We couldn’t believe our ears and eyes last night.
We were watching the PBS Newshour, one of our nightly favorites. The segment was a follow-up on the assassinations of journalists at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris.
As the world reacted, PBS chickened out.
From the transcript:
JUDY WOODRUFF: Many news organizations, including the PBS NewsHour, have decided not to show the cover. The paper is printing up to three million copies.
French Muslim leaders today criticized the showing of representations of Mohammed, an act considered blasphemy by most Muslims. But they urged their followers to respect the right to free expression.
The declaration came with comment. Without explanation. Without justification.
Meanwhile, cartoonist Darryl Cagle, formerly of Honolulu, has been distributing post-Charlie Hebdo cartoons. His website has now been hacked, and has been “down” for most of the last 24 hours. I hope that it’s “up” and available right now.
Cagle also penned a fine column, “Cartoonists and Red Lines,” bemoaning self-censorship by editors in American media. I couldn’t read it on his website on Tuesday night, because the site was still down. I found it reprinted elsewhere.
“Like blaming a rape victim for her “provocative dress,” many press pundits blame the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists (and the Danish cartoonists before them) for crossing “red lines,” and inviting trouble,” Cagle wrote.
In France, the heroic Charlie Hebdo cartoonists lampooned issues that are important to their French audience, with Muslim extremists at the top of their lampoon-list. Cartoonists respond to intolerance with ridicule. Typically, timid editors respond to intolerance with too much restraint.
There should be no “red lines,” just good judgment. Editors should show more bravery. The cartoonists are already brave; we need more editors who cover our backs.
Stop asking cartoonists about red lines. Ask editors about red lines. Ask the editors to be more brave.
Cable has also aimed criticism at American newspapers that have largely eliminated editorial cartoons and staff cartoonists, while now praising the bravery of the French cartoonists who became victims of this vicious attack. And he names names.
Awe to PBS and the PBS Newshour for censorship without justification or explanation.
When the next PBS fund appeal arrives, we’ll be taking this into account.
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@ “t” – Criticizing America is, of course, a free speech right that you have. A right that carries great importance, but is easily taken for granted by those who enjoy it. A right that most certainly isn’t shared with the citizens of North Korea.
“The Holocaust happened in Europe and was implemented by Europeans including French collaborators who rounded up and deported French Jews with much fervor.”
@Nala007
My understanding is that 95% of French Jews were protected by the French and survived the war, whereas 95% of non-French Jews in France in WW2 were handed over to the Germans and died.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_France#Results
I don’t know if this contradicts my earlier understanding. Perhaps 95% of the 75,000 deported Jews were foreigners, and 95% of the 265,000 remaining Jews were French citizens.
The French take care of their own. In a way, France seems almost like a pretty fortress. If you think of a classic American house as having a lawn and maybe a picket fence, its counterpart in France would be a house with a high wall around it. But this applies at the national level, as well.
Here is the 1977 movie “The Message”, about the rise of Islam (with Anthony Quinn as the prophet’s uncle).
http://www.veoh.com/watch/v7029015heJ7KGAQ?h1=The+Message+1976%2C+Starring+Anthony+Quinn.+Story+of+Islam
Interestingly, it never shows Mohammed; in fact, scenes with the prophet are from his point of view, without him speaking. It’s an interesting cinematic technique.
The point of not showing Mohammed’s image is not because he is holy, but, on the contrary, to avoid the worship of Mohammed (that is, to avoid the way Christians came to worship Jesus, who Moslems consider a mere prophet, not a god or ‘son’ of God). Islam is all about rejecting idolatry and tribalism, and embracing civilized life.
Perhaps 95% of the 75,000 deported Jews were foreigners, and 95% of the 265,000 remaining Jews were French citizens.
There is a mistake in my math here. It should read above that the 75,0000 deported Jews might have comprised 95% of foreign Jews; that would mean that there were up to 80,000 foreign Jews in France.
The closest I can come to finding the numbers on this is this letter to the editor.
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/08/opinion/l-world-war-ii-fate-of-jews-still-shames-france-969987.html
So it would seem that the French protected 92% of their Jewish population. (I cannot find the total number of foreign Jews in France in my Internet search.)
The French did not have much love for foreign Jews.
In fact, the French historically gave their own Jews the short end of the stick, so to speak. Massive discrimination.
My understanding is that the French were historically much more xenophobic and antisemitic than Germans were. But I also understand that it fluctuated historically: During periods of development, countries welcome immigrants to help develop the economy; in periods of crisis, the majority scapegoats the minority.
During and after WW1, the Turks murdered over one million Armenians. Not a lot of people talk about this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide
In fact, this is where we get the term ‘genocide’.
The Turks still claim that it never happened.
Let’s compare genocide to apartheid to get at my point about silenced controversies.
The wiki on apartheid: “Apartheid (Afrikaans pronunciation: [??part??it]; an Afrikaans word meaning “the state of being apart”, literally “apart-hood”) was a system of racial segregation in South Africa enforced through legislation by the National Party (NP) governments, the ruling party from 1948 to 1994, under which the rights, associations, and movements of the majority black inhabitants were curtailed and Afrikaner minority rule was maintained.”
There are at least two features in this example of apartheid: 1) an official policy of separating ethnic groups; 2) unofficially, one group is being discriminated against and is being dominated. This latter feature, rather than segregation, is what is condemned by the United Nations in its condemnation of ‘the crime of apartheid’.
When Israel is accused of becoming an “apartheid state”, this is what is meant: systematic disenfranchisement, not separation (the Palestinians don’t mind being separated from the Israelis; in fact, that is their goal…).
This is complicated by the case of Fiji. Fiji officially discriminates against its ethnic south Asian population on the grounds that they dominate economically. The same is true in Malaysia.
Ethnic Indians and Chinese in Malaysia complain of apartheid in terms of legal discrimination against them, while Malays complain about apartheid in terms of economic domination by ethnic Chinese and Indians.
Rwanda also had a policy of tribal apartheid. It ended in genocide.
Here’s the point: There’s plenty of genocide and apartheid committed by non-Western countries. Unlike Westerners, they typically don’t admit to it; but when they do admit to it, they seem to feel no guilt. Why is genocide or apartheid wrong and outrageous when Westerners do it, but not when non-Westerners do it?
One theory I heard is that Westerners, in their ethnocentrism, hold Westerners to a higher moral standard. This dual standard has been adopted around the world because every country in the world is imitating the West, and secretly holds the West in high esteem.