Charlie Hebdo makes fun of drowned Syrian boy.

Theres tasteless and then theres mocking the death of an innocent child. Very poor behaviour

I must be missing something. What exactly is so offensive about the cartoons?

RobertKK wrote:

Wrong, maybe try reading next time.

You're right. The pope's announcement was 5 days after the images of the dead child. I said it was 4days. Hardly a material difference.


Apart from that point, they have calculated how many refugees they could take in theory.

I've an extremely dark sense of humor, and find many highly inappropriate things funny but I am absolutely disgusted by that mockery of the little boy found face down.

Shame on them.

Eugene Norman wrote:

That's a fairly huge attack on an organisation actually doing something. The alliance of right on atheists on the interweb hasn't done much.

Humm. I was explaining the cartoon which involved a dead child and Christan Europe. The poster didn't/doesn't get that it's the same child who prompted Europe's elected politicians and it's most famous men in dresses, into action.

That's the funniest thing about the cartoon. Either way the cartoon prompted discussion which is positive

daRobot wrote: »

You're claiming certain knowledge of what they're not doing, so perhaps explain your analysis of the cross cultural chasm that the majority here have missed, that you so clearly understand.

CH come from a tradition of relentlessly mocking the establishment & people with whom they disagreed, whether that be members of the French government, conservative Islam (which actually featured pretty rarely on their front pages) or the Front National. They use shocking images & crude caricatures to both provoke a reaction & to mock the thinking process of those with whom they disagree. Their cartoons are generally not to be taken at face value.

RobertKK wrote:

But he has been speaking about it years before we had mass movement of refugees to Europe.

Ah so long as he has been speaking about it...

As a matter of interest, are you purposefully avoiding the inference that it was the dead child images which prompted him (along with much of Europe) to take in refugees?

RobertKK wrote:

You are still wrong, Europe had ships rescuing people before the dead child, Europe was funding refugee camps before the dead child. The pope has been speaking out about the people who live in these troubled countries way before any dead child.

Yes yes. You're right of course. Have you missed the change in attitude and approach to taking in refugees since the picture.

Strange that you saw a picture of a christian and a dead baby and were offended that the christian isn't being portrayed positively enough. After all he talked about it and agreed to take 2 families since the images of the dead child.

I'd be interested to hear what people think of this cartoon, not a CH one but one which has nevertheless provoked strong reactions. The text reads "It's the return!", which in French generally refers to the return to school/college after holidays which is of course happening now. The cartoonist depicts Aylan "en écolier", ie as a school boy, in order to remind people that this is a child who should, like millions of others be settling into primary school now. The Libération writer calls it "a ferocious drawing, to show that this child didn't have the same chance as others". However, many twitter users were outraged, with one opining that "they're really looking to get themselves shot a second time". What do you make of it?

daRobot wrote: »

Okay, so you've just generally outlined what any satirical magazine does per se.

But since you're telling a previous poster to calm their outrage, based on your claim that they don't understand the meaning of the cartoon, perhaps you could tell us the exact meaning of the specific cartoon in question, and how it is not mocking the death of a young boy, as per your previous claim?

If you want the exact meaning of the cartoon in question then you'd probably have to contact the cartoonist who drew it, in much the same way as you'd have to contact a songwriter to get the exact meaning of a particular song which hadn't been explicitly spelt out. If you read my post I said that they almost certainly were not mocking the dead child. It is extremely unlikely that they are merely engaging in malicious abuse for the sake of it. They have a reputation for shocking imagery for the sake of provocation in order to shock people into looking at things in a different way. To assume that their cartoons can be interpreted at face value is a flawed approach.