One point raised was about 'social responsiblity'. A man in the audience said, sure the magazine had the RIGHT to publish the things they did, but perhaps they should not have due to social responsibility, they KNEW many muslims would get offended, and the posiblity of some of those offended ones to go on killing would be increased with their publication, but they went ahead and did it anyway.
This is how far the cancer has spread within the heart of civilized societies. It's amazing to me that someone can make such a preposterous statement on national television with a straight face and people take it seriously. What if I said something along the lines of ''look, Ciwan, you definitely have the right to ridicule, scrutinize and object to my beliefs of
insert anything here, but I just want to let you know that if you do decide to do it, it would upset me greatly, and further more, bad things might happen to you and to people around you!'' Do not let anyone fool you into thinking that it's not what it sounds like - mafia style intimidation through threats of violence to scare people into self-censorship. This has to be rejected and opposed 100%, if you have any invested interest into living in a free and open society.
A part of the problem here is how indecisive people are in the West to make a strong point about free expression both on a political and personal level out of fear of being too insensitive. This should be made as clear as humanly possible to everyone who struggles with the concept of free expression.
Your feelings and sensitivities are completely meaningless and irrelevant in the face of my right to ridicule, scrutinize, just flat out call stupid or otherwise comment on any idea or concept, including religions and alike, period. It took hundreds of years for Europe to finally escape blasphemy style laws shoved down people's throats and establish secular governments that recognize how essential free expression is for enlightenment of any society. If you give these people a finger, they will demand your whole arm. Never take free expression for granted and oppose any attempts to limit it with all the hostility and energy you can muster.
It would be worth taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. You are presented with a book filled with primitive and barbaric nonsense and asked not to question it in any way, and not to even think about ridiculing it for the sake of avoiding offense. In what realm of existence is that a reasonable thing to ask from a person in a civilized society?
Also, is it true about the double standard that Mehdi Hasan mentioned? France who is supposedly a firecly secular country and a champion of freedom, refused to allow an artist to make t-shirts with the last super on them? Also the president taking some rappers to court cause they were being offensive to France as a country? Finally a comedian going to jail because he wore a shirt saying 'I am Collaborator' instead of 'I am Charlie'?
As people have already pointed out this has nothing to do with Charlie Hebdo and is simply used as a crude tactic of trying to change the conversation and turn the tables around. I think this topic deserves a whole other thread and my understanding is that in this particular forum there might be some limitations as to how far it could go. With all that being said, I do think that there's inconsistencies when it comes to free expression and the subject of the Holocaust. My view is that for a government to sanction what kind of interpretations of history are allowed is an extremely dangerous thing and goes against the very basic idea of free academic inquiry. It does open a can of worms since there are many controversial topics when it comes to history and anyone can make similar cases and demand censorship under the law. (The Armenian Genocide as an example.) Remember, it's not only about the right of a historical revisionist to make his or her case, but it's also about my right to hear it and be knowledgeable about it. If anything, it will be a test of my own views and force me to argue my case against it, and that way you can always discover new things and improve your arguments.
All that put aside, I also find this approach to be very counter-productive. In a way it only gives more legitimacy to Holocaust deniers on the fringes and serves as a good recruiting tool of impressionable minds. ''The government doesn't want us to talk about it, therefore they are hiding something..'' type of conspiratorial thinking is very powerful in the age of the internet.
Finally, is it true that we can't say that the holocaust did not happen? That there are laws that might land us in prison if we say so!?
There are quite a few countries in Europe that have laws prohibiting Holocaust denial in some way, but punishments and degrees to which these restrictions take effect are very different. For more descriptive information -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denialIf you're interested in an example of it, here's one of the more high profiler cases I can think of -
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/17/secondworldwar.internationaleducationnews
“Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.”