Jesus is Charlie ... ?

I keep finding when I see the signs on television news, that some of them I catch myself reading as "Jesus is Charlie" and then having to correct myself. I guess years of interacting with texts where the letters "Jesu" are either a version of the name or actually are the majority of the name Jesus has conditioned my text processing.


So then I have found myself asking whether there is a sense in which we might assert "Jesus is Charlie"?


Now I think that one of the difficulties with the assertion can be inferred from the cautionary article here: I Am Not Charlie Hebdo - NYTimes.com: which suggests,

Most of us don’t actually engage in the sort of deliberately offensive humor that that newspaper specializes in.

And so many of us would find on the basis of that kind of characterisation that it feels difficult to associate Jesus with it. And certainly as a Christian I tend to find that, trying to work out what it is to love my neighbour, I am most often working out how not to offend because my biggest challenge in many cases is to dial down my tendency to be relatively inconsiderate of others' feelings.

But then I'm challenged by some of what the gospels show of how Jesus spoke of and spoke to some people. "Whitewashed tombs" and "hypocrites" were almost certainly offensive. At one point Jesus is told "When you say that, you insult us also" and he responds by rubbing it in for his interlocutors. So it is possible that in some ways "Jesus is Charlie" in terms of offence.

However, I think it is important to notice what seems to me an important distinction. The cartoons in Charlie Hebdo often/sometimes take a pot-shot at communities who are in a minority and are relatively powerless and marginalised. Like Muslims in France. And these same cartoons reinforce negative stereotypes in a way that we/I would find difficult (and Joe Sacco's cartoon about this is instructive) to bear were they to be about black people or Jewish people today.

On the other hand, what I think I see Jesus doing is speaking against the powerful and the wealthy and against those who, in a sense, should know better in spiritual terms and who have and inherit a history, in effect, of using their privilege hypocritically to make the lives of many people harder and to keep them from connecting with the God who cares and critiques such use of privilege. This amounts to a kind of bullying and in more corporate terms that becomes systemic violence or institutionalised prejudice and oppression. Unfortunately, if Joe Socco, is right, there were times when the satire of Charlie Hebdo bolstered the prejudices and justifications of the powerful at the expense of the marginalised. In this sense, then, Jesus is not Charlie.

I guess we should remember, though, that the point of 'Je suis Charlie' is to assert a solidarity in freedom of speech and an implied condemnation of those who take their insulted-ness to a murderous extreme. So some of this could be taken to assert that Jesus should have been free to insult as part of his teaching. However, it seems to me that the rule of love implies not adding to the burden of those who struggle with powerlessness and oppression but that it does sometimes call for pricking the bubble of those who profit (often literally) by oppression. And I guess that is where I, and probably you, differ from Jesus: our ability to give right offence is compromised by lack of self awareness, unconscious privilege-bearing, bolstering self-image through group identity ... we are likely to let such things derail our other-care into other-disrespect and stereotyping.

But I suppose that we have to deal with the question of whether insulting a group of oppressive and powerful people is loving towards them. This question amounts to asking whether Jesus was truly loving when he did such things: is it possible that we can give what I called above "right offence". It sits ill with my cultural mores: insulting someone is not 'nice'. On the other hand, letting someone get away unchallenged with making life worse for others is also not nice. In a situation where two neighbours (both of whom we are to love) are before us and we find that one of them is making life miserable for the other, we may have to say or do something which is not 'nice', we may have to commit a social faux pas in order to begin to help them to change. And, we should note, that if "your brother repents" you have loved them well. There can be no doubt that the God who loves both is delighted by one sinner who repents, both because the oppressed neighbour begins to be released from their bondage and because the oppressing neighbour becomes a better, more humane person.

In such circumstances, telling the truth in love may be insulting by the standards of prevailing social mores. However, we should note that different cultures evaluate such mores differently: Dutch, French or Israeli honesty can be excruciating in English or Indian contexts. Then too, even taking that into account, there may be times when pricking the bubble is the only way to get round the defences, justifications and ideological ramparts the oppressor has in place. So I can accept that insulting privileged people with a view to nudging or even hurrying them towards repentance is potentially a loving thing to do. (I also accept how easy it would be to let that be an excuse for downright disrespectful rudeness).

