Vive la France?

The above video is a panel discussion held by Penn State’s School of International Affair. It is a good watch if anyone is interested. My French instructor shared the video with my class and suggested the video between 56:45 and 1:01:38 to answer the question, “Why attacks in France?”

Additionally, there will be some troubling pictures in this post. I know I warned about them last week, but I want to make sure every reader has had sufficient preparation. This week we will be talking about what happened in Nice and the effect the attack had on France and the world. This will be the last post in the series about terrorism in France.

https://www.shoretrips.com/excursions/region-eur-nic/europe-mediterranean/nice-france

The picture above is Nice in France. It’s a coastal city that has attracted many artists and tourists to its beaches.

Now how did such a beautiful place go from the above picture to the picture below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/world/europe/attack-nice-bastille-day.html

July 14, 2016. A day once held dear for its significance as the beginning of the French Revolution with the storming of the Bastille prison in Paris. Now, it will live in modern memory for a different reason. Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a native of Tunisia, drove a rented lorry into a crowd of people, killing eighty-six. 300 other people were taken to hospitals to be treated for various degrees of injury. Mohamed had no past connections with extremist groups, and seemed to be relatively normal with some marital problems and a couple of petty crimes to his name. Nothing to raise a red flag, and sadly many paid the price.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36801671

The people targeted had just finished watching a fireworks display when the lorry, which had been observed to be driving erratically from about thirty minutes before the attack to the moment of contact, doubled back on its original route heading to the airport. A motorcyclist noticed the erratic behavior and did try to stop the driver by opening the door, but ended up getting thrown down and was run over by truck. After the motorcyclists attempt to stop Mohamed, he increased in speed and barreled into the crowd.

This attack is especially important in American politics due to the ever heated debate about Syrian refugees and second amendment rights. Many Republicans took the attack and ran with it, not consider the loss of human life they were exploiting for political gain. The attack showed that a) terrorism could be accomplished without the use of guns (which he had several of in the lorry as well as hand grenades) and b) Muslim immigrants cannot be trusted.

(AP Photo/Francois Mori)

France has held its promise to continue letting in 12,000 refugees a year, despite three terrorist attacks within the last year. While the rest of the world argue over policy like lives aren’t at stake, France has tried to set an example of recognizing the need for a little humanity.

Next week: We will be changing up the topic matter. The next few weeks will include the dark history of some of France’s most famous structures, from the Eiffel Tower to Versailles to the Louvre. What have the rulers of the past and present hidden in these buildings and what symbolic meanings have they had in the eyes of the French common man. Stay tuned and thank you for reading.

Links:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36801671

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/14/europe/nice-france-truck/

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/15/europe/nice-france-truck/

I want to begin this week’s post by giving a warning. There will be some pictures that might be disturbing to look at within the next two posts, but we have to embrace all the parts of our past (even the gory) to embrace a better tomorrow. We will be talking about the terrorist attacks in Paris this week and their impact around the world. I will try to link as many news sites as I can on both topics as there is no way I can cover all of the complexities in one post. I am going to save Nice for next week, as it is the lesser known of the two attacks and will need more attention to the finer details.

I highly recommend reading the first CNN article I have linked below. It gives a breakdown of the events of the night in Paris and the people involved (both the victims and terrorists). We are going to discuss the growing causes for terrorism in developed countries. We often forget that bombings like the one in Paris happen  almost every day in “third world” countries because of living in close proximity to the terrorist organizations or because of the regimes ruling the countries. The outrage and cry for action is much less than the one we saw after Paris. Death is never easy, but it is often explained away. The deaths in France, however, solidified ISIS as a world power that needed to be ended.

The Islamic State uses force to take back the world for Allah. They ignore the peaceful nature of Islam to enforce their superiority upon the world, and they claim it is all for His glory. Terrorist groups are nothing new to the world, but with increasingly dangerous weapons of mass destruction the devastation continues to grow. With the degradation of the quality of life for some individuals in their home country or due to discrimination and prejudice in others, many are drawn into the organizations to retaliate against those that have wronged them in the past.

We have looked at the French pride and their “natural” prejudice against anything non-French. Muslim immigrants become ostracized in the country they now call home, especially due to laws against their religious dress. One can recognize the frustration of a people. It does not justify the murders, though.

