Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Rex Murphy: "We are not all Charlie Hebdo"

Where was We of the Hashtags when Ann Coulter was pre-emptively cautioned about what she could or should say by officials at the University of Ottawa?

Where was “we” when Ayaan Hirsi Ali was humiliated and an honorary degree invitation revoked after campus activists at Brandeis University — faculty and students — protested? Brandeis mounted a defence of free speech that would have Patrick Henry drooling with envy: “[Ali] is a compelling public figure and advocate for women’s rights. … That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.” A Presidential Medal of Freedom for that wonderful “that said.”

It’s worth adding too that there is no such fastidiousness when it comes to images rebuking, mocking, insulting or demeaning any of the symbols — the cross, the host, the mass — of the Christian faith.

The North American media and so-called comedy shows make a tiresome habit of slandering or crudely defaming the majority faith of the North American continent, all the while lying — yes lying — that they are equal opportunity offenders.

In the domain of the laugh-generators of late night TV, Christ gets a pie in the face every 10 minutes while Mohammed is awarded the incense of silence, becomes “he whose name must not be spoken.” Jon Stewart is not Charlie Hebdo. He is that wonderful self-contradiction, a “safe-target” satirist.

Read it all.
 

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