So where Charlie Hebdo attempts to prick the bubble of privilege, the Jesus is Charlie, as well as not being Charlie where Charlie gives succour to bullying by the privileged. Given my propensity to mistake my own self-justification for rightness as well as sometimes to get it right, probably moi, je suis Charlie: for good and ill.

There is one other layer that I think we should consider before leaving the topic: Jesus's bubble-popping got him killed. So there is a sense in which Jesus shares something with those assassinated last week. These deaths, whatever else we might say about them (and I lament them and feel for those bereaved by them), might be read alongside the political dynamics that got Christ killed. Interestingly, in both cases, there were religious as well as political justifications involved. Jesus was killed, in part, by religion-as-ideology. I'm not by that saying that the thinking of these men is representative of Islam any more than I would say that the Spanish inquisition represents Christianity properly: in neither case do they speak or act for the spiritual paths as a whole: they in fact fail to exemplify them at anything like their best.

PS
I've not checked this out but I've been assuming that the name of the magazine is  composed of a reference to Charlie Chaplin and an abbreviation of Hebdomedaire meaning 'weekly'.

Muslim Human Shields proctec Coptic Christians

Here's a genuine piece of good news. Such a shame it doesn't get the publicity that the original terrorist attack got in the West. Perhaps you could do your bit to change that? (Tweet or re-blog this).
Egypt's Muslims attend Coptic Christmas mass, serving as "human shields" - Ahram Online: "thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside. From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife."

I think I hear Jesus' words whispering somewhere in the background: "...in as much as you did this to one of these my little ones, you did it to me." ....?

Methinks he doth not protest too much

As a sometimes protester who thinks that it is important we do have the right to protest, I'm concerned at some of the things I've been hearing about the policing of peaceful protest and the collusion of big business with police authorities in what appears to be a political agenda favourable to corporate interests and against those of ordinary people. Too worried? Well, when they came for the Anarchists ... you know how that story goes. See Mark Thomas' opinion piece here: Doth I protest too much? | Mark Thomas | Comment is free | The Guardian Salient points: "Many of those targeted by the police have committed no crime and are guilty only of non-violent direct action. So it is worth reminding ourselves that protest is legal. The very phrase "domestic extremist" defines protesters in the eyes of the police as the problem, the enemy. Spying on entire groups and organisations, and targeting the innocent, undermines not only our rights but the law ... Protest is part of the democratic process. It wasn't the goodwill of politicians that led them to cancel developing countries' debt, but the protests and campaigning of millions of ordinary people around the world. The political leaders were merely the rubber stamp in the democratic process. ... No police, secret or otherwise, should operate without proper accountability. .."
I think that's all reasonable, but we should recall that the price of freedom is constant vigilance and that this vigilance needs to be exercised towards those who are holding power and exercising police powers on our behalf. At the moment, in a post Twin towers collapse world, we need to be more than averagely vigilant.

US on Britain over release of Lockerbie bomber

I have to get this off my chest. In response to "growing American criticism over the release of the Lockerbie bomber when the most senior US military officer said he was 'appalled' by the decision."
What I want to get out there is my sense that some of the response to this is, well, possibly hypocritical. Now don't get me wrong I have every sympathy with those who have to live with the consequences of someone else's spiteful actions. I have my own share of that to deal with and my heart goes out to others. However, we need to reflect on how things might be were the boot on the other foot, so to speak. What if it was an American incarcerated in a middle eastern or north African country for a horrible crime but one which there was some doubt that they had actually committed (perhaps they were suspected to be a scapegoat caught up in a political situation). I imagine that not only would the USAmerican public be calling for their repatriation, but they would certainly be pleased if that person was released, say at the start of Ramadan, as an act of compassion because they had a terminal illness (released not pardoned, mind). I think that this reflex of 'do as you would be done by' should also inform responses.

