Charb Quotes

When activists need a pretext to justify their violence, they always find it. ~ Charb

A drawing has never killed anyone. ~ Charb

According to the dictionary, "Islam" means "submission" in Arabic. A Muslim is someone who is submissive to God. Why does he submit? Because his God is the best, the brawniest, the nattiest, but most of all because, if he says anything to the contrary, he will burn in hell until well after the end of the world. The believer is thus encouraged not to screw around with God under penalty of something worse than death for all eternity. ~ Charb

Blasphemy is just the fanatic's name for criticism. Charb writes wisely:

'A believer can blaspheme only to the extent that the idea of blasphemy holds any meaning to him. A non-believer, no matter how hard he tries, 'cannot' blaspheme. God is sacred only to those who believe in him. If you wish to insult or offend God, you have to be sure that he exists. The strategy used by minority group activists masquerading as anti-racists is to pass off blasphemy as Islamophobia and Islamophobia as racism.'

The crucial distinction we must defend is between acts of imagination and acts of violence....Faith is not the enemy. Fanaticism is the enemy. It always is. But only a fool would deny that faith has been the seedbed of fanaticism in mankind's long and sorry struggle for the light. As much as at times we need to seek "solidarity" among unlike groups, we also need to "desolidarize," to "unsolidarize" - to put the people we know before the abstract categories we imagine. Come to think of it, making people, with all their flaws, fully visible while leaving generalized types alone is exactly what the caricaturist has always done for us. It's his special form of bravery. ~ Charb

Being afraid of Islam is no doubt moronic, absurd, and plenty of other things as well, but it's not a crime. ~ Charb

Our job isn't to defend freedom of speech, but without freedom of speech we are dead. We can't live in a country without freedom of speech. I prefer to die than live like a rat. ~ Charb

If we suggest that it is okay to make fun of everything except certain aspects of Islam because Muslims are much more sensitive than the rest of the population, isn't that discrimination? Shouldn't we treat the second largest religion in France exactly as we treat the first? It's time to put an end to the revolting paternalism of the white, middle-class, "leftist" intellectual trying to coexist with these "poor, subliterate wretches." "'I'm educated; obviously I get that 'Charlie Hebdo' is a humor newspaper because, first, I'm very intelligent, and second, it's my culture. But you - well, you haven't quite mastered nuanced thinking yet, so I'll express my solidarity by fulminating against Islamaphobic cartoons and pretending not to understand them. I will lower myself to your level to show you that I like you. And if I need to convert to Islam to get even closer to you, I'll do it!" These pathetic demagogues just have a ravenous need for recognition and a formidable domination fantasy to fulfill. ~ Charb

I would rather die standing than live kneeling ~ Charb

So let's talk about Islam the way we talk about everything else. ~ Charb