A gesture called the “quenelle”, a sort of inverted Nazi salute invented by popular anti-Semitic French comedian Dieudonné, has recently gone viral:
Pictures of people performing “quenelles”…multiplied: “quenelles” in front of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin; on the train tracks leading to the Auschwitz death camp; beside a picture of Anne Frank in Amsterdam; and in the courtyard of the school where three Jewish children and a teacher were murdered by Mohamed Merah in Toulouse.
Dieudonné, who author Natasha Lehrer describes as the man who is “making antisemitism cool again“, first gained national attention in 2003 during an appearance on French state television, when, dressed as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, he gave a nazi salute and shouted “Isra-heil!” More recently, speaking onstage about a Jewish journalist who had criticized him, he said “Gas chambers…too bad (they no longer exist).”
Sociologist Michel Wieviorka explains how it’s possible for Dieudonné to be so popular among staunchly anti-immigrant, hard-core French nationalists and members of the immigrant community:
“The paradox is resolved (via) anti-Semitism, which … brings together people that otherwise are separated by everything.”
Oh no, someone is speaking unapproved speech and making unapproved gestures. We can’t have that…might hurt somebody’s feelings.
Thanks for stopping by to pinch one off.
Not the first idiot in France to support the Nazis, probably won t be the last either. How many Canadians, Americans, Brits, Australians and New Zealanders died to give this $Asshole his freedom of speech. In all the above mentioned countries there are laws against hate speech, but apparently you can say whatever you want in a POS country that we had to liberate because they chose not to defend themselves,
I gotta wonder why they don’t see the threat from the islamic invasion. Do they perhaps think that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”? They’ll learn who the real enemy is in due time.
How many Canadians, Americans, Brits, Australians and New Zealanders died to give this $Asshole his freedom of speech.
Yes, we liberated them so they can speak ‘approved speech’. Like Nazi Germany…
Gilad Atzmon a Jew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpbI-Z2anlw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=v8xxIqQQjsw#t=0
Yes, Strad, but would he do or say something similar that would be an insult the Muslims.
You, I, and everyone on this blog knows he wouldn’t.
He actually doesn’t deserve the right to free speech. He’s a coward. The Jews aren’t going to threaten him with a beheading so that he’d have to hide the rest of his life. He knows and takes comfort in the fact that the Jews won’t retaliate.
Dirtman, I don’t disagree with you about the Islamist threat, but Dieudonné M’bala_M’bala was born in France to a native (i.e. original, white, European) French “new-age Buddhist” mother and a Cameroonian father, and was raised in a Catholic school.
Anti-Semitism isn’t an exclusively Muslim phenomenon, and in fact in western countries the generalized “exotification” of “the other” has given a proverbial shot-in-the-arm to anti-Semites of all stripes, a great many of whom defend Islamists because they’re Jew-assailants-by-proxy.
The mother of a friend of mine, who was raised in Holland and came over when he was twelve or so, was virulently anti-Semitic – all of her shortcomings in life were aimed at the Jews – and was a great defender of “the Arabs”, and Africans, etc. I’ve known more than a few older Ukrainians in Edmonton who were deeply, if often quietly, anti-Semitic too. It’s a very widespread “outlook”, one that’s very primitive and unexamined in its impulse.
Speaking of which, stradivarious’ overall “point” in this thread is an exemplary mixture of transparency and incoherence, a sort of dumb, sub-cultural echolalia.
Even barnacles have a say, I guess.
Exactly, gellen.
Not only will the Jews not retaliate, they will keep supporting those same crazy leftist ideas that allow losers like this to exist in the first place.
Why the Jewish culture continues to vote for its own suicide is something I will never understand.
I guess they think if they feed the alligator it will leave them alone.
EBD, “It’s a very widespread “outlook”, one that’s very primitive and unexamined in its impulse.” I agree, as I have had some older members of my wife’s and my family who were born in Little Russia (Ukraine) and in Russia who also anti-Semitic.
He can say or do what he likes. I would like to know why no one is slapping him upside the head. Are they cowards or do they agree with him? Does the average Frenchman confuse him with a Muslim because of his skin colour or do they think, like one of France’s diplomats, that Israel is a “sh—y country”? It seems for some, they agree with him. That is the sad state of France’s popular culture. When this man should be shouted down or humiliated, there are people lining up to see him. Any legal action will make him look like a martyr for the cause and he does not deserve that. He deserves to be a pariah.
