Wings Over Scotland

Excellent, Chris.

Again Chris Cairns gets it just right .

Very thoughtful.

un triste jour pour la liberté 🙁

Moi aussi. Ne jamais céder aux terroristes salauds!

Merci beaucoup Charlie/Chris!

Tragic event, nothing more to add.

Thanks

A simple, dignified and powerful image. I swear that I can see the anger is Chris Cairns’ pencil strokes.

Vive la vieille alliance.

Nice work, Chris.
Shocking scenes from Paris.

Bravo!Les pays du Royaume Uni doivent se dresser d’un seul bloc pour la liberté.

Fitting tribute.

Et moi aussi,

Thank you Hamish, Chris Cairns and RevStu.

I have no words at the moment; quite shocked.

@Valerie:
the killers clearly were professionals. They were equipped with Kalashnikov rifles, which are obviously not so easy to get. And then, even when you have bought a war weapon, you have to be cut out to use it and shot people in cold blood.

Chris

Powerful message as always

@AuldA, just what the commenters are saying too. Also, they mentioned a rocket launcher?? When the killers departed, those speaking to the footage, said they calmly got in the car, no crazy driving, switched cars efficiently, and on to a motorway ramp.

Just very shocking. A friend on FB, living in the French countryside, asked her two boys to keep in touch, cos they live in Paris.

So scary for people there feeling these killers are among them.

S

Moi aussi, je suis Charlie.

Such is the mindset of extremist islamic fundamentalism that satirical humour is seen as religious blasphemy.

Satire may not always be to everyone’s taste
but it doesn’t warrant the death penalty.

But extremist right wing ideas are not on distant shores alone.
Here in the UK, the leader of the Unionist alliance, David Cameron, has used the State controlled mass media to brand as INSURGENTS, Scottish pensioners and children, together with other law abiding citizens from all walks of life,
merely because they exercised their right to self-determination.

Law abiding Scots are seen as INSURGENTS and NAZIS by the right wing Unionists in the WM Government and Better Together Alliance, and in the British media.

Mr Cameron wants to be careful what he now says about other extreme right wing groups.

Can someone please translate for me as I don’t speak French.

Yet another drawing accurately gauged. Brilliant Chris.

Vraiment terrible. Je suis Charlie aussi.

Harman warns against “chilling effect” on free speech after Charlie Hebdo attack

“We have to be clear that the right of free speech is a basic human right for every individual and no democracy can function without freedom of the press.“
Harriet Harman.

link to labourlist.org

@Manandboy: fanaticism and violence have many guises.

@Valerie: My partner has friends who live nearby and whose children go to a school only a few dozens meters away. The shooting happened around 11.30 am, just minutes after the children had egressed, and they clearly heard the sound of the guns. I don’t want to imagine what could have happened if the thuds had emerged from the building exactly when the children were being picked up…

Thank you Chris

@ cynicalHighlander, a Labour government under Blair could have at least tried to stop Bush and co but no. Did guys like Blair or even a buffoon like Jim Murphy really think they could win in Iraq 2003, did they care what they were doing had no planned outcome?

“As of 2013, UK Afghanistan war alone cost have been calculated as £37bn. In June 2010, UK costs exceeded £20bn for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.”
From wiki.

This is the legacy of same Labour party looking at the end of the road in Scotland May 2015 and rightly so.

Je suis triste avec La France

Mais

Le desespoire est un insulte a l’avenir!

like chris I opted for French and je suis.
Interestingly the press in france (radio, Tv and le monde) has offered resources to ensure Charlie Hebo lives on

i support a free press

charlie.link to eurofree3.wordpress.com

Like everyone else I was shocked and very sad when i heard of the tragedy

Je suis Charlie.

Disgusting and ultimately futile behaviour in Paris.

Je suis également charlie

So terribly sad.

Long live freedom of expression and Charlie Hebdo.

And shame on those who seek to stifle them.

Merci Chris et Stuart au nom de la democracie et de la liberte.

Je suis Charlie

link to facebook.com

Nous sommes Charlie

The pen is mightier than the sword.

Thanks cynicalHighlander and john king for your help.

Terrible, awful what happened in France.
All terrorists are cowardly monsters.