Now the goalposts are proverbially moving: when first reported it seemed to be that the very idea of release was producing enraged responses. Now this article seems to indicate that the latest version of 'why we are mad' is articulated by

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN under George Bush. He said: "As someone whose grandparents were Scottish, I'm appalled by the decision of the Scottish government. But I'm more appalled by the decision of the British government apparently to see commercial advantage for the UK in having this mass murderer go free."

What the flippinneque ...? Once we get into this then it starts to look like searching around for reasons to be Mr/Ms Angry: 'Oh, perhaps letting a terminally ill person die at home is not so dire after all: there must be something we can nail them for ...'
I reiterate, this is is no way to condone any wrong-doing by anyone involved in this all, but it is is to encourage us to first of all react to the real facts and to withhold judgement until we really do know what's what and also consider a range of issues. Of course that isn't so easy for those suffering wrong in it all who need to feel that they have been heard and understood. However, that's not the position of many of those who are commenting and raising the temperature.

It does feel a but rich that official USAmerican figures are making noise about the compassionate release of someone convicted (some would say doubtfully so) when we are hearing all sorts of details about wrongs done by American agents to nationals of many countries who have never been convicted of the crimes that apparently warranted their torture. Smoke and mirrors? (And I am aware, before you ask, that some elements of the UKGBI gov may have connived at it -and that's wrong too).
US piles pressure on Britain over release of Lockerbie bomber | World news | The Guardian:
PS. This article has some rather acerbic things to riposte to some USAmerican voices: including a point rather similar to the one I've just made above and adding,

The next time Clinton calls to express her disgust about the decision to send Megrahi home to die, perhaps someone in the Scottish government could ask her in return about the leniency shown to US soldiers involved in the Mai Lai massacre in 1968. And then they can remind her about the US warship Vincennes, which blew an Iranian Airbus and its 290 passengers out of the sky in 1988.

Hmmm; maybe worth thinking about: rage is not a good position in the murky business of international relations; there's dirt on everyone and it's almost certain that any criticism made could be riposted. That's not reason not to criticise, but it is reason to do so chastenedly, soberly and with a degree of humility.

Figures ... profiling potential terrorists.

The 'headline' finding is this

the probability of a Muslim engineer becoming a violent Islamist is minuscule, it is still be between three and four times that for other graduates.

(usual disclaimers about reading the whole thing in context). I thought 'figures' as I was reading this because it was chiming with an informal observation I've heard made several times in Anglican clergy circles that the most rigid in their spiritual views tend to be those with hard science and engineering backgrounds (but not always, there are some significant exceptions too). So reading on it is intriguing to see this:
"According to polling data, engineering professors in the US are seven times as likely to be right-wing and religious as other academics, and similar biases apply to students. In 16 other countries we investigated, engineers seem to be no more right-wing or religious than the rest of the population, but the number of engineers combining both traits is unusually high. A lot of piecemeal evidence suggests that characteristics such as greater intolerance of ambiguity, a belief that society can be made to work like clockwork, and dislike of democratic politics which involves compromise, are more common among engineers."
Whorle article here: Can university subjects reveal terrorists in the making? - opinion - 15 June 2009 - New Scientist:

Government minister talks sense!

I know! A man bites dog story!
David Milliband: "democracies must respond to terrorism by championing the rule of law, not subordinating". It is an argument he links directly with the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. "That is surely the lesson of Guantánamo and it is why we welcome president-elect Obama's clear commitment to close it."
There's more: "Terrorism is a deadly tactic, not an institution or an ideology,"
It's reported here.
The way it's reported here seems to hint that this is part of a strategic realignment with a new USAmerican administration. Plus cela change ...

Police warn of growing threat from eco-terrorists | Environment | The Observer

This is worrying; ostensibly because it represents a new terrorist threat thus: "Police have warned of the growing threat of eco-terrorism after revealing they are investigating a group which has supporters who believe that reducing the Earth's population by four-fifths will help to protect the planet."
However, I'm not so sure that this isn't an attempt to demonise people like those who get involved in climate camps and similar protests (and I could be one of them).
"Among the network of groups under the Earth First! umbrella are various climate camps. Last August police found a stash of knives and weapons beside one such camp in Kent. Protesters, however, said they had nothing to do with the weapons and accused police of launching a 'smear campaign'."
Now I'm not saying that there cannot be extremists in this way in the environmental movements. However, I think we should recognise that just as one idiot (and I use the word under etymological advisement) attacking an abortion clinic doesn't justify keeping all Christians under suspicion or even surveillance, so here.

