French teacher beheaded

[ICTChris]

A school teacher has been murdered in France. Samuel Paty, a 47 year old history and geography teacher, showed images of Muhammad during a class on freedom of expression. This caused Muslim students and their parents to complain to the school and on social media which appears to be the way the suspected killer, a Moscow born Chechen who had received asylum in France, identified him. The killer turned up at the school and asked students to identify the teacher before beheading him, while shouting ‘Allah Akbar’. He was subsequently shot dead by French police after threatening them with an air gun.

 

One of the parents who complained on social media has been taken into custody. It seems that is the way that the killer identified the teacher, he had no links otherwise to anyone at the school. The complaining parent has relatives who went to Syria to join the Islamic State.

 

It’s pretty clear that France has a significant problem with Islamic extremist violence. Currently there is an ongoing trial of suspects in the Charlie Hebdo massacre and there have been several attacks since that trial began. The country spent two years under a state of emergency after the 2015 Paris attacks.

 

How do P&Bers think this issue can be dealt with?

 

[throbber]

This would never have happened in the U.K.

[Ralstonite]

Too many people conflate race and religion for one thing, and somehow believe that their religious beliefs are beyond criticism or ridicule. 

As a Catholic, I have read plenty of offensive things about my own faith. I accept this as the price I pay for living in a democracy. In fact about ten years ago Glasgow City Council funded an art exhibition in which people defaced, and wrote obscene messages, in a Bible. I can't see them ever doing such a thing to a Quran.

The caveat here is obviously that it's not acceptable to target an individual walking down a street, for their (perceived) religious views, which is harassment - whether it be a woman in a head scarf or a priest or nun. But if someone wishes to target a faith - a set of beliefs - then that's fine. An example being the play The Book of Mormon, or the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

Edited October 18, 2020 by Ralstonite

[Michael W]

I don't know how you deal with this. If your reaction to a couple of pictures (that you never actually even saw)  is to murder the person who showed them by cutting off their head, then you are probably a psychopath who simply cannot be reasoned with. 

You need to somehow find a way of having people unbundled from their religion being criticised and them taking this as a personal insult. There is a wide difference between Islam being criticised and a person in isolation being targeted/insulted because that person is a Muslim. 

Your religion can and will be criticised in France (and indeed most of Europe). It is then up for the person to both accept this, but also to deal with it. When you have parents at home spitting feathers about it, it is probably easier said than done, though.

Edited October 18, 2020 by Michael W

[Richey Edwards]

If the only way you can defend your beliefs is with violence, then your beliefs are worthless. 

[NotThePars]

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

Just a reminder, we already have a heads gone thread? 

[Venti]

Read recently that the guillotine was only stopped in the 1970s.

[Duszek]

Grim, this. I have friends working as teachers in the French school system and they’re (understandably) shaken up and angry. 

Michael W’s excellent post above sums up my thoughts. There’s really very little to be said for religion in the 21st century.

[Ralstonite]

12 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

Not sure what to make of that! 

I imagine the magazine's popularity rocketed following the attacks, as people wanted to defy those who'd silence others with violence. How many people had heard of Charlie Hebdo before the massacre? Furthermore, the controversial images were shared on the internet and reached a far bigger audience than they ever would have. 

I suppose print media is in decline, and it's possible Charlie Hebdo was experiencing financial difficulties. Perhaps publishing those cartoons was a cynical publicity stunt, rather than a sincere statement about the sanctity of free speech, who knows? 

Taken in isolation, Trump's statement smacks of a businessman who's thinking of the bottom line above the human tragedy. However, I do think there is some truth to what he states.

If the media wasn't so cowardly they could have sent a strong message of defiance to potential terrorists, by publishing the 'offensive' images on their front pages and TV programmes. Surely that would have been the best way of making it known that as a society we will not be intimidated by violence, and that free speech will prevail?

[Bishop Briggs]

6 minutes ago, Slenderman said:

Read recently that the guillotine was only stopped in the 1970s.

1977 was the last time that it was used in France. Giscard D'Estaing was President and he approved three  executions.

The Nazis used guillotines to execute tens of thousands of political opponents. The East German Communists, especially the Stasi, continued to use the guillotine into the 1950s.

[Hedgecutter]

I watched a talk last week about a cave in Moray that I'd previously been into, in which children were previously decapitated.

Could have been me.