Je Suis Charlie.

Indeed. Well put Chris.

spectator

alex massie

It is worth dwelling on this today precisely because it reminds us that this morning’s Parisian horrors cannot be blamed on George W Bush or Tony Blair or neoconservatives or anyone else. The motivation for this barbarism long pre-dates their time in office.

@bookie from hell

Alex Massie is up his own backside.

I’d like to agree with everyone here; this was horrendous and my heart goes out to the families, friends and every affected by this. I hope whoever was behind this, be it individuals or governments, is brought to book for this atrocity.

Wee Jock…

Since the British state have been calling all indy supporters insurgents, viruses, Nazis, etc. ad nauseum, I think it’s really salient that people point out how inappropriate their words are here. Since none of us are gun-toting maniacs but rather believe in peaceful democracy, freedom of speech and progressive politics then it’s important to show them how inappropriate their language and tone towards us have been. The British state really need to modify their language when speaking about people who believe in independence, progressive politics and democracy. I don’t think that’s undermining us to say that; merely pointing out a fact and trying to get them to realise what their words mean and how inappropriate they are.

What a world we live in. So much hate. What fucking century is this?

Nothing more to add. Thanks Chris.

Goodnight all

I regard Christianity, Islam, and Judaism as the three great evils in this world.

@bookie from hell (10.10) –

Is that a verbatim quote?

If so, Massie is truly remarkable – he knows who the assailants represent, and their motivation? And it all lets Dubya and TB off the hook?

Give that man a Pulitzer!

Spot on Chris. Hamish says what needs to the said.

Forgot to mention thanks to Chris for another perfect, fitting depiction of what many people will feel.

Don’t you just love religion.
Divisive, fanatical, xenophobic, cruel, superstition.

If these murderous fanatics really believe that their almighty god exists and hates criticism, why don’t they leave revenge up to him. Any self respecting god would be able to magic up a suitable Hell for the likes of me which would be worse than anything they could think of.
Personally I think they secretly doubt their “beliefs” which makes them all bitter and twisted.

Je suis sans voix ,c’est tres malade .

alex massie–full article specator

Je Suis Charlie

It is important, today especially, to remember that this is nothing new. We have been here before. On the 11th of July, 1991, Hitoshi Igarachi was murdered in his office at the University of Tsukuba. His crime? He had translated The Satanic Verses into Japanese. That was all. Eight days previously Ettore Capriola, the novel’s Italian translator, had been fortunate to survive an attempted assassination in Milan. And in October 1993 William Nygaard, the Norweigan publisher of Salman Rushdie’s novel, was shot three times. Mercifully and remarkably, he survived.

In fact, it had begun before that. On Valentine’s Day 1989 when the Iranian Ayatollah issued his fatwa against Rushdie. That was a test too many people failed back then. We have learned a lot since then but in many ways we have also learned nothing at all.

In 2012, Rushdie wondered if any publisher would have the courage to endorse The Satanic Verses if it were written then. To ask the question was to sense the depressing answer. They would not. Too risky, too provocative, too inflammatory. Too insensitive. Too dangerous. Sorry, mate, but we just can’t do it. Besides, you should have known what you were doing. Weren’t you, in some vague sense, asking for all this trouble?

No. No. Thrice No. Rushdie did not ask for trouble. Trouble was thrust upon him and everyone else associated with the publication of his novel.

It is worth dwelling on this today precisely because it reminds us that this morning’s Parisian horrors cannot be blamed on George W Bush or Tony Blair or neoconservatives or anyone else. The motivation for this barbarism long pre-dates their time in office.

Doubtless some will still, even now, find a way to blame the victims. Doubtless some will do anything they can to avoid looking reality squarely in the face. Doubtless some will pretend that reality can be wished away or that responsibility can be transferred to someone, anyone, other than the perpetrators.

Shame on those people. Shame.

Doubtless, too, there will be the usual calls on all Muslims everywhere to condemn these attacks as though they bear some inchoate communal responsibility for the barbarous actions of their co-religionists. This too will be drearily predictable and familiar and, most of all, desperately unfair. Their Islam has nothing to do with this even if it is also true that other subscribers to the faith do not share their views. The platitudinous suggestion Islam is a religion of peace is evidently, abundantly, true for the vast majority of Muslims while being utterly untrue for some. And so what? Where does that leave us? Only in a state of dread that’s matched only by its inadequacy.

