Last week's terrorist attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris has inspired millions of people to declare "Je suis Charlie". The meme has spread across social media and featured on signs held up by demonstrators around the world. It was shouted out as millions gathered across France yesterday in unity with the victims and was seen on badges of celebrities at the Golden Globes last night.

But some people are now saying "Je ne suis pas Charlie". Here are their reasons why...

Groupthink makes it difficult to express nuance

Writing in The Guardian, Roxane Gay says she believes in freedom of expression unequivocally, but personally finds some of the work of Charlie Hebdo distasteful. "Murder is not an acceptable consequence for anything," she says. "Yet it is also an exercise of freedom of expression to express offense at the way satire like Charlie Hebdo's characterises something you hold dear – like your faith, your personhood, your gender, your sexuality, your race or ethnicity." Gay warns that demands for solidarity can "quickly turn into demands for groupthink, making it difficult to express nuance".

Intolerance provoked this violent reaction

In what the Daily Beast describes as a "dubious" response, Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, says he sympathises with Muslims who felt angry about Charlie Hebdo's portrayal of Muhammad. Donohue "unequivocally" condemns killing as a response to insult, but claims that "neither should we tolerate the kind of intolerance that provoked this violent reaction". Charlie Hebdo had a "long and disgusting record of going way beyond the mere lampooning of public figures", he says. "What unites Muslims in their anger against Charlie Hebdo is the vulgar manner in which Muhammad has been portrayed. What they object to is being intentionally insulted over the course of many years. On this aspect, I am in total agreement with them."

The hypocrisy of 'hate speech'

Firstly, says David Brooks in the New York Times, it is "inaccurate" for most of us to claim "Je suis Charlie Hebdo" as "most of us don't actually engage in the sort of deliberately offensive humour that that newspaper specialises in". Secondly, Brooks says, the Paris attack highlights the hypocritical approach the US has to its own controversial figures, provocateurs and satirists. A lot of people are quick to "lionise" those who offend Islamist terrorists but are a lot less tolerant toward those who offend their own views at home, he says. Brooks points to the suppression of speech and the snubbing of speakers holding controversial views, and suggests that if Charlie Hebdo was published on any American university campus it would have been immediately accused of hate speech and shut down.

'Baiting extremists isn't bravely defiant'

In a series of internal emails leaked to the National Review, Al Jazeera English editor Salah-Aldeen Khadr and reporter Mohamed Vall Salem made it clear why they were "not Charlie". In a staff-wide email, Khadr wrote: "Defending freedom of expression in the face of oppression is one thing; insisting on the right to be obnoxious and offensive just because you can is infantile. Baiting extremists isn't bravely defiant when your manner of doing so is more significant in offending millions of moderate people as well." Salem said that, in his view, what Charlie Hebdo did was not free speech but an abuse of free speech. "It's not about what the drawing said, it was about how they said it," he said. "I condemn those heinous killings, but I'M NOT CHARLIE."

I am not brave enough

Robert Shrimsley in the Financial Times says that emotionally and morally he backs the meme, but that he and almost all those declaring their solidarity are not Charlie because they simply lack the courage. Charlie Hebdo's leaders were "maddeningly, preposterously and – in the light of their barbarous end – recklessly brave", ready to defy real death threats and firebomb attacks, says Shrimsley. The journalists braving the most dangerous places in the world could claim the courage to be Charlie, he says. "But the rest of us, like me, who sit safely in an office in western Europe – or all those in other professions who would never contemplate taking the kind of risks those French journalists took daily – we are not Charlie. We are just glad that someone had the courage to be." ·
For further concise, balanced comment and analysis on the week's news, try The Week magazine


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semua org tahu bahwa kebebasan berpendapat itu ada batas2nya ..

gak bisa dibayangkan kalo umpamanya kebebasan berpendapat ala charlie itu diperbolehkan di forum ..
pertanda moderator forum tdk boleh lagi main ban ID org2 yg saling sindir menyindir agama bawa2 gambar telanjang tokoh agama macem yesus,gautama,muhammad, dll

biang SARA macem si rasis charlie sampai dijadikan sbg pahlawan

sampai byk org2 yg terobsesi mau menjadi rasis seperti si charlie

dunia ini panggung sandiwara



lebih baik just be yourself
Je suis Drunkard