Category Archives: Humor and Satire

No one expected the Spanish Inquisition…

Bible and Holy Land, Ethics, Humor and Satire, Islam and Christianity, Islamophobia, Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media, Obama Administration, Terrorism Issue

Faux News expanded its crusade against President Obama (who is reduced to POTUS in their pseudo-news hocus pocus) and Islam (which is only newsworthy when it is called extreme) with a line right out of Monty Python. At the White House Prayer Breakfast (which Fox seems to think only included “evangelicals”) the president made a simple moral point that we should get off our “high horse” and remember that atrocious acts have been committed in the past by Christians in the Crusades and Inquisition. He might have added that “witches” were routinely burned at the stake in Christian Europe. The response from the right was that the president must hate Christianity if he compares the horrific acts of ISIS to marauding Crusaders and Torquemada. Some have such vitriol for Obama that they claimed the Crusaders were acting in self-defense.

I do not have the stomach to watch Faux News (and mercifully I choose not to have a cable connection in Qatar), but the tidbits that float through Facebook and Youtube cannot be easily avoided. Continue reading No one expected the Spanish Inquisition… →

Misinformed expert or misinformation network?

Arabic Cartoons, Ethics, Humor and Satire, Immigration Issues, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islam in Europe, Islamophobia, Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue

by David Miller and Tom Mills, Open Democracy, January 15, 2015

Terrorism “expert” Steve Emerson is more than a comic buffoon. His claims about no-go zones for non-Muslims in European cities are just part of a wealthy network spreading Islamophobia across the west.

On Sunday, the veteran terrorism expert Steven Emerson appeared on Fox News to discuss Europe’s Muslim population and claimed that Birmingham was an example of a ‘totally Muslim [city] where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in’. The claim led to him being ridiculed online, and after the news media picked up on the story he issued an apology to ‘the beautiful city of Birmingham’ for his ‘terrible error’. So high profile was the story, that the Prime Minister David Cameron felt moved to comment, reportedly describing Emerson as ‘a complete idiot’.

The claims were idiotic. But Emerson is not simply an ‘idiot’, or a hopelessly misinformed ‘expert’. An examination of his background, the sources of his ideas, and the funding for his think tank the Investigative Project on Terrorism, show that he is part of what the Center for American Progress in a widely cited 2011 report Fear Inc. described as ‘a small, tightly networked group of misinformation experts’ that ‘peddle hate and fear of Muslims and Islam’. Continue reading Misinformed expert or misinformation network? →

Joe Sacco on Charlie Hebdo

Art, Ethics, Humor and Satire, Islam in Europe, Terrorism Issue

As the spate of commentary on the killing of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists and two policemen continues, there is a poignant response from Joe Sacco, the graphic artist. Check it out at The Guardian.

And for those Fox News viewers who think Muslims are not condemning this criminal act, check out http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/46-examples-of-muslim-outrage-about-paris-shooting-that-fox-news-cant-seem-to-find/.

9 Points to Ponder on the Paris Shooting and Charlie Hebdo

"Arab Spring", Arabic Cartoons, Art, Ethics, Immigration Issues, Islam and Christianity, Islam in Europe, Terrorism Issue


In solidarity with the people killed in Paris, this illustration is accompanied by the caption, “Break one, thousand will rise,” as part of the #JeSuisCharlie hashtag. Many people and media outlets have been sharing this illustration by Lucille Clerc but incorrectly crediting Banksy.
Credit: Lucille Clerc License: All rights reserved..

by Omid Safi, Director of Duke University’s Islamic Studies Center, On-being, January 8, 2015

As a person of faith, times like these try my soul. Times like these are precisely when we need to turn to our faith. We turn inward, not because the answers are easy, but because not turning inward is unthinkable in moments of crisis.