To say these people are motivated by a perverted form of Islam is, in the end, pointless. Because it’s not perverted for them. Quite the contrary, in fact. They are the purest of the pure, the godliest of the godly. It is the real Islam as far as they are concerned. This will happen again.

Two conflicts rage here: one between civilisation and barbarism, the other between modernity and a kind of fanaticism we’ve known in our own past. As it happens, tomorrow is the 318th anniversary of the execution of Thomas Aikenhead in Edinburgh, the last man – though really little more than a boy – to be executed for blasphemy in this country. The Church of Scotland urged his execution the better to confront “the abounding of impiety and profanity in this land”.

Great sketch catching the feelings of many.
Shocking incident, surely there must be a better way of sorting out our differences.

Reports say two under arrest and one suspect shot. French Police.

For thousands of years lunatics have used this misguided religious nonsense to commit terrible crimes against others, half the things all of us say on a daily basis is enough for that kind of mindset to justify these crazed responses, and what always shocks us more is these innocent people never lifted a weapon never threatened anybody, they wrote satire not to the taste of what really are just bad bad evil people. To take advantage of non combatants weakness is as low as the human race can get and to hide behind mythical Gods or Prophets of any description or religion is a lie and can never be accepted as an excuse or reason. I want to apologise to the people of France for not being able to do something.

David Smith, not the time or the place to answer your query. If you want I will answer on off topic thread

Very O/T

BBC / MSM journalists please note when politicians attack the performance of the Scottish NHS can you please point out that:

In England under Tory / Lib Dems their A & E waiting times target of 95% treated within 4 hours is merely 92%

But NHS Wales, run by Labour are only hitting 82%.

Scottish NHS performance for the year to September 2014 was 93.4%

Great drawing, Chris. My heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones in this outrage.

For those who wish to curtail freedom of the press for any manner of ‘I’m offended’ reasons:-

“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for those that we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”
(Noam Chomsky)

“A free society is a place where it’s safe to be unpopular.”
(Adlai Stevenson)

Powerful and thoughtful Chris.

Well said Call me Dave.

Kirsty @ 10.16.

Do us all a favour Kirsty and get that comment printed in the National.

Long live freedom of expression.
And may your weapon of choice remain the pencil.
link to beta.images.theglobeandmail.com

@giving goose

We aren’t a secular society though. Bishops sit in the unelected H O L. The head of state is head of the official church. There are religious people attending many state events with their blessing and sermonising. The opinions of “holy men” are reported as though they were more important than the views of taxi drivers or a bloke you met in the pub. And in our country there are “religious” schools.

A great thing a secular society would be in my mind, but this one is not that society.

Superstition is a private matter and should always be.

davidb I agree regarding superstition, but unfortunately some superstitions are less benign that others, with the potential for tragic outcomes.

Regarding what you say regarding the role of religion in the state; since the English Reformation, the Church of England has been more explicitly a state church and the choice of the Archbishop of Canterbury is legally that of the Crown; today it is made by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister, who receives a shortlist of two names from an “ad hoc” committee called the Crown Nominations Commission.

That involvement by the state in religion, in my opinion, should be extended to Islam and clerics appointed in a similar fashion. In other words, the State should apply a measure of control to ensure that the moe extreme elements are not preached and are effectively excluded from the mainstream of Islam.

Sad, but in this case,necessary.

The David Leask tweet:

“On this day, as journalists are slain by zealots; still on this day other zealots rear their wee heads.”

My comment that some reporting was a joke had nothing to do with the issue in Paris, but was concerning the MOD secretly removing the ban on nuclear submarines sailing into two lochs.

In my experience, those who hold atheistic beliefs, together with those holding secular beliefs, are rarely content to live alongside those who hold ‘Judeo-Christian’ beliefs, but do appear content with those who hold other ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ beliefs.
But then my own parents held one or two beliefs I thought a bit ‘dodgy’. You can’t trust anybody these days.

