Archive for the ‘Catholic’ Tag
The Amazing Democrats – Editor’s comment: God Bless America – Everyone got it wrong and to a point, so did we. Leave a comment
Vive la France -JE SUIS CHARLIE. Leave a comment
Today as so many marched in Paris in solidarity, what happened there last week leaves us with so many questions rather than answers. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after the attack and the callous murder of the Editor and staff at Charlie Hedbo and two French Policemen who were gunned down while doing their duty as “war on civilization”. No, plain and simple it is a “war on journalists, photographers, writers, cartoonists and bloggers”. As with the beheading last year of British journalist and photographer James Foley and so many more of our media colleagues what happened in Paris last week has drawn the line for all those in journalism, be it working for the main stream media or bloggers, it makes no difference as with technology, if the CIA or FBI can track what and where we write from, so can terrorists who have become that new generation of internet and social media savvy experts that they now are. So no, no one can hide in their rooms on their laptops and re-print the cartoons of the Prophet and expect not to be found, if they really want to find us and try and destroy our Freedom of expression, they will.
You take the poor Pope for instant, how many cartoons are drawn of him weekly and some of them even sexual and degrading. Why aren’t the Catholics up in arms over those cartoons? Or maybe the Pope has a better sense of humor than we give him credit for? The question here is not what will the French Government do to combat terrorism, the question is what will journalists, photographers, writers, cartoonists and bloggers do now that the lines have being refined? This is something that we as journalists and bloggers need to address. No media outlet in either Europe or the US has had to courage to reprint Charlie Hedbo’s cartoons that offended some members of the Muslim faith except for The Hamburg Morgenpost newspaper in German and its offices were targeted last night in an arson attack. Will it be the staff’s lives next that will be threatened or taking at The Hamburg Morgenpost?
I don’t blame the main stream media for not publishing these cartoons in memory of all those that died last Wednesday in the Charlie Hedbo’s offices in Paris as they have families and no journalist, no photographer, no cartoonist or blogger wants to die a martyr because they are just doing their job exposing lies, corruption or simply poking fun at politicians or at religion. Neither do these journalists or bloggers want twenty-four protection, where is the sense in that? What if the journalist under twenty-four protection is researching a story say in the US on FBI corruption? Do you think the journalist’s confidential sources are going to meet and talk with FBI Agents standing over this journalist? All calls made to and from this journalist’s cellphone would be tracked? All areas they worked in, wired? Where does that leave the Freedom of Press?
The hardest reality about Charlie Hedbo and no one dares write about this yet and that is, not only was it hated by some in the Muslim communities but it was also detested by the French establishment and by Israel’s living in France. And yes, it has started, on line all the conspiracy theories are already flying about an “inside job” like we hear some much about 9/11. Yes, the French Government and their intelligent and security agencies will have a lot of questions to answer but if like with the death of Princess Diana in Paris, we will be waiting for direct replies to our direct questions for a long time, which of course will only fuel the conspiracy theories even more. We don’t know the facts and may never do, maybe the French Police recommended to the Editor and staff at Charlie Hebdo to have tighter security and maybe they refused their extra offer of more heavily armed Police Officers around their building?
We may never find out but one thing remains and that is this is “war on journalism” plain and simple. Most politicians in the US, even in opposition with any bit of clout, get twenty-four hour, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year Secret Service protection, but journalists? For those very few outspoken journalists and film makers left like Michael Moore (remember the comments George W. Bush made to as he was walking pass Moore when Bush was President shortly after 9/11) who many within the establishment have nothing but contempt for, you think the Secret Service would offer protection to Michael Moore if he decided to make a documentary (which I am sure he is considering now) on cartoons on the Muslim faith and the Prophet? Would Moore even accept twenty-four security if it was offered?