When will that happen?
Doesn’t Semitic include Arabs?
I agree with every word of your comment, Osumashi. To the precise extent that Dieudonné’s shtick isn’t socially proscribed in a way that would obviate the very possibility of his fame and adoration and accolades and “career”, the state’s legal actions are after-the-fact, virtually irrelevant, and arguably counterproductive.
How far the West has fallen. Like Gellen said earlier in the thread, he’s a coward who wouldn’t have the guts to say what he says against the Muslim community, who would “(slap) him upside the head”; Jews are “easy” targets.
That’s gotta change, but unfortunately one can’t penetrate millions of dense skulls, so the rest of us in the west have to resurrect the concept of “targets”, and change who/what those targets are.
This might seem “sad” or “wrong” to some people, but it’s true. Life is a lot more feral than a lot of people in the soft west feel comfortable in acknowledging.
Area 52, as far as I know America doesn’t have a hate speech law, YET. Remember Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn are two of the many Canadians that have been targeted For hate speech just because they disagreed with the main stream media. This Dieudonne won’t insult the Islamists because he seems to agree with them. Strad is correct, You have free speech or you have controlled speech. Last, NAZI means National Socialist German Workers Party. Kind of hard to call them right wing.
Wasn’t there a group photo with Obama making the same gesture?
Did he understand what he was doing?
I agree, as I have had some older members of my wife’s and my family who were born in Little Russia (Ukraine) and in Russia who also anti-Semitic.
Heh, above comment reminds me of the old saw about being a kid again because I knew everything. The kid being the modern generation who think they have it all figured out.
Kinda like leftists, as well. History starts anew each day.
Mat 23:1 Then spake Jesus to the crowds, and to His disciples,
Mat 23:2 Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat upon Moses’ seat:
Joh 8:33 They answered Him, We be Abraham’s seed, and Have been in bondage to no one at any time: how sayest Thou, Ye shall be made free ?
Gee, who would these ‘Jews’ be who were never in bondage? Jesus knew who they were…
“quenelle”
Sounds queer to me..
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American salute for the French Nazis.
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……..(‘(…´…´…. ¯~/’…’)
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I find this news item very interesting, not for the anti-Semitism but for the free speech angle.
Some people here dislike the French and anything to do with France.
I myself, despise so called Muslim “culture”. I avoid associating myself with Muslims, mainly because I find them breathtakingly ignorant and idiotic, yet at the same time they convey a sense of arrogant superiority that I find tremendously irritating. Since the Jews are more westernized and I don’t really care for their character traits, I tend to prefer them. So, on the Israeli Palestinian conflict, I am generally on the Jewish side. What irks me about the Jews is their tendency to want other nations (i.e. the US) to pay for their national defense. As a conservative, I cannot support using taxpayer money as welfare for foreign rich nations.
Now having said that, I would like to think that other people are free to not like the Jews and not associate with them if they don’t want it. Why must everybody like the Jews? I assume ever since the Holocaust, there has been a fascistic tendency on the part of some Jewish outfits like the JDL to make everybody to like the Jews or else. This totalitarian dictum is enforced nowadays, via political correctness alone and has been taken to the limits of insanity.
I know this because I have been called an anti-Semite here on SDA by alleged “conservatives” for opposing US welfare to Israel. These are usually the dim unintelligent posters who follow American blogs and are conditioned to default to that position like automatons. Paradoxically, this impulse has the opposite effect as these idiots intend, since I tend to like Jews less and not more when being called an anti-Semite despite not being one.
Regarding the free speech angle, how do you measure how “free” a speech is? I find this guy’s comment on the gas chambers nasty and objectionable, but this sort of comment is precisely the trial by fire to reveal the true character of the speech in a country.
If this guy had said what he said in America, the executioners of political correctness in America would have destroyed him. No doubt about it. Not even his carcass would have been left by the hyenas of PC.
This guy said what he said in France, a place that is derided here as a soft-totalitarian state. And what happened? Some people approved and some disapproved, but everybody goes about their business as they were and as it should be. There was no burning at the stake of the heretic.
Now, in which place is the speech more free?
Is America with its “awesomely awesome” First Amendment, the place that is touted here as a bastion of free speech in the Western World?
Quite the opposite.
Careful, EBD will accuse you of being afflicted with echolalia. Although, I think he’s projecting his own shortcomings.
