#JeSuisCharlie – But You’re Not
” So much for national unity:
Just a day after the Charlie Hebdo shooting left 12 dead and had politicians calling for the country to unite, a row between politicians broke out after the National Front were not invited to take part in Sunday’s rally for “national unity” in Paris.
In the most recent national election in France, Marine Le Pen’s National Front won. So the national unity rally excludes the most popular national party. That seems likely to work.
~The French establishment is co-opting these brave men’s deaths for their own purposes, and for the most part the world’s media are helping them get away with it. I spent much of Thursday on TV and radio, and my irritation with the dismal #JeSuisCharlie campaign increased as the day wore on. The self-flattering evasiveness of all those cartoonists around the world offering lame variations of “the pen is mightier than the sword” was especially feeble. The cartoon at right, by Chimulus (Michel Faizant) of Le Nouvel Observateur, at least confronts the ugly truth of Wednesday morning, rather than tippy-toeing around it:
Mohammed publishes a comic strip on the death of Charb.
With plenty of boxes.
The only problem? Chimulus drew that two years ago – December 31st 2012. This week, when his remarkably prescient cartoon came true, his courage deserted him.
~As to those TV and radio appearances, first up was with Joyce Kaufman at 850 WFTL in Florida, which you can hear by clicking here. It was a lively ride: as Scaramouche says, “Made my day.” “
Read it all and treat yourself to a second helping of Mr Steyn’s blistering attacks on Western hypocrisy , the opening of which is here:
” The French authorities killed three murderous savages yesterday. That was the only good news on a day in which a third hostage siege began in Montpellier. The bad news started at the top, with President Hollande’s statement after the Charlie Hebdo slaughter and the Kosher grocery siege:
Those who committed these acts have nothing to do with the Muslim religion.
Yeah, right. I would use my standard line on these occasions – “Allahu Akbar” is Arabic for “Nothing to see here” – but it’s not quite as funny when the streets are full of cowards, phonies and opportunists waving candles and pencils and chanting “Je suis Charlie.” Because if you really were Charlie, if you really were one of the 17 Frenchmen and women slaughtered in the name of Allah in little more than 48 hours, you’d utterly despise a man who could stand up in public and utter those words.”
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