The big question over the next few weeks will be if France in the light of what happened at the offices of Charlie Hebdo last week be able to balance new security measures without affecting the civil liberties of its citizens? The French unlike us in the US after 9/11 will not take too kindly to their Government restricting their civil liberties. This issue was brought forward today on the BBC covering the march earlier in Paris with an International journalist being interviewed, who made this very point that the French Government mustn’t react and impose new laws that would impede the rights of the citizens of France. Of course the shocking comment of the day award then goes to the BBC’s senior correspondent Lyse Doucet who herself is an American-French citizen that they were now having “a dangerous discussion”. So here it has begun in France and first heard by a senior BBC correspondent as we heard in the US straight after 9/11 that any suggestion of caution on the new laws being rushed in to fight terrorism that might affect civil liberties in France is “a dangerous discussion”. Does the media now work for our Governments or does the Governments work for our media?
It goes back to the politicians and the media always and even though these three suspects that were shot dead by the French Police on Friday had some training in Yemen, they still were what they always were: thugs, scum of the earth and petty criminals who lived in poverty with little future for themselves or any children they might bring into the world. The word “terrorists” that both the politicians and the media call them, actually empowers them as now today even though they might be hated in parts of the West, they are heroes in other parts of world. No network as far as I could find today showed the celebrations of martyrdom in Southern Afghanistan of these three suspected murdering thugs shot dead Friday by the French Police. Even the BBC and its senior correspondence no longer grasp the complexity of what is evolving daily in Europe and the US. Both politicians and the media should carefully chose their terminology very carefully as only one newspaper worldwide as I could see on Saturday called these three suspected murders “thugs”, which is what they were they were, simply petty criminals who were thugs and found a cause to become heroes in certain parts of the world. They got what they wanted, their faces printed all around the world. When you are so deep in the poverty trap with no way out, death is not the end and is something to fear, death brings peace and a final end to all their personal suffering. We journalists or bloggers seemed to miss that.
As a US citizen and also (as I called myself) a European citizen and someone who rates Paris as one of my top favorite cities and someone who had great memories of not far from where Charlie Hebdo’s offices are located and the fact that eight journalists and cartoonists were murdered by those thugs there, it is very personal to me what happened in Paris last week. But as a European citizen I hope the French Government don’t make the mistake we did in the US after 9/11 and remove so many civil rights of their citizens, which the US did and gave George W. Bush and Dick Cheney so much power. Sadly our current President voted to renew the Patriot Act when he was a Senator and has done nothing to reverse some of the Patriot Act. The argument that no attacks have being carried out in the US since the Patriot Act was brought is an insult to President Clinton, who under his administration thawed terrorists attacks against US citizens in the US and he had no Patriot Act to assist him. President Clinton had a very pro-active intelligence team with the likes of Dick Clark on his team and we saw what George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did to him when they got into power.
We can only hope that the French Police do not now single out the law abiding Muslim citizens living in France as three of their colleagues were also gunned down in cold blooded murder last week like the US Police and the FBI did after 9/11 and the British Police did to the law abiding Irish living in England during the IRA bombing campaign in the UK. Everyone certainly understands that they will be angry as time wears on that three of their colleagues died in such a way but it is important that these three suspected murders were pretty criminals who were thugs and scum of the earth for what they did in Paris last week to seventeen people and the ten people who are also critical injured and were more importantly an insult to the Muslim faith and the Prophet.
This is a war on journalists, photographers, writers, cartoonists and bloggers who want to expose what they deem as injustices or hypocrites be it in politics or in religion and there is no communications or journalist college that can prepare us for those professional decisions on what and who we decide to write about and sometimes it simply is impractical in our line of work to accept twenty-four protection from the Government or Police when and wherever our work takes us to expose corruption with them also. It is a fine balancing act and it remains to be seen where the Twenty-first Century will take us as we see in America the few corporations buying up all the media outlets that in return donate millions to Presidential candidates and then fire their more outspoken journalists. Now more than ever, journalists, photographers, writers, cartoonists and bloggers work freelance to try and make a living using social media without the supports you would normally have from a big publication or a newspaper. It makes the world a much more dangerous place now that these “thugs” can come knocking on our doors like they did to the staff at Charlie Hebdo in Paris last week and they may take our bodies but they will never take our work or our spirit.
And finally to quote President John F. Kennedy’s address to the American Newspaper Publishers Association on April 27, 1961: “Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution, not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply give the public what it wants but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion”. – JE SUIS CHARLIE.