I want to highlight the aftermath and the cry heard around the world. Within hours, people around the globe changed their Facebook profile pictures to the following filter as a show of solidarity with France.

People rushed forward to finance victims’ families. Flowers were left at the sites of the bombings. World dignitaries came to the city to show their support. But what did any of it do, the people were still gone and the damage done? It showed humanity’s unbreakable spirit. Their ambition to do something, even if they can’t physically help. The world showed its adversaries that they had lost.

We told them that we were not afraid. We would stand united. We were wrong. Acceptance of Syrian refugees to the states and other countries was questioned. Prejudice against Muslims increased and there was an air of guilty until proven innocent when my devout Muslim friend walked into a building. Where is the unbreakable spirit as we break apart from each other? We let hate break us apart. France continues to allow the refugees to come into the country, setting an example of what it means to be a world citizen. France keeps fighting. France keeps living. France won’t let them win.

Up next: The Nice attacks… Sorry, that this post was more opinionated and less about the story than the past few weeks. One of my best friends is Muslim and I have had to watch her suffer through increasing prejudices from many people who were her friends previous to the attacks. When looking at the events of the past, please remember that everyone is an individual and not made up of the actions of others. If you take nothing else away from my blog, I ask you to remember that we are all humans. Stand with your fellow humans and don’t be afraid. We are stronger together than we are apart. Thank you for reading.

Links:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/europe/2015-paris-terror-attacks-fast-facts/

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34818994

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-paris-attacks-affect-refugee-policy-2015-11

This week we will be picking up with the fallout of the offensive edition that featured 12 caricatures of Muhammad in 2006. We will be “ending” the story of Charlie Hebdo so that we can examine the Paris and Nice attacks next week.

400,000 copies were sold of an issue that featured 12 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. We will examine the significance of this number when we talk about the 2015 attacks. The Grand Mosquée de Paris, the UIOF (Union of Islamic Organisations in France) and the Muslim World League sued Charlie Hebdo in 2007  for the offensive material (check out the website’s timeline to see their joke about this issue), but the case was dismissed.

On November 2, 2011, violence broke out due to the insensitive cover, shown above with 110,000 copies sold, depicting Muhammad as the senior editor of the magazine saying, “100 lashes if you haven’t already died of laughter.” (This edition was published days after some major events in Africa dealing with Muslim leadership that were parts of the Arab Spring) Petrol bombs burned the offices to the ground during the night, and thankfully no one was harmed. The main faces of Charlie Hebdo were kept under police protection from then until the attacks in 2015, including Stéphane Charbonnier who was the director of publication and was known by the name Charb.

I will not be including the cover that sparked the 2015 attack for a few reasons. First, it goes against my personal beliefs of what should created in the name of freedom of speech. Second, it is really hard to find a picture of the cover. Lastly, I picture my best friend’s face every time I see the cover. She is a Muslim and has had to deal with so much adversity and hatred in the past couple of years and I just remember her reaction when she saw the cover. So, the cover depicted Muhammad being beheaded by a member of ISIS. As a non-Muslim, I am deeply disturbed by this cartoon. I can’t help to be because I am think of it in terms of seeing someone dear to me being the one with his/her throat to a knife.

I am not going into very deep detail about the attack itself. It occurred on January 7, 2015 by the Kouachi Brothers while an editorial meeting was going on in the office. Twelve people were killed and four were wounded (those working for Charlie who were not injured or killed were mostly out of the office). Among the dead were Frédéric Boisseau (maintenance worker and first to die), Charb and his bodyguard,  Bernard Maris (an economist and columnist), and Elsa Cayat (psychoanalyst and only woman to be killed during the attack). Sigolène Vinson escaped unharmed after a gunman pointed at her but didn’t shoot because she was a woman. Please read the BBC article I will link at the bottom for the full story of the resulting manhunt. There are many moving parts and they did an amazing job breaking it down.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/01/04/charlie-hebdo-documentary-je-suis-charlie-comes-to-netflix/

The response around the world was almost instantaneous with the use of modern technology. There were demonstrations for weeks after the attacking calling for freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Dignitaries from around the world were sent to Paris to stand with Charlie. The phrase “Je suis Charlie,” (“I am Charlie”) was plastered on the fronts of newspapers and magazines across the country. What did it all mean though? The world was standing by the right of Charlie to say whatever they wanted in respect to religion. The world ignored the cause and went straight to the effect. The massacre wasn’t right. Sixteen people died that day, but it could’ve been different. If the court case in 2011 hadn’t been dismissed, things might have been different. If we as humans didn’t focus on profit rather than the ethical decisions behind making the profit (numbers of magazines soared whenever a scandalous cover was released), things might have been different. As a world community, we asked how could something like this attack happen? The answer was right there on the front of a magazine.