Police warn of growing threat from eco-terrorists | Environment | The Observer:

Terror threat to academic freedom

This is a potentially worrying development: "the federal prosecutor, Monika Harms, was urged to release Mr Holm from his single-cell in Berlin's Moabit prison. 'We strongly object to the notion of intellectual complicity adopted by the federal prosecutor's office in its investigation ... such arguments allow any piece of academic writing to be potentially incriminating,' the academics said."
Protests over terror arrest of German academic | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited:

'Basque land not for sale'

It looks like ETA-stylebombing is now a French problem. Similarly to what happened briefly in Wales about 20 years ago. Note the underlying issue might be asmuch the issue of urbanisation as nationalsim. By 'urbanisation' I'm referring to the way that true rurality is dying in western Europeas the effects of urban wealth and systems reachesoutinto the countryside evermorefully via transport, telecommunications and the economics of home-ownership. :"the current campaign - attacking the villas of French 'outsiders' and firebombing cars with Paris-region number plates - has sparked fears among politicians of a return to the violent campaign of 20 years ago. Then the French Basque movement, Iparretarrak, carried out hundreds of attacks against villas and property firms under the slogans 'No to tourism' and 'Let the Basque country live'."
Of course the effectsare short term and more immediately mosre likely simply to push would-be buyers towardsareaswherethe nationalist factor is not itn the mix. These areaswill then eventually getto enjoy the prosperity and the fact that they don't haveso manyruinedand abandonedbuildings in their landscape. The other interesting thing is to note and learn from the Cymraeg experience: in Wales, somehow, learning Welsh has become importnat even to Saeson incomers...
'Basque land not for sale' - bombers hit holiday homes | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

Blow to Brown plan to extend detention beyond 28 days | Terror threat to Britain | Guardian Unlimited

A parliamentary committee seems to evidence that there is still some sense about civil liberties being talked in some of the corridors of power. "Andrew Dismore, the committee's Labour chairman, demanded: 'Where is the supporting evidence to extend the detention period? As far as we've heard there has not yet been a case where 28 days was inadequate.'"
Blow to Brown plan to extend detention beyond 28 days | Terror threat to Britain | Guardian Unlimited:

Less Muslims support suicide bombings

This is encouraging "In Lebanon, Bangladesh, Jordan, Pakistan and Indonesia, the proportion of Muslims who support suicide bombing has declined by half or more since 2002. ... There is also declining support among Muslims for Osama Bin Laden. In Jordan, just 20% express a lot or some confidence in Bin Laden, down from 56% four years ago." I wonder whether it reflects a kind of life-cycle of ideological conflict: at first people applaud because they feel relieved that something seems to be happening in relation to an issue they feel strongly about; 'baddies' are getting their come-uppance. However, over time, reality sets in and the costs and inconsistencies come to the fore and it no longer seems as justifiable. I suspect that the bit I left out actually corroborates that hypothesis:
"But in areas of conflict, the results are different - 70% of Palestinians said that suicide bombings against civilians were sometimes justifiable." Why? because the critical distance provided by the relative disengagement is less easy to come by, understandably.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Few Muslims 'back suicide bombs':

Muslim group declares 'Terrorists are the enemies of us all'

In the past, a number of Muslim responses to terrorist acts in the name of Islam have seemed at times a little equivocal and sometimes seemed to be using words in a slippery sort of way (not all, and it is worth comparing with the way that Sinn Fein used to respond to IRA attacks). However this does seem pretty robust and I am glad.

"Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), said it was the 'Islamic duty' not only to utterly and totally condemn such actions, but to provide all the support necessary to prevent such atrocities from taking place."

