“Islamophobia” is indeed a huge swindle, a scam to intimidate people into thinking that there is something wrong with resisting jihad terror. Charb of all people should have known that, and I hope he makes it clear in this book. “Slain Charlie Hebdo editor’s book on Islamophobia to be released as ISIS rapper threatens similar attack in Germany,” by Rachelle Blidner, New York Daily News, April 16, 2015:
Stephane (Charb) Charbonnier was killed in the January attack led by armed gunmen who stormed the current offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
A book on Islamophobia written by the Charlie Hebdo editor who was slain in the January attack will be released Thursday as a jihadi rapper claimed ISIS is planning a similar strike in Germany.
Stephane (Charb) Charbonnier finished the short book, “Letters to the Islamophobia Swindlers who Play into the Hands of Racists,” two days before brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi stormed the satirical magazine’s Paris office and killed 12 people Jan. 7, the AFP reported.
In the book, Charb defends Charlie Hebdo’s depictions of the Prophet Muhammed, which caused the magazine to be called Islamophobic and to be targeted by the extremists.
“One day, for a laugh, I will have to publish all the threats I received at Charlie Hebdo,” he wrote.
Charb argued that people should fight racism against Muslims instead of Islamophobia, which means the “fear of Islam.”
What race are Muslims again? I keep forgetting.
“A lot of those who campaign against Islamophobia don’t actually do it to defend Muslims as individuals, but to defend Prophet Muhammed’s religion,” he argued.
Charb questioned why the phrase “Muslimophobia” is not used instead.
“The problem is not the Koran or the Bible — sleep-inducing, incoherent and badly written novels — but the faithful who read the Koran or the Bible like you read assembly instructions for Ikea shelves,” he wrote….
This sounds as if Charb was considering the two books to be equivalent. Yet for all his mocking of Christianity, it wasn’t angry Christians who firebombed his offices, threatened him repeatedly, and ultimately murdered him and his colleagues.
BOB says
the “races” are Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid, Australoid and Muhammedoid
Tjay says
Koranderthal?
Michael Copeland says
Muslims have to treat the Koran as instructions: it is part of Islamic law. There is the death penalty for denying any verse (as with anyone who reviles the messenger of Allah), which anyone may carry out without repercussion “since it is killing someone who deserves to die” (Manual of Islamic Law, “Reliance of the Traveller”, o8.4). The killers of the Charlie Hebdo staff were well aware of that.
The Manual is available as a free download.
tilda says
Sigh — I just (today) bought a hard copy of Reliance… Thanks for the heads up about the free copy; the computer search function might cut down on time spent thumbing through the index and flicking pages. (From what I’ve seen so far, it’s an interesting book.)
gravenimage says
“Interesting” is one way to put it, Tilde—between the passages of mind-numbing tedium, it is a manual for oppression and murder.
Jay Airahs says
If religion is a race, then the KORAN is by its own words very racist.
No Fear says
If criticism of Islam is “racism” then Islam must therefore be composed of people of a particular racial group.
If Islam is composed of people of a particular racial group then Islam must be a racist ideology.
QED
undrbed cat says
It is very hard to read that the editor of Charlie Hebdo, after all his contributions refers to muslims as a race…..and to realize he did not understand that muslims are people who are born to Islam or are converted. Muslims need protection from other muslims who may deem them apostates or want to kill them as commanded by sharia slander law, if they question their religion. Layered on top of that is the many years of islamic darwa and deception about Islam in France. It was not a irate Christian or Jew who came thru his door to kill….so sad. Thank you Robert Spencer for your information and website I hope you have readers from France and Europe….
Shmooviyet says
I cannot be the only one who is becoming weary of the insistence by certain non-Muslims, politicians, commentators and/or atheists to constantly and reverentially refer to this particular figure as “Prophet Mohammed”.
Not trying to disrespect the dead man, but honestly, how far did the PC-ness get him with his murderers?
Blitz2b says
I suddenly developed a posthumous disrespect for the slain Charb.
What ignorance are people wrapped up these days.
Islam is given a free hand to do as it pleases every time these Muslim a$$ kisser ignoramuses compare Islam to Christianity or the Koran to the Bible.
I feel the demise of everything the west stands for, is in our horizon and rapidly approaching….