We can say these things now with hindsight in our favor, but do we truly recognize what impact the past has on the future. Discrimination and hatred just breeds war and bloodshed. The world needs to recognize the problem at hand before it can be fixed. People choose to overlook the issues until death is the result, just look at the police violence in our own country.

Next week: The Paris and Nice attacks and The profile pictures seen around the world

Links:

BBC article: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30708237

Charlie Hebdo website: https://charliehebdo.fr/en/history/

I want to begin by saying thank you for the feedback I have received. I will try to reach a certain depth of material and hopefully the connections you want to see will be successfully made by the end of the series. I have also decided to make this series four parts, mostly so you all won’t have to read too much in one sitting. This post will cover the build up to the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, next week will be the attacks and their effects on France and the world, and the last week of the series will be the recent attacks.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30710883

This week I will begin by giving a little background on the satirical magazine known as Charlie Hebdo. The following quote is on the front page of the magazine’s website. The link will be at the bottom if you want to explore yourself. The quote gives a description of how the editors, writers, and artists view their work.

Charlie Hebdo is a punch in the face….

Against those who try to stop us thinking.
Against those who fear imagination.
Against those who don’t like us to laugh.

Charlie Hebdo is an angry magazine, a paper that takes the piss.
It’s a weekly with a wallop, a digest with a dream.
It’s a periodical that argues and a journal that thinks.
It’s a gazette of the grotesque – because that’s what so much of life and politics is.
It’s a rag that has nothing to lose in the afterlife for the laudably simple reason that there is no afterlife.

Charlie Hebdo has no need of God, nor any need of Wall Street. Charlie doesn’t need two cars and three cellphones to be happy.

To be happy, Charlie Hebdo draws, writes, interviews, ponders and laughs at everything on this earth which is ridiculous, giggles at all that is absurd or preposterous in life. Which is to say – very nearly everything.

Because life is so awfully short that it would be a pity to spend it whining in dismay instead of laughing it up a storm.

I am a personal fan of the political cartoon world and satire in books and in comedy. Personally, I connect with the last line about laughing it up in the storm. There should be nothing wrong with such a magazine. In 2015, however, we were once again reminded about where the line is when trying to be funny.

If you would like to learn more about the history of Charlie Hebdo, I would recommend checking out their page, which will be linked at the end, but I will give a brief history here. The original Charlie Hebdo project was launched in 1970 during a break in censure for the founding members (it was placed after their previous project was deemed to have pornography contained inside). The project closed twelve years later in 1982. The current Charlie was launched in 1992 and has covered such events as the Kosovo War to 9/11 to French presidential elections. Charlie remained controversial and had some blows to readership throughout the years.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-15551998

The French, Americans, Jews, Christians, Muslims… Nobody was safe from the pens and pencils of Charlie. It believed it was trying to fulfill its mission to make light in the dark. In my last post, I talked about an outsiders view of the French peoples. Now to put myself in their shoes, which is easier than you might think, especially with our current political climate. Outsiders threaten an insiders way of life, and as humans, we don’t like change. The French also come from a very long history, dating back to the 900s (even further if you want to go back to its Gaul days). They are a proud people for a reason (we will be covering more of their history in the coming weeks of course). I don’t blame them for the way they act because it is how their society is compared to ours.