[welshbairn]

3 minutes ago, Ralstonite said:

If the media wasn't so cowardly they could have sent a strong message of defiance to potential terrorists, by publishing the 'offensive' images on their front pages and TV programmes. Surely that would have been the best way of making it known that as a society we will not be intimidated by violence, and that free speech will prevail?

Aye, a cracking way of bringing everyone together in solidarity against the terrorists, insulting the faith of a billion people all over the mainstream media.

[GNU_Linux]

On a related note the last beheading by manual means as criminal punishment in the western world was German Werner Seelenbinder in October 1944.

[Ralstonite]

15 minutes ago, Slenderman said:

Read recently that the guillotine was only stopped in the 1970s.

 

2 minutes ago, Bishop Briggs said:

1977 was the last time that it was used in France. Giscard D'Estaing was President and he approved three  executions.

The Nazis used guillotines to execute tens of thousands of political opponents. The East German Communists, especially the Stasi, continued to use the guillotine into the 1950s.

Not meaning to derail the topic, but I think the guillotine is surely one of the cleanest and most humane ways of executing people! I imagine nowadays one could use hydraulics to ensure a 100% clean cut. I cannot imagine the condemned would feel much, if anything at all, as the blood loss would be so rapid.

Compare that to the Unites States' favoured method of lethal injection. I've read numerous accounts of condemned prisoners taking ages to die because an appropriate vein could not be found. Anybody interested should read this article, written by a former death row inmate: http://minutesbeforesix.blogspot.com/2007/10/cocktail-from-hell.html

Hanging, the electric chair and the gas chamber have all failed to work properly, causing lingering, painful deaths. And I don't think it's right to torture someone, regardless of what they have done.

[Ralstonite]

6 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Aye, a cracking way of bringing everyone together in solidarity against the terrorists, insulting the faith of a billion people all over the mainstream media.

I think all decent Muslims will understand that it is a reaction to the terrorists' actions, and will be more concerned that members of their faith have just massacred people in the name of Islam, rather than newspapers publishing some cartoons. I'm sure they too cherish freedom of speech and expression, you know. The assumption that the average Muslim is going to become a jihadist because of a cartoon is simply absurd.

Newspapers have a duty to report the news, and I'm sure many people would have been curious to see what it was that led to these incidents. By refusing to publish them, they're potentially emboldening terrorists whose objectives in this case were to censor art they considered offensive. I'm sure many Mormons found the Book of Mormon offensive, but many publications included adverts for the play. 

[Sergeant Wilson]

The decapitated was a history and geography teacher not a French teacher. That's probably not that significant though.

In terms of execution, I always thought the prospect of it looming was more frightening than the method of dispatch, in legal executions any way. Having you noggin hacked off by an enthusiastic amateur might be quite unpleasant.

[Shotgun]

25 minutes ago, Ralstonite said:

 

Not meaning to derail the topic, but I think the guillotine is surely one of the cleanest and most humane ways of executing people! 

You're correct and that was the motivation behind its development by M. Guillotine. He was horrified by the way his invention was used during the French revolution.

Edited October 18, 2020 by Shotgun

[Detournement]

34 minutes ago, Bishop Briggs said:

1977 was the last time that it was used in France. Giscard D'Estaing was President and he approved three  executions.

The Nazis used guillotines to execute tens of thousands of political opponents. The East German Communists, especially the Stasi, continued to use the guillotine into the 1950s.

The French used the guillotine very liberally in Algeria right up until they won independence.

The horrific violence used by France and the UK in their colonies post WW2 has pretty much been air brushed from history.

[Ralstonite]

Just now, Sergeant Wilson said:

The decapitated was a history and geography teacher not a French teacher. That's probably not that significant though.

In terms of execution, I always thought the prospect of it looming was more frightening than the method of dispatch, in legal executions any way. Having you noggin hacked off by an enthusiastic amateur might be quite unpleasant.

Indeed. I have always thought the US system is barbaric. The condemned spends years on Death Row, sometimes a decade or more, and too often seems to meet a grisly end.

Spoiler

http://www.executedtoday.com/2008/07/08/1999-allen-lee-davis-tiny-florida-electric-chair-old-sparky/

The guillotine was invented to ensure that there would be a good, clean cut, rather than the condemned having his head hacked off.

Personally, I am now ambivalent about the death penalty. I was once in favour of it, then opposed to it for moral and religious reasons, and now I've been reading that it might be justifiable biblically. With something like a flawless guillotine, I think it might be preferable to life imprisonment.