This horrific execution of Charlie’s staff for perceived blasphemy points up that our own freedoms from theocracy were hard won. There was a time in Scotland when the state could murder people whose views differed from the orthodox and not all that long ago either.
The young Thomas Aikenhead was hung in Edinburgh in 1697 for blasphemy. We must be vigilant, religion everywhere seeks to impose its will on humanity even to the extent of killing those brave souls who express their dissent.

link to en.wikipedia.org

Agree with most posts,but spent the night looking at the two extremes.On one hand we have those who corrupt their own beliefs to allow mindless slaughter, and on the other hand we have the little gems like Malala ,who shared the Nobel peace prize this year. Who I wonder will come out ahead in this internal struggle?

Massie started off well but examining yesterdays events in a 80’s/90’s vacuum where the past 20 years have no bearing is disingenuous.

On a more positive note it was great to see so many people rally in support of free speech yesterday across Europe in reaction to these horrific events in France.

Good piece here,

link to plotspot.blogspot.co.uk

Typo folks, SOB,

link to plotsplot.blogspot.co.uk

Thank you Chris. That is a wonderful gift you have there. Many can draw,sketch and paint but only a gifted few can crystallise an emotion, circumstance or complex issue into a single picture. You can draw what others can only think.

@AuldA says: 7 January, 2015 at 5:23 pm:

” … We (In France, Scotland and elsewhere) will never yield to grisly and appalling violence.”

Yeah! AuldA, but with what we have had as our next door neighbours, for thousands of years as a nation, we have had much practice at doing so.

It has been said that nowhere in the Wide World is there earth so steeped in human blood as the Scottish/English Border. What’s more we are still fighting over that same earth today. Mind you we now do so in a far more civilised manner than ever before. Let us hope it remains thus.

@Tam Jardine says:7 January, 2015 at 10:23 pm:

“What a world we live in. So much hate. What fucking century is this?”

Are you kidding, Tam? There has never been a century in recorded human history when man’s inhumanity to man has not seen religious nut-jobs killing each other in the names of their respective Gods or the Profits of their Gods. Starting in the Garden of Eden when Cain killed Able.

Just look at today’s Glasgow. There we have Protestant vs Catholic as an everyday occurrence and the sad fact is that both sides share the same Christian God. Can you seriously ask what century we live in when Wings over Scotland is set up to fight for Scottish independence?

Allow me to quote for you Article II of the Treaty of Union that we seek to end: –

“Article II. – THAT the Succession of the Monarchy to the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and of the Dominions thereto belonging, after Her Most Sacred Majesty, and in Default of Issue of Her Majesty, be, remain, and continue to the Most Excellent Princess Sophia, Electoress and Dutchess Dowager of Hanover, and the Heirs of her Body being Protestants, upon whom the Crown of England is settled by an Act of Parliament made in England in the twelfth Year of the Reign of his late Majesty King William the Third, Intituled, An Act for the further Limitation of the Crown, and better securing the Rights and Liberties of the Subject: And that all Papists, and Persons marrying Papists, shall be excluded from, and forever incapable to inherit, possess, or enjoy the Imperial Crown of Great Britain, and the Dominions thereunto belonging, or any Part thereof, and in every such Case the Crown and Government shall from time to time descend to, and be enjoyed by such Person being a Protestant, as should have inherited and enjoyed the same in case such Papist or Person marrying a Papist, was naturally Dead according to the Provision for the Descent of the Crown of England, made by another Act of Parliament in England in the first Year of the Reign of their late Majesties King William and Queen Mary entituled An Act declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject, and settling the Succession of the Crown.

The present claims of Scots for independence is all about returning the situation to one that does NOT involve religious intolerance. Mind you the whole history of the World indicates that the religious bigotry is just a weapon used by those with a greed for power and riches to manipulate the poor and ignorant for the benefit of the rich and power hungry. Note also that both Blair & Bush invaded Islamic countries in the name of their own mythical Christian Gods.

Around three to four percent of all humans are psychopaths or have strong psychopathic tendencies. It’s a fact and there isn’t anything much we can do about it.