As far as I can make out from his choice of words to show us how educated he is, one must criticize everyone equally. Like the ‘fairness doctrine’ they used to have in the States. Kind of an echolalia for the erudite.
@BC: “Why the Jewish culture continues to vote for its own suicide is something I will never understand.” So true. I don’t understand it either.
@Cal2: “Doesn’t Semitic include Arabs?” It does indeed include Arabs.
I want to point out that if the Carthaginians (a semitic people) had defeated the Romans (and they came very near) we might be living in a very different world. A very close call in my view.
Damn Germans had it wrong all those years ago. They should have eliminated Frenchman.
DhRT: Interesting point. Never mind Jews; consider saying “I don’t like homosexualists” in the US of A. The PC people would be all over you. Land of the free? Not so much!
And for some historical perspective: it was pointed out last week elsewhere that the quenelle resembles very strongly the actions of the “Dr. Strangelove” from the movie of the same name. For those who haven’t seen it, Dr. Strangelove (one of four roles played by Peter Sellers in the film) was an ex-Nazi now part of the US military (cf Werner Von Braun). Although Strangelove was confined to a wheelchair, his right arm would periodically attempt a Nazi salute, which the left arm would partially stifle. Voila! Une quenelle!
And Peter Sellers was no anti-Semite. From everything I’ve read, he hated everybody.
strad: sab;dr
What evidence is there that it’s a Nazi salute of any kind? Other than the fact that Some Guy says so, I mean.
I think it more likely means something like “up yours”. Yes, the guy calls himself an Anti-Zionist, and maybe he’s an anti-semite, I don’t know.
Yet, if he were saying “Let’s flip the Zionists the bird!”, you wouldn’t be calling the middle finger a Hitler salute.
@EBD
You are entitled to your opinion, but your arguments are neither conservative nor for free speech. Your “point” distills down to the Jews being defenseless and weak and therefore speech should be restricted, which is as preposterous an argument as it is illogical.
“He’s a coward who wouldn’t have the guts to say what he says against the Muslim community, who would “(slap) him upside the head”; Jews are “easy” targets.
Jews are the favourite pet group of the political correctness enforcer. In America, PC Inquisitors in the mainstream media would virtually destroy anyone who said anything remotely similar to what this guy said. Think about the reaction from the mainstream media to Phil Robertson or Paula Dean multiplied by 10. Anything but “easy” targets.
Besides, it is illogical to infer that speech should be restricted based on who is the target of it.
“To the precise extent that Dieudonné’s shtick isn’t socially proscribed in a way that would obviate the very possibility of his fame and adoration and accolades and “career”, the state’s legal actions are after-the-fact, virtually irrelevant, and arguably counterproductive.”
Are you a “conservative” calling for an Auto-da-fé from PC Inquisitors to burn the heretic at the stake and silence speech you don’t agree with?
EBD, your stance reminds of the liberal left position on speech control. People can’t be trusted to say what they want. There should be an enlightened elite -of which you form part presumably- that should dictate what the unwashed masses are allowed to say.
Tamarax >
“Damn Germans had it wrong all those years ago. They should have eliminated Frenchman.”
No worries, the Muslims are doing a good job of it for them. Little Nazi’s that have kicked the French colonists out of their own homelands and are now tearing France itself apart with the help of their “Liberal” Communist France sympathizers.
One day they can all wear burka’s and flip off what’s left of the Jews in France. The smart Jews of course will immigrate to better countries with fewer French and Muslims to contend with.
We win on that front in many ways.
“Oh no, someone is speaking unapproved speech and making unapproved gestures. We can’t have that…might hurt somebody’s feelings.”
What an utterly asinine thing to say! Nobody is telling them to stop! I for one like knowing who the ignorant haters are.
Daniel:
Read my post and my comments in this thread. I never at any point said that 1) Jews are defenceless and weak, or 2) that Dieudonné’s speech should be restricted by the state or by law.
Why, then, are you putting words in my mouth?
Wrt your false statement that I said his speech should be restricted by the law, I said pretty much the opposite of that when I pointed out that if French people don’t condemn (“socially proscribe”) the repulsiveness of his statements, including his wish that they’d bring back the gas chambers for the Jews, then, quote, “the state’s legal actions are after-the-fact, virtually irrelevant, and arguably counterproductive.”
So: I said that the state’s legal actions against Dieudonné (he’s been charged eight times at last count) are “counterproductive”, and you say that I’m calling for the state to take legal action to silence him?