And similarly encouraging is the website of the new 'not in our name' campaign from a new umbrella group called Muslims United. On it we find a clear statement about the matter and on a further page, a brief setting out of the mainstream (?) Muslim approach to war and violence. However, I do know that the points made are contested by Jihadis and I suspect that to equip Muslims to deal with them in their homes and masjids a more focussed and careful approach is needed. Given that this section is on a page dealing with an introduction to Islam, I suspect the target audience for it is people who are not Muslim and from personal experience I know that glossing over certain issues in favour of good PR is not unknown (hey, most religions and anti-religious organisations have people who do that).
Muslim group declares 'Terrorists are the enemies of us all' | the Daily Mail:

Hearts and minds of young Muslims ...

It sounds like, perhaps, that many Muslims in the UK are getting past the denial stage of reaction to the jihadi 'crisis' and beginning to face the questions that some of us have been trying to puzzle over, viz. if Islam is peaceful in essence, where are these folk getting their (Islamic-sounding) justifications from? And, how can their justifications be delegitimised in Muslim terms? And, what steps are being taken to do so? While I can understand the sometimes tetchy responses to this basket of questions, it just won't do to refuse entirely to engage with them. As a Christian I am more than happy to explain the answers to similar questions that could be posed from time to time about people using the label 'Christian' to underpin murderous activities. So the article from which this following quote is taken is a welcome sign of moving further on. The worry has been that there may not be adequate answers to the questions in Islam.

In the past few days, key Muslim community activists have admitted to me that what worries them is how certain theological issues have not been properly clarified, and can be used to justify extremism. The most important is the age-old distinction between dar al-Islam (the land of Islam) and dar al-harb (the land of the other, of unbelief - or of war, according to the literal translation from the Arabic). This demonisation of all that is not Muslim is the "paradigmatic, instinctive response that people fall back on in a moment of crisis", I was told. Extremists such as Hizb ut-Tahrir use this dualism, as do jihadis, to justify their contempt for the rights - and lives - of the kufr, the unbeliever.

The article hits all the right buttons and even givens the following encouraging news.

Britain is now the arena for one of the most public, impassioned and wide-ranging debates about Islam anywhere in the world.

It's a shame some of those who comment on the articles fail to engage the issue as cannily as the Metropolitan police:

following a strategy of working with Islamist- and Salafi-dominated mosques such as the one in Brixton, well aware that their best chance of drawing extremists away from violence is through those who know how to argue the case on Islamic grounds and redirect the religious fervour of hot-headed young men.

Some comments are atheists who can't really imagine what it is like to hold a different point of view and how hard it would be to push through their preferred strategy of religious deprogramming. Guys, it ain't going to happen: the Met have the better argument.
Hearts and minds of young Muslims will be won or lost in the mosques

A sense of proportion

I've blogged a lot over the last couple of years about the way that the reaction to terrorism by the UK and the USA plays into the hands of the terrorists by restricting our freedom and moving us towards a police state (where a hard-line salafi set-up will start to look moderate). Admittedly we aren't there yet, but the measures for NIR could fundamentally change things, as well as the current proposals for, effectively, internment. And along with worrying things like being fined for wearing a loud tee-shirt ("the police have already handed out £80 fixed-penalty notices for "crimes" as ludicrous as wearing T shirts bearing the words "Bollocks to Blair"." See here.). So it was interesting to read this in Wired News:

New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, ... said: "There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life.... You have a much greater danger of being hit by lightning than being struck by a terrorist."

But then, in a society where large numbers of people apparently believe that they have some kind of real hope of winning the lottery, I guess risk-based decision making is not likely to play out too well. The real role of politicians should be to be proportionate, and despite Gordon Brown's words, I suspect that we still aren't seeing that.
Bruce Schneier goes on to say (this is the USA, remember);

I don't think these nut jobs, with their movie-plot threats, even deserve the moniker "terrorist." But in this country, while you have to be competent to pull off a terrorist attack, you don't have to be competent to cause terror. All you need to do is start plotting an attack and -- regardless of whether or not you have a viable plan, weapons or even the faintest clue -- the media will aid you in terrorizing the entire population.

