whatever you want to do as long as it doesn’t directly affect me – freedom of religion, separation of church and state, freedom of speech, freedom to marry someone of the same sex, freedom to drink intoxicating beverages, freedom to abort an unwanted pregnancy. In general, it’s all good as long as whatever your neighbor does, doesn’t affect you… Right?
As we try to gain perspective around the world, it is important to understand that not everyone shares this same DNA. For example, there are many cultures that rank serving God above all other things. We’ve heard of countries that are referred to as Muslim Countries. This usually means that some form of Islam is tied to that country’s government and, most of the time, the people like it that way. Many Muslims want to live in a country governed by Muslims. They want to know that those high level decisions are being made by others of their same faith. It’s important to them.
Similarly, they’re not into freedom of religion. Some religions take their religion way more seriously than other religious groups. They want to know that their neighbors are of the same religion. They want to live in good neighborhoods, ones where others share in their beliefs and no one is doing things that are disrespectful to their prophets or God.
These people are far from live and let live.
This might sound wrong to you but it is wrong or just different? You’re probably asking, why can’t people keep their beliefs to themselves? Why can’t a Muslim be a good Muslim and just ignore whatever his neighbor might be doing. Answer: Perspective & DNA.
Imagine being raised in a culture where God is your number one priority. Imagine a religion where you stop whatever you are doing, 5 times per day, to pray. Then imagine having neighbors who ignore your core beliefs and are, in essence, constantly disrespectful to you, your culture and your God – even if it’s done passively. To put an American spin on it, imagine that you had a neighbor who you felt was continuously disrespectful to your mother, your daughter or your wife. Maybe your neighbor is a work from home prostitute. Why do you care what she does in her house? …or why men seem to come and go at all hours? I thought you were live and let live? Now you’re starting to gain perspective.
When a suicide bomber somewhere in the Middle East straps a bomb to himself, walks onto a bus and sets it off, we ask ourselves, who would do that? The answer is that he may have been waiting his whole life for that day, to do what he thought was his duty. Some people think their wedding day will be the greatest day of their life, others believe that the day they blow themselves up in the name of God will be the greatest day of their life. It’s all about perspective and DNA.
Side Note: I don’t want to portray Muslims as religious fanatics, necessarily. It just wasn’t that long ago that Christians acted very similarly. In the not-too-distant past, Christians stopped to pray before each meal, breakfast, lunch & dinner – that’s three. Some still do that. Then you go to church, sometimes twice par week and that’s where you get a few extra prayers – almost 5 per day.
If you walk around Istanbul and other major Muslim cities, you’ll hear the “call to prayer”. In some cases, it resonates throughout the city and makes Christians a little uneasy – but it’s not unlike the ringing of church bells on any given day.
I have to wonder if church bells make Muslims a little uneasy?
So now that you’ve gained a little perspective, you might begin to understand how others, who take their religions way more seriously than we do, find us religiously offensive. To a certain degree, it’s OK that we’re not “all in” on their God but they see us as not being “all in” on our God. And who in their right mind would want Freedom of Religion? If you believe that your religion is the right one, why would you want other religions practicing near you, in your country? Freedom of Religion sounds great (and it is) but that doesn’t mean that it makes sense to everyone. To some people, it’s borderline offensive. Perspective & DNA at work!
And THAT is all I have for today and maybe, just maybe, next week, we can start talking about the events of 2015. I know I keep promising that. Trust me, we’ll get there.
Love ya, Mean it.
Arch
Archie Kobain 