Imagine how this would seem, if people in the 30’s and 40’s defended Nazism, with the excuse that the followers of this fascist ideology were offended by constant attacks on their agenda of world domination.
Only in retrospect do things become clear. History ought to be our biggest and best teacher, but with Islam we have dumped all our valid experiences to appease the hungry crocodile that has invaded our pond.
Porky The Crusader says
Moron to the end, I’m sure down the barrel of the gun that killed him, his last thought had to be “no amalgam”.
mortimer says
To understand Charb, you need to understand the French intellectual tradition of ‘anticléricalisme’ which goes back to Voltaire. Most Americans who write about Charb don’t get that.
Nimrod says
Islam is not a race, and it’s not a sexual preference either.
The next thing you know everyone on the left is going to be accusing their critics of “leftophobia”.
Joe Shmo says
Although, Charb had some mixed up ideas, even concerning free speech and liberty, I think his murder and that of his colleagues was a huge wake up call to many people. Free speech and the meaning and limits of free speech became a topic of debate. I noticed it a lot in my life and particularly on the web. Undoubtedly free speech will be on the table now for years to come and we should be thankful to anybody who will fight for it and try to promote it.
We need to remember what we’re fighting for as well as what we’re fighting against. We’re fighting for freedom and therefore fighting against Islam. Freedom, liberty, reason are our shields against Islam.
gravenimage says
Agreed, Joe Schmo.
voegelinian says
Charli Hebdo’s girlfriend was the daughter of Algerian Muslim parents.
According to Huffington Post:
Bougrab is a member of the French Council Of State, and of Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party. She served as the chair of the French Equal Opportunities and Anti-Discrimination Commission during his administration. French newspaper Libération described her as a “hard secularist” in a 2013 profile, a daughter of Algerian immigrants who has been a fierce critic of religion, and particularly of Islam.
I’d have to see this supposed criticism of Islam from her own mouth, and assess the locutions before I vet her as a “hard secularist”. For one thing, I would immediately suspect her if she has not apostasized from Islam (no matter how palatably Islamophobic her words might sound)..
voegelinian says
Jeanette Bougrab is the full name of Hebdo’s girflriend.
gravenimage says
Voeg, Jeanette Bougrab does seem genuinely anti-Shari’ah, and says there is no such thing as “moderate Islam”, which certainly sounds promising.
“A French minister of Arab origin says ‘there is no such thing as moderate Islam’”
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/12/03/180637.html
But—as you have noted many times—quite a few committed apostates still seem to have a perverse soft spot not just for Muslims but for Islam itself.
That may well be the case with Bougrab, who also “conceded that ousted Tunisian and Egyptian rulers Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak had used the Islamist ‘threat’ to win backing from Western countries, but she added, ‘We shouldn’t go to the other extreme.’”
She never specifically says how opposing the horror of brutal Shari’ah constitutes another “extreme”, and that she puts the threat of “Islamists” in sneer quotes is deeply concerning.
gravenimage says
Slain Charlie Hebdo editor’s new book: “Letters to the Islamophobia Swindlers who Play into the Hands of Racists”
…………………………….
Well, this is deeply depressing—as well as terribly ironic. The idea that Charb was decrying “Islamophobia” two days before pious Mohammedans slaughtered him and many of his colleagues is grim.
And his conflation of Islam and Christianity—whatever his estimation of the Qur’an and Bible—is just ridiculous. While Charlie Hebdo is full of crude jokes at the expense of Jews and Christians, they never threatened staff.
One of the pieces I did for the Muhammad Cartoon Art show was a tribute to Charb. I do not regret having done it—I still consider him a very brave man, and an icon for defense of freedom of speech.
But to see that he himself never really understood the threat of Islam is dispiriting, and just shows how deep the twisting effects of “political correctness” go.
His fellow cartoonist Kurt Westergaard—creator of the famous “bomb in the turban” Danish MoToon—also has exhibited odd spasms of political correctness, even after a Muslim would-beassassin broke down his door with an axe.
But grossly imperfect in their understanding of the Jihad threat or not, I still respect what these cartoonists have still bravely stood up for freedom of speech, and I still applaud them for that.
Here’s my “Heroes Against Jihad” featuring Kurt Westergaard:
http://s478.photobucket.com/user/gravenimageartist/media/JWHKW.jpg.html