So let us begin, not with the cartoons at the center of the shootings at the office of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, but with the human beings. Let it always be about the human beings:

• Stéphane “Charb” Charbonnier, 47 (editor)
• Bernard Maris, 68 (economist)
• Georges Wolinski, 80 (cartoonist)
• Jean “Cabu” Cabut, 78 (cartoonist)
• Bernard “Tignous” Verlhac, 57 (cartoonist)
• Philippe Honoré, 73 (cartoonist)
• Elsa Cayat (columnist)
• Michel Renaud (a guest)
• Frederic Boisseau (building maintenance worker)
• Franck Brinsolaro, 49 (a police officer)
• Moustapha Ourrad (copy editor)… It’s not Muslims vs. cartoonists, as long as there are Muslim cartoonists.
• Ahmed Merabet, 42, (police officer)… A Muslim who died protecting the cartoonists from Muslim terrorists. Muslim vs. Muslim.

And brothers Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, and Hamyd Mourad — the shooters, with a legacy of crime behind them.

I try to resist the urge to turn the victims into saintly beings, or the shooters into embodiments of evil. We are all imperfect beings, walking contradictions of selfishness and beauty. And sometimes, like the actions of the Kouachi brothers and Mourad, it results in acts of unspeakable atrocity.

So how do we process this horrific news? Let me suggest nine steps:
image

Muslim police officer Ahmed Merabet. He was shot in the head while lying on the ground begging for mercy on the streets near Charlie Hebdo’s office building.

1) Begin with grief.
We begin where we are, where our hearts are. Let us take the time to bury the dead, to mourn, and to grieve. Let us mourn that we have created a world in which such violence seems to be everyday. We mourn the eruption of violence. We mourn the fact that our children are growing up in a world where violence is so banal. Continue reading 9 Points to Ponder on the Paris Shooting and Charlie Hebdo →

Sharpening Contradictions: Why al-Qaeda attacked Satirists in Paris

Arabic Cartoons, Ethics, Humor and Satire, Islam in Europe, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment)

The horrific murder of the editor, cartoonists and other staff of the irreverent satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, along with two policemen, by terrorists in Paris was in my view a strategic strike, aiming at polarizing the French and European public.

The problem for a terrorist group like al-Qaeda is that its recruitment pool is Muslims, but most Muslims are not interested in terrorism. Most Muslims are not even interested in politics, much less political Islam. France is a country of 66 million, of which about 5 million is of Muslim heritage. But in polling, only a third, less than 2 million, say that they are interested in religion. French Muslims may be the most secular Muslim-heritage population in the world (ex-Soviet ethnic Muslims often also have low rates of belief and observance). Many Muslim immigrants in the post-war period to France came as laborers and were not literate people, and their grandchildren are rather distant from Middle Eastern fundamentalism, pursuing urban cosmopolitan culture such as rap and rai. In Paris, where Muslims tend to be better educated and more religious, the vast majority reject violence and say they are loyal to France.

Al-Qaeda wants to mentally colonize French Muslims, but faces a wall of disinterest. But if it can get non-Muslim French to be beastly to ethnic Muslims on the grounds that they are Muslims, it can start creating a common political identity around grievance against discrimination. Continue reading Sharpening Contradictions: Why al-Qaeda attacked Satirists in Paris →

Dear Hosni

"Arab Spring", CyberOrient, Egypt, Humor and Satire

Dear Husni,
I had no idea you were so poor. Only 25 million stashed outside Egypt? What happened to all the millions you took in over the years? Was your wife like Imelda Marcos, buying way too many shoes? Of course I will be glad to help you get access to that money. After all, you stole it fair and square. And Sisi can siphon off as much as he wants, now that the Brothers are gone. I know how much you have suffered, so I will not charge you anything for helping you. Some of my best friends are Egyptian and I know they would help me if I ever needed someone to get 25 million out of the bank. By the way, your English has really improved. Did you take lessons in prison? Or did you use Google Translate? You did not mention which bank your funds are in. Someone told me it was in the same offshore bank as the savings of Mitt Romney, but I find that hard to believe. I am really honored that you chose me out of the millions of people getting spam emails to help you. I am sorry it has taken so long but your email went into my Junk folder. Can you imagine that. I am really glad I found it. Just send me you bank name, account number and password and I will sure do you justice.

Yours sincerely,

John Doe