January 04, 2016

Are we all about to be Charlie Hebdo again?

I ask because I just saw an article from (I think) yesterday's Observer. I only think it was because it's on The Guardian website and dated yesterday.  The Guardian doesn't seem to do that "article history" thing any more and I don't buy the print editions so I can't be sure if the article was in print or not.  Anyway, the article was by some chap who writes for Charlie Hebdo who is really angry because he claims that the English speaking critics of Charlie Hebdo don't know French.  I don't know who specifically he is referring to or how he knows they don't know French but that's what he claims to be so cross about.

The headline of the article is The scurrilous lies written about Charlie Hebdo.  The subtitle says:
A year after the Charlie Hebdo killings, francophone writer Robert McLiam Wilson deplores the reports in English by the ignorant for the ignorant
Yup, the anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo killings is on 7th January and so Robert McLiam Wilson is getting uptight about Charlie Hebdo's critics.

The thing is he was also similarly, indeed equally, uptight nine months ago in April last year when he wrote pretty much the same article for New Statesman.  That one was titled, If you don’t speak French, how can you judge if Charlie Hebdo is racist?

Now I can well understand this guy's feelings of hurt and anger over the atrocity at the Charlie Hebdo offices. What I don't get is how he can loose off about the knowledge of French (or lack of) of people he doesn't seem to know or name. I also don't get why the Observer or the Guardian was so quick to publish an article so similar to one he wrote only nine months ago.

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