It just goes on, doesn't it? There is something uncannily like the nonsense that followed the demise of Diana Spencer in this eerie mass hysteria of the mob; the politicians riding on the back of it; the coercion into a prescribed self-identification; the ludicrous apotheosis of the dead. Are there analogies in pre-modern History? How might Horst Wessel fit in? What is
really happening? We need an intelligent metanarrative.
As in the events surrounding the death of Diana Spencer (which I remember as getting in the way of the cartoons I enjoyed watching after school in those days), we are being dominated by a contrived, media-driven grief. If you are not seen to be praising these Marxist "martyrs of liberty," you're seen to be a pariah, of being divisive. How the political elite came down upon Nigel Farage illustrates my point perfectly.
ReplyDeleteI for one am sick of this sanctimonious, imposed unanimity. Je ne suis pas Charlie.
ReplyDeleteArguably, the fate of the French magazine could be interpreted as an empirical experiment in contrasting the reactions to media blasphemy of Christians and Muslims. There were numerous blasphemous cartoons against Christianity, especially Catholicism, but the only reactions were (unheeded) complaints, themselves an exercise in the freedom of expression secularists hold so dear. This atrocity by Islam was by no means the first violent reaction of this unconscious "experiment".
I say this, because I have come across some of the secularists using these events as an opportunity to tar all religion with the same accusation of violence and to call for its general oppression, when in fact the data contradicts their subtext, the banning of Christianity, completely.
Et moi aussi, Je ne suis pas Charlie.
I've taken the liberty of expanding the Diana parallel on my blog (with acknowledgements here).
ReplyDeleteI think this is a good metanarrative (though I'm biased for reasons that should be clear): http://thefifthwave.wordpress.com/2015/01/08/information-and-terror-attacks/
ReplyDeleteImagine that 11 French bishops or 11 rabbis, meeting together on a Monday morning, had been the victims, instead of 11 religion-ridiculing ultra leftists. I dare say a million Europeans wouldn't have crowded the streets of Paris in protest. But it is interesting to speculate on just what would have been the reaction. Hopefully, we shall never see the idea tested.
ReplyDeleteThe often wise, Dominic Lawson, sums up the matter well with his piece in the Sunday Times. 'Non, je ne suis Charlie', he says because, like most of the British press, self preservation came an easy first when considering whether or not to insult Islam in his days as an editor. He questions the accuracy of those now claiming to be Charlie whilst not being willing to emulate Charlie's bravery/foolishness/hatefulness.
ReplyDeleteThose guys were brave to the point of insanity in a wish to make a few thousand French liberals and secularists smile and think each other smart. Their anti-Catholic cartoons were often foul rather than being merely offensive as was the anti-Islamic stuff. I pray for their souls and those of their attackers - who perhaps had some excuse being the product of generations of first cousin incest (sanctioned by the 'prophet') and thus being of impaired intelligence bordering on insanity. What a legacy the 'prophet' left us in sanctioned incest coupled with his incendiary instructions to his followers - insanity and violence combined and multiplied (generationally) at one stroke.
My guess at a meta-narrative is something like:
ReplyDeleteWestern liberalism, with the growing presence of large immigrant Islamic populations, is finished. It cannot now function. It needs the mass rallies with homogenised brains repeating mantras about "not giving in" to hide the truth: that there is nothing left to do except, slowly, to crank up state power over individual liberty as the demographic gradually shifts and Islam gains influence.
This intrusive power will allow the state to suppress the more violent outbreaks of Islam; but also to suppress those groups who see that secular liberalism as a problem, and object to the inevitable retreat and the concessions to Islam that are coming.
As our liberties are in their sights, it is all the more important for the liberal oligarchs to milk these occasions for all they are worth, as they keep up the illusion that they are "democratic leaders" oh so much at one with the popular feeling.
And about mass synchronised behaviour and feeling: I wonder if people really have much interior life since visual media became dominant. Is our psyche in some way altered by the knowledge that the whole event (rally, funeral, whatever) is "live", so that we begin to behave as if we were watching ourselves en masse on a screen rather than there in the first person surrounded by similar people? Is our imagination of the event - and therefore our actual behaviour - somehow being dictated by a grand panoramic vista of serious, determined ranks, with unctious and marvelling commentators to tell us what we all feel?
Horst Wessel crossed my mind too.
ReplyDeleteApparently, part of the population in France do realy believe that to demonstrate for or agaisnt something is equivalent as to fight for or agaisnt something.
ReplyDeleteNothing will change, of course, and this kind of illusion will only lead to more terrorism.
I'm French and I'm certainly not Charlie.
If I may encroach, Fr:
ReplyDeletehttp://mistergog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-and-baptism-of-christ_11.html
I hear that His Grace the Archbishop of Jos has asked why the thousands of Nigerians slaughtered by Boko Haram should merit no proportionate outpouring of First World protest.
ReplyDeleteI think that these self-congratulatory mass marches reduce protest against terror to the quest for the ultimate selfie… entendre intended.
"Imagine that 11 French bishops or 11 rabbis, meeting together on a Monday morning, had been the victims, instead of 11 religion-ridiculing ultra leftists."
ReplyDeleteI think we can all easily imagine that the response would have been very different, alas.