Portrait of the Modern Terrorist as an Idiot It's useful to read this article too where we are reminded of the real worry:

New Labour has not turned Britain into a police state; but it has made it easier for a future government to do so,

. Watch the film V for Vendetta for a comic-book view of it.

Technorati Tags: Islamist, terrorism, UK, policy, civil_liberties

Oh dear ... 90 days interment

Brown has disappointed already: macho posturing which is dangerous for civil liberties: interment in Northern Ireland while I was growing up actually made things worse as it increased the 'gripe' against British rule among the nationalist community. Now, there does appear to be a justification, however, there is an acknowledgement that there are civil liberties issues and so ...

The Chancellor believes it is possible to win support for increasing the 28-day limit if there is stronger judicial oversight of any decisions to extend an individual's detention on a week-by-week basis and an annual report to parliament on the use of the powers. But Brown believes there is a need to extend detention because of the volume of international evidence which accrues in such investigations, most of which can be difficult to obtain from computers.

Personally I think that it might concentrate minds if part of the proposal was to compensate suspects for loss of earnings and esteem and to do so from the wages/salaries of the officers in charge and government ministers in oversight if they are subsequently released without charge -or that those responsible have to serve time in detention (or better: hours of service to the community of the suspect) equivalent to the loss of liberty.

Brown sets out plan for tough new terror laws | Politics | The Observer

Liberty under threat in UK

An interesting and concerning article in which these words caught my attention. "Those who lived through the last war still remember their identity cards. But they also remember a Britain that disposed of such state controls at the first opportunity. Your identity - and how's this for a right? - was your own affair. Not any more. Thanks to a threat less potent than that mustered by the Provisional IRA in a slow year, we find a Prime Minister deriding law, judges and the bleeding hearts - your servant - who worry over liberty and executive power. Tony Blair tells us that still more police powers are needed, whatever the police might think; that privacy is no longer a human right; that the civil liberties of the suspect - or the duties of a judge - are an impediment to our security."
I continue to be afraid more of the reaction than the 'threat'. In any case, such reactions make the threat more likely to manifest. Have we learnt nothing from Baader Meinhof and the Brigate Rosse?
The Herald : Features: MAIN FEATURES:

Terrorism -a fuller story

Definitely food for thought, how come we hear a lot about Islamist terrorism and so little about the higher threat levels implied by these figures?

figures from Europol, the European police agency, reveal that Islamist terror attacks in Europe constituted 0.2% or all 'terrorism' throughout the continent in 2006.* Unsurprisingly, there has been little in the media about this interesting figure in the month since it was published. In their first report of this nature - European Terrorism Situation and trend Report 2007 - reports that across the EU there were 498 terrorist attacks in 2006. These include: 424 'ethno-nationalist and separatist' (mostly in France and Spain)
55 'left-wing and anarchist' (mainly Greece , Italy, Spain and Germany)
1 failed Islamist terrorist attack (in Germany, plus two more attempts allegedly foiled in Denmark and the UK)
1 right-wing terrorist attack (in Poland)
The figures appear to over report left and anarchist 'terror' by categorising some political demonstrations which result in damage to property as 'terrorism'.

Do note the imbalance, based on semantics of left and right wing groups, but even so ...
Spinwatch - The statistical invisibility of Islamist 'terrorism' in Europe

Technorati Tags: terrorism, Islam, figures

Political Rights and Terrorism

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Political Rights and Terrorism Tell you what this is intriguing. The idea that terrorism is rooted in economic disadvantage is intuitively plausible but it may not be the most fundamental cause.
it may be that political freedom is the most important common factor in terrorist behaviour growing. Intriguing is the apparent correlation of increasing violence to the intermediate state between dictatorship and democracy. It's worth checking out the comments section on this item too.

Bush wins boost from terror tape

Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 |
Classical terrorist tactics: whatever you do must encourage increasingly repressive measures so as to alienate the people from your enemy. Bin Laden, I reckon, realises that Bush is the best bet for furthering the Al Qaeda agenda and that this kind of 'intervention' will favour Bush ... QED.

The interesting thing is the double bluff nature of the move.