It’s not too bad a problem and the rest of us can handle it as long as psychopaths don’t get into positions of influence, like political or religious power. That is when the trouble starts, as their deranged thinking processes come to the fore and we begin to suffer the consquences of their actions.

They get into positions of power because the rest of us put them there, either through our own inaction or naivety, and we allow them to spread their madness throughout our societies like poisonous cobwebs.

They cannot be reasoned with and they must be dealt with sharply and as soon as their symptoms appear. Mad politicians, mad priests and mad imams: our society, all of us, pays the price for our lack of action.

It may be too late.

Maybe a purely emotional reaction to a (very) shocking event like this is appropriate, I don’t know. Personally, hell will freeze over before I declare myself to be Charlie Hebdo but we are all different.

The thing about political cartoonists and satirists is that you love them when you agree with them and are annnoyed when they seem to serve a political agenda not your own. Presumably their goal is not to worry about who they annoy, art for arts sake etc.

However, after Val and co. restarted Charlie Hebdo in 1992 it took a marked turn to the right. E.g. When one of the staff, Mona Chollet, criticised Val for an article referring to the Palestinians as non-civilised, she was sacked. Siné made a quip about Sarkozy’s on marrying a very wealthy (and Jewish) heiress, no-one thought anything of it until some Jews complained several days later and then Siné was sacked, consequently being awareded 90,000 euros when he sued. As for the Jyllands-Posten cartoons, much loved by Charlie Hebdo, what I find ‘off’ about the exercise is that they resulted from a campaign where they advertised for cartoons about Mohammed. I wonder whether any of the cartoonists and satirists who vigorously defend them would themselves take part in such a deliberate campaign of offense designed to offend Jewish sensibilities. Doubt it.

Terrorism appears to be successful because of the shock value, as a cruel and seemingly random act which results in loss of life. Where it fails is that the very shock value tends to mean that the political message is lost. I once saw an interview with Osama Bin Laden, you know, the mad fundamentalist? What struck me is that he didn’t talk about women wearing veils, he didn’t talk about American culture and Coca Cola, he talked about Palestine. And Moslems talk about Palestine all the way to Malaysia and Indonesia, I have found.

In the Charlie Hebdo case, I don’t what motivated the perpetrators. Possibly it was simply that their religious sensibilities were offended (which I don’t have that much sympathy with). Or possibly, they believed the intention of Jyllands-Posten and Charlie Hebdo was to deliberately encourage Islamophobia, in their own way, just as the Tea Party does in its way. And the encouragement of Islamophobia is designed to justify real and immoral actions, such as the destruction of Iraq and Syria, and the appropriation of Palestinian territory. The terrorists don’t seem to realise that they are only making things worse.

Frankie Boyle, who never, ever, descends to cliche offers the following:

Frankie Boyle @frankieboyle ·
I’m reading a defence of free speech in a paper that tried to have me arrested and charged with obscenity for making a joke about the Queen.

Frankie Boyle retweeted Aamer Rahman @aamer_rahman ·
As a random Muslim I’ll apologise for this Paris incident if random white ppl will apologise for imperialism, drone attacks and Iggy Azalea.

Frankie Boyle retweeted
Actually just had some cunt from Belfast telling me Christians don’t get involved in terrorism

@Robert Peffers, “Todays Glasgow we have Protestants v Catholics as an everyday occurence”. When did this happen?As somebody who has lived here for seventy years this is just bollox.

@barbaramackenzie

Interesting post, thanks.

Barbara, I’ve noticed quite a few of my Facebook friends (mostly fellow artists and writers) also expressing this reluctance to shout Je suis Charlie on account of their politics. I cannot comment on it, but I do think whatever the motivation for the murder, it shows just how powerful – and dangerous – art is:

link to wildernessofpeace.wordpress.com

The thing about political cartoonists and satirists is that you love them when you agree with them and are annnoyed when they seem to serve a political agenda not your own.

It goes deeper than that: as much as political cartoons have been used to deflate egos and destroy painstakingly-crafted public images, they’ve also been used to normalise atrocities and demonise minorities – working for The Establishment as well as against. For every David Low, there is a Philipp Rupprecht, and even someone like Dr. Seuss can perpetuate horrendous stereotypes and facilitate appalling actions through immoral satire.