To end this week’s post, we are going to begin the story of the attacks in the year 2006. While the main attacks occurred in January 2015, Charlie has run into problems when publishing insensitive cartoons about the Islamic religion. Muhammad’s  thought bubble in one reads, “It’s hard being loved by assholes.” Inside of this edition, there were twelve caricatures of the prophet. While it might not seem like a big deal because we always see Jesus or other religious symbols used in a satirical context, Muslims don’t have pictures of Muhammad and having him joked about in a magazine with funny pictures is an insult to them. Lines are easily crossed by Charlie Hebdo. Tune in next week to find out the fallout of this event.

https://www.viator.com/Paris-attractions/Palace-of-Versailles/d479-a581

Have a pretty picture of Versailles (full of dark history itself)!

Next week: Je Suis Charlie, the attacks and their aftermath

Links:

Charlie Hebdo’s Website, which is in English: https://charliehebdo.fr/en/history/

Some of Charlie‘s most controversial covers: http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2011/11/02/charlie-hebdo-french-satire-magazine-s-shocking-covers-photos.html

I am going to begin this blog with a background of Muslims in France and French culture followed by two weeks discussing the various Islamic terrorist attacks. I will examine the possible causes, then we will look at some of the short-term effects and what it will mean for France’s future, Europe’s future, and the world’s future. This portion will be a three week series.

Recently during a culture lesson in my French class, I learned that the majority of immigrants in France (in total 11,000,000 immigrants are currently in France according to Morgane Haesen, instructor of French 001 at Penn State University) come from Northern Africa, a place heavily tied to Islam. At first I was surprised, but then I remembered the colonization of Africa in the 1800s.

http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/?s=Colonialism+and+Africa%27s+Integration+into+the+Global+Economy&submit=Search

The map above shows the partition of Africa prior to World War I.  As you may have already noticed, there is a large block of area that is French-controlled in the North-Northwest portions of the continent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa Notice: I don’t use Wikipedia for information but they did provide the best colored representation of religion in Africa and matched up with other maps I looked at prior

The map above shows the modern religious structure of Africa. If you overlay the two maps, almost all, if not all, of the former French colonies are found in the Islamic regions of the continent. Many immigrants leave Northern Africa seeking a better life and come to France as the mother country. There are many issues, though, that natives see with these people that don’t fit their mold.

France is a secular nation. In 2004, a law was enacted that prohibited any public displays of religion, including signs of the cross (necklaces, tattoos, etc.), outside nativity scenes, and the traditional dress of Muslim women (I am going to post the link below for the website I verified most of my information on because I wanted to make sure my facts were correct). France has held onto its secularism since the early 1900s when it separated church and state. This ban has caused numerous problems for Muslim women, who are required to be covered in public except for the eyes if strict practicing or mostly covered in public if not as strict. The burqa was banned in 2010 to enforce the secular rule of France, but left millions of practicing Muslims shafted by their government. Boasting the highest percentage of practicing Muslims in Western Europe at 7.5%, a large population was singled out and discriminated against.

Traditional Burqa found on Saudi Women https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/4199/why-feminists-should-oppose-the-burqa

As the weeks go on, I will go more in depth on many topics of Muslim treatment and response and also explore the colonization aspect more but I want to talk about the French spirit before closing out my post this week.The French are fiercely nationalistic and prideful. They believe wholeheartedly in their way of life and don’t want a break in the status quo. Muslims are obviously out of the norm for many French citizens and there is a deep mistrust between both groups. Discrimination and fear run wild and, as we will talk about next week, the hate blows up and people lose their lives.

Most recently, the argument blew up over the Burkini ban suggested by many coastal towns that prevented Muslim women from wearing full body swimming outfits. The laws were overruled recently, so we won’t talk about that much because it was one small victory for the Muslims against a discriminatory French culture. There is more on that story in the first link below.

I want to add a little side note here at the bottom about a superhero character from France. His name is Superdupont and he represents many French stereotypes, from his beret to his heavy nature due to his love of rich, French food. He fights against Anti-France, which as you might assume, represents anti-French culture. We will be examining French satire and media next week, so keep him in mind until then.

http://comicvine.gamespot.com/superdupont-1-superdupont/4000-472550/

Next Week: French Satire and the Charlie Hebdo Incidents (They recently are in hot water for an insensitive drawing of Italian earthquake victims. I will put a link below)

Links:

Burkini Ban and Fact checking: http://www.france24.com/en/20160831-france-commitment-secularism-burkini-ban-debate-laicite

Charlie Hebdo: http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/02/europe/charlie-hebdo-italy-earthquake/index.html