French authorities miss the memo on Charlie Hebdo being about free speech.

CK MacLeod in reply to Stillwater says:

@stillwater

In the excerpts of the speech, PM Valls seem to address your points directly.

Valls justifies his focus in three ways: in relation to horrific attacks on Jews as Jews, both prior to and immediately subsequent to the massacre at the CH offices; in relation to the notion of antisemism itself as vital or existential threat to the Republic (the Republic as realized ideal of liberty, not somehow in its physical being, as many who attempt to interpret “existential threat” seem to think makes sense); the arguably related centrality of anti-semitism or Judeophobia to radical Islamism (or to Islam according to radical Islamists).

In terms of your three questions:

1) The PM denies that anti-semitism and anti-Westernism are separate: For the PM Jews are essential to the West; for the PM you cannot be anti-semitic without being anti-Western, and you can’t in the end be anti-Western without being anti-semitic. He focuses so specifically because inspired by specific, striking acts, and because, in his view this identification of the French and Western interest with the Jewish interest has been borne out by catastrophic historical experience. Though this argument is far from unprecedented, he does go quite far, it seems to me, almost in the Christian right American style, but with a secular-progressive twist.

2) No.

First, “demonizing” seems to me to be prejudicial, suggesting the same Islamophobiaphobic conflation of anti-Islamist with anti-Muslim we were recently discussing in relation to another RTod post.

In other words, if someone really is murdering Jews simply because they’re Jews, it’s not “demonizing” the murderers to say that that’s a bad thing they’re doing, they should stop doing it, and they should promise not to do it anymore and give up those responsible or incorrigible for punishment or restraint. How exactly to identify “them” is a second question, but there is ample justification, it seems to me, for associating radical Islamism with antisemitism (you need evidence?). To the extent the vast majority of Muslims don’t see things quite the same way, then there are at least two different groups, but opinion polling and anecdotal evidence (popularity of anti-semitic cartoons and conspiracy theories; expulsion of Jews from much of the Islamic world) suggests that there is substantial overlap. Whatever the explanation, there does appear to be a real problem in Islamicate cultures generally today in relation to the Jews, which in turn makes aspects of those cultures a real problem for the West, even if you don’t go as far as Valls in identifying the West with the Jews.

3) The PM’s argument is a declaration and argument in the affirmative to the first part, and of no contradiction between the first and second parts – so, not an “or” but an “and,” and “yes.”Report

CK MacLeod in reply to Stillwater says:

@stillwater My pleasure.They were remarkably remarkarble remarks, and I was glad to be able to remark on them.Report