Laws, and prosecutions, aren’t the way to deal with cowardly scumbags who (verbally) pick on soft targets. “Soft targets”, btw, like Jews and Christians and a gazillion other groups, aren’t soft targets in the sense of being helpless or weak, they’re soft targets in the sense that they’re not going to blow you up or cut your head off if you criticize them. If someone said about Muslims what Dieudonné says about Jews, he’d either be dead or in hiding.
My view is that condemnation – you know, speech, the same very same thing you’ve used here to condemn statements that I never even made — is the answer. Free speech, Daniel, includes the right to use speech to condemn those who vaunt genocide or, say, lynching.
Bullshit on both counts. First of all, my view that Dieudonné’ is an anti-Semitic scumbag isn’t based on the fact that I’m a conservative; it has nothing to do with it. Secondly, *anyone’s* arguments, to the extent that they are allowed to voice them as I have done here, are “free speech”. In what sense is my stated negative opinion of Dieudonné not free speech?
True Knight. But getting rid of the moooslums will be a tad bloodier I’m afraid.
…speech, the same very same thing you’ve used here to condemn statements that I never even made — is the answer. Free speech,…
Yeah, worked well with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and the like…didn’t it? The point is, speech doesn’t really do much. His, or yours.
“The point is, speech doesn’t really do much.
What would you suggest, then, in lieu of speech?
The answer, and evidence, has always been in front of your face. Which are the most successful countries in the world? What built them?
It sure wasn’t atheist, socialist, or pagan beliefs, all of those have failed. Even Israel would fail if it weren’t for the ongoing financial support of Christian counties. ‘Chosen people’, or not.
Free speech is fine, but absent a moral force it is nothing more than babbling into the wind.
@EBD
There are two ways to restrict free speech. One is by the power of the state which as you correctly stated is not very effective. The other way is via political correctness. Political correctness operates in the same way as the Roman Inquisition used to in the past, the mainstream media being the modern Inquisitors.
Currently, the biggest threat to free speech is political correctness, much more than hate speech laws and Human Rights Commissions, because it takes places in the same way as an Auto-da-fé from the Inquisition. There is a witch hunt that continues until the person who speaks unapproved speech is destroyed, cast out from society and their livelihood eliminated. In the end the objective is to silence speech that the interest group doesn’t like or finds offensive.
Your stated negative opinion of Dieudonné IS free speech. What is not free speech is your calling for silencing of speech you don’t agree with via political correctness. If by “socially proscribe” you mean silencing via a PC witch hunt. Do you want people to “socially proscribe” the comments of Phil Robertson regarding homosexuals, to the point where he is destroyed by the mainstream media and fired from A&E?
Free speech is you can say whatever you want. There are people who are going to approve and other people who will disapprove. But there is no impulse to proscribe the comments from society.
Daniel, to use a “for-example”, if some guy repeatedly shouted that your wife/girlfriend/sister should be raped, and you responded with strong words of condemnation, that would be a case of you “socially proscribing” the man’s behaviour. What it wouldn’t be is a case of you silencing speech via political correctness.
“Standards” in a society — we *have* to have them — shouldn’t be conflated with “political correctness”, which is an historically recent coinage with fairly narrow, specific rules/connotations.
Anyway…we *all* socially proscribe certain behaviour and actions. I do it, you do it. It’s a part of life, and always has been. I doubt that there’s a single commenter here, for example, hasn’t at some point or another denounced Obama, or Harper, or Bin Laden, etc., etc.
If I were in charge of some Israeli intelligence agency, of near-mythic competence, I think I would find a little turd like Dieudonné most useful indeed. Short of running up a Nazi flag and looking for raised arms, what better way to smoke out latent Jew-haters in the society of a major European power? Have a few spies in the crowd, watching the crowd, photographing the crowd. If Jos Bleaux, Socialist politico, shows up too many times, and cheers too enthusiastically, his name goes on a list for future reference.
On the other hand, if Richard Reaux shows up, and walks out in disgust, put him on the list of potential allies.
A filter of sorts, if you will.
for all those who dislike Jews I would suggest you examine the why of your dislike. worldwide there are less than 15 million Jews. with over 7 billion people running around the planet I would think there are far more dangerous groups to worry about other than Jews. if the Jews were a species of bird they would be on the endangered list. unfortunately they are endangered by millions of anti Jewish muslims and many others who have an irrational hatred of Jews. time to man up and present the facts that lead to the hatred. justified. I think not.
