Journalism after 'Charlie': in Paris, UNESCO hosts day of reflection, free speech debate

REACTING ON UNESCO'S FRIENDS FORUM: 20 JANUARY 2015

http://j.mp/1wjwEJC

Jean-François "JFMA" Moreau commented:

Of course I was shocked by the terrorist attack against Charlie Hebdo, a cultural French monument expressing Voltaire's philosophy: "I don't like your opinion and I'll fight against it but, I'll fight to giving you the possibility to express it freely" (approximate translation). I grew up as a pious catholic then I''d become irreligious when I had become an adolescent, then I've become oecumenist when I discovered other religions and philosophies specially in Africa and in Asia. Personally I like the ba'aist philosophy and I still trust in the "spiritual forces" whether they are gods or black matter, I'm not a skilled physicist but I know there's something mysterious above the humans. Then I respect all those humans who trust in "something" although I could disagree about some of their fundamentals.

Because of my life commitments I have some skills on monotheist religions, i.e. catholicism, protestantism(s), muslim-islamism(s) even mormonism and some others. I summarize their main philosophies in a very few number of highlights. Jews and (may be much) Christians are determinist; they're free to choose their destiny and since they are free to sin or not they are fully responsible of their acts (and thoughts). A muslim (which is at the origin a jew heresy born in Arabia) is an actor playing a character living a preshaped destiny by Allah. Fatalists and Christians can't solve that philosophical conflict easily when both camps are integrists; I detected that when I visited Maghreb, specially (and unfortunately) during the Algerian War in the 50ies. Today there's an obvious psychological pressure/manipulation on young Muslims from Europe and mostly France by the djihadists aiming to transform negative distress into a suicidary soldierhood (charia) gratified with a direct access to Allah's paradise; the Japanese kamikazes did similarly during WW2 although they weren't muslim.

Christians whether they're catholic or protestants forgive the sins and even more Mormons forgive their ancestor's sins. Both Jews and Muslims apply the retatalion law; then they are unable to perform a definite peaceful status without strong references to strenghts both of them being physical and moral weapons; however they were used to coexist as communities well separated on in districts (jewish mellahs). Severe conflicts between the Muslims and the Jews mostly started with the creation of the state of Israel in 1948; I'd opportunities in the hospital where I was resident in the 60ies to evidence how friendly the relationship between both sefarade Jewish and Muslim Algerian diaporas settling in France in 1962 were after the Evian's treatee giving independence to Algeria; they understood each other much better than the French metropolitan population could; both of them used the word "Mektoub", expressing fatalism in the Arabic language. Discrepancies between both emerged again with the Palestinian terrorism apart from 1970.

Communautarism which isn't a traditional component of the French society fundamentals results from the expanding number of "beurs" (so-called natives from the Maghreb immigration) being more or less segregated because of the general socio-economical critical effects on the young populations of the Western World. I've had the opportunity in the building/street of Paris-Montparnasse where I live since 1965 to study how much manipulated the young black-&-beurs" are by the drug cartels then by the mafias and the integrist islamists. Who manipulates those islamists themselves?  At that level of questions, all kinds of scenarios can be built including the secret services. The extreme rightist Jean-Marie le Pen evokes a plot directed by the (French?) secret services like there're supporters of a plot's theory by the CIA or so to explain the 11 September 2001 airplane crash on the WTC in Manhattan.

Nowadays the blasphemy crime is evoked in the French opinion. According to my knowledge it doesn't exist in the French law. I wasn't a regular Charlie Hebdo's reader and I never had been fond of art pieces offending the minds of those who trust in a religion. However I could be seduced by some of them, for instance Dali's paintings of Jesus-Christ and/or Virgin Mary as well as caricatures of the Pope and/or cardinals by talented artist, specially in the Canard Enchainé. I consider I'm an educated cultured voltairian humanist who isn't a supporter of fanatic integrist whatever the cult.

Charlie Hebdo's caricaturists are used to be integrist of atheism. Atheist people are either tolerant and respectful or intolerant and disrespectful. Ordinary French people today understand that either religious or atheist offending someone who trusts isn't innocent. Cabu, Charb, Wolinski et al. were good caricaturists; they took risks and I appreciate that; they underestimated the violence of opposite fanatisms; they weren't above the human law based upon retatalion. This is a lesson of liberal democracy. According to some uncontrolled information I got recently, the Charlie Hebdo's team might be a cell of Trotskyist intellectuals and artists. If this is true, let me remember what Trotsky (or Lenin?) said in 1917: "I shall require(demand) in the name of your principles what I would refuse you in the name of mine" ("J'exigerai au nom de vos principes ce que je vous refuserais au nom des miens").

Whatever Muhammad the Prophet wrote in the Koran holy book, Christians - so do I - are just horrified by the ritual throat cut performed by Muslim soldiers or terrorists on their enemies. That was named "Kabyle smile" during the Algerian war when this was combined with an emasculation and the testicles were put into the mouth. A human having the throat cut can't access to Allah's paradise. Is this a "normal" belief or a perverse supersition?

When the Roman crucified, they behave similarly.

Death penalty was abolished in France in 1981. Was it a mistake or not? I think it was while I always have been against its application. Is that cynical to imagine guillotine for death penalty would be effectively dissuasive against Muslin terrorism? Decapitation by sword is used by those terrorists and it is much less accurate than the guillotine that was invented by a humanist doctor during the French revolution in order to suppress pain induced by failures of the headsman. How many did he to proceed on Mary Stuart's neck before he was efficient?

WW3 begun officially on 11 January 2015. This won't be a blitz krieg. Since 1945, there were the Vietnamese wars and some French veterans recall that new vision combining psychological manipulations and conventional weapons. The humans just have more informatics and robotics in their garrisons.