Whereas the European media are apparently competing to see who can publish the most Charlie Hebdo cartoons, the American media are a crisscross of self-censorship.
Whoever in the United States was outraged by the Charlie Hebdo murders and trumpeted their solidarity pleading freedom of expression, very likely never saw the cartoons that made the publication globally famous and intensely hated at the same time because many U.S. media outlets chose not to publish them. The New York Times explained it had chosen not to reprint examples of the magazine’s most controversial work because of its intentionally offensive content. The Public Broadcasting System chose to act accordingly, saying it had decided not to show the highly controversial pictures of the attack. Instead of being allowed to watch the reports and draw their own conclusions, listeners had to be satisfied with a journalist’s interpretation. Journalists used terms ranging from “anti-religious,” to “hurtful” to “vulgar.”
Whereas the European media are apparently competing to see who can publish the most Charlie Hebdo cartoons, the American media are a crisscross of self-censorship. The Associated Press and Reuters news agencies, along with the Wall Street Journal, published no Charlie Hebdo cartoons whatsoever, but in the photos of the magazine’s staff, the Wall Street Journal did publish the signature “Charlie Hebdo” visible across the top of the page. The cartoons below were cropped or obscured by captions. The New York Daily News showed a photo of murdered Charlie Hebdo editor Stéphane Charbonniere published after an attack on his editorial offices in November 2011. The picture shows Charbonnier holding the front page on which the cartoon is now pixelated. Instead of the cartoon, only a colorful collage of pixels is visible.
The New York Times only published two innocuous cartoons, one in which President Francois Hollande is depicted as a clown, and the other, a group picture showing Hollande with far-right extremist National Front party leader Marine Le Pen.
The day after the murders, America’s third largest newspaper, USA TODAY (circulation 1.7 million) invited a radical preacher from London to write a guest column for its pages. Under the headline “People Know the Consequences,” Anjem Choudary delivered his interpretation of Shariah law, quoting the prophet Mohammed, “Whoever insults a Prophet kills him.”
On the Roman Catholic front, the fundamentalists are singing the same tune. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said in a widely distributed commentary, “Muslims are right to be angry,” and accused Charbonniere of “intolerance” and being partly responsible for his own death
But the Washington Post displayed a bit more courage among America’s major newspapers. It published a small Muhammad cartoon from the “Charia Hebdo” edition on its editorial page framed by a plea for freedom of expression.
Anyone in the United States wishing to see more work by the murder victims must do so via the Internet. Several websites, among them The Daily Beast and Slate magazine, provide many of the victims’ cartoons. President Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, were quick to express their defense of civilization and freedom of expression and their solidarity in questions of security, saying the U.S. received excellent anti-terrorist cooperation from the French.
In the land where there is freedom of speech, it’s permissible to deny the Holocaust, say mankind has no role in climate change and stubbornly insist the president is really a foreigner.
Just don’t joke about God.
The U.S. doesn’t need to prove its freedom of expression to anyone. We invented it, we believe it, we enshrined it, we live by it. But just because we “can” does not mean we have to jump on every bandwagon and insult other people’s religious beliefs. Common sense and common courtesy really.
Even professed atheist humanists like the late great science writer Isaac Asimov show prudent hesitation in publicly mocking God. Asked why he could not find HIM, Asimov replied : ” Why can’t HE find ME ? ”
Shortly afterwards Asimov had some bad luck with his health. He reasoned that a kind God would tolerate his intellectual confusion. ” But would HE tolerate a wise guy ? ” he wondered.
But if the terrorists were exposed to Isaac Asimov in their more educable youth, they might have grown up – under the influence of scientific rationalism- to be harmless and oh-so-beloved socialists rather than suicidal, homicidal maniacs.
Right wing talk radio here in Rhode Island, USA, is suggesting that a few well placed atomic bombs will quickly end international terrorism. Let’s save the FREE WORLD ! they rant. But FREE WORLD was a cant phrase even at the height of the Cold War- when we were fighting GODLESS communism.
Cant phrases inspired our entry into the First World War- which was the ” war to end all wars…to make the world safe for democracy “. Thank God the Russian Bolsheviks were not fooled !
And yes, what ringing eloquence in French : ” Liberty, Equality, Fraternity “. THAT is what global capitalism is all about.
Can we at least make our world safe for our ONE PERCENT plutocracy ? Forget about EQUALITY and FRATERNITY !
( http://radicalrons.blogspot.com/ )