Osumashi Kinyobe has the best comment on this thread so far.
She said: “I would like to know why no one is slapping him upside the head. Are they cowards or do they agree with him?”
That is a very, very interesting question. Every time I run into an anti-Semite or other openly racist type, they are a fresh-off-the-boat European. Sometimes Dutch, sometimes Russian, Serbs, what have you. They often mistake me for one of their own, and make all manner of racist comments expecting approval.
Never saw one make that mistake twice.
This leads me to believe the following.
First, large numbers of Europeans apparently are cowardly wretched off-scourings that I wouldn’t cross the street to p1$$ on if they were in flames.
Second, while the Second World War may have made antisemitism socially unacceptable, it didn’t make it go away.
Third, have you ever noticed that nobody makes fun of the Scots unless they’re Scottish? There’s a reason for that.
Not showing up to riot is a failed Jewish policy. Jews should mob this guy’s show and beat him like a Persian carpet.
“Doesn’t Semitic include Arabs?”
“Semitic” does.
But “anti-Semitic” specifically refers to Jews as a “race”.
“What irks me about the Jews is their tendency to want other nations (i.e. the US) to pay for their national defense.”
I’m going to be generous here and presume you meant “Israelis” not “Jews”.
Phantom, gordinkneehill, and old white guy: Your comments are mollifying. Thank you. Everything feels a bit less icky today.
Seeing a thinly-veiled anti-Semitic comment is a bit like suddenly stumbling across a large, decaying corpse in the woods: Even though you’re aware of the process of decomposition, it’s still creepy to see these tiny, ugly creatures wriggling out of putrescent holes.
JJM (5:03): Good point.
EBD, this Jew-hatred cr@p is why the Glasgow Kiss was invented.
“Free Speech” means the cops don’t come to your house if you say certain things. “Free Speech” does not mean that your nose won’t get broken by a fellow citizen if you say certain things.
Some things we ignore, some things we tolerate and some things we really need to be punish on the spot. Personally, I put open racism right up there with vandalism and guys punching women for category three.
This is how we maintain a civilized society. One broken nose at a time.
Heh, the ethereal one would bring a fist to a gunfight.
It’s tough to deal in this written medium with people who are comprehensively unaware that their arguments are inane and inconsistent to the point of being nonsensical, but since we’re not face-to-face in an abandoned field – that would be the best format – I can only use words here.
In your first, really super-creepy comment, you essentially said “Oh, boo-hoo, poor widdle Jews’ feelings are hurt because someone says they should bring back the gas chambers.” For some reason you’re fine with people saying things like that, but obviously not okay with me pointing out that you’re a dolt.
In a subsequent comment you quoted the bible. Missing the point of the cited passages altogether gave you the, umm, freedom to sarcastically say, as if it followed from the passages you misinterpret, “Gee, who would these ‘Jews’ be who were never in bondage?” — the implication being that scripture proves that Jews could never be in bondage. I guess you missed the whole “WWII” thing.
When I said the best response to stupid or inciteful speech is more and better speech, you said “Yeah, worked well with Hitler, Stalin Pol Pot, and the like…didn’t it?”, completely missing the point that these people rose to power in large part because they silenced speech; there was no possibility of winning a larger public opinion *debate* with these people, so of course speech didn’t “work well” against them — there wasn’t any.
Yet another inane, completely idiotic “point” in which your own argument defeats itself, while you proudly act like you’ve said something cogent. You fail logic 101, again.
When you said “speech doesn’t do much”, I asked “What would you suggest then, in lieu of speech?”, you suggested the “moral force” of Christianity. Well, you’re a piss-poor spokesman for any moral force, let alone Christianity. Anyone whose first response to someone who says he wishes they’d bring back the gas chambers is a hateful, sarcastic–
— is not a part of any “moral force”.
When The Phantom pointed out — entirely correctly — that “Free Speech” doesn’t mean you’re not going to face real-world consequences from people (as opposed to the state) for ignorant, hateful, inciting speech, and that “this Jew-hatred crap is why the Glasgow Kiss (i.e. head-butt) was invented” and “This is how we maintain a civilized society: One broken nose at a time”, you said “Heh, (EBD) would bring a fist to a gunfight.”
Another comment that went over your head: Phantom was referring, of course, to the noses of anti-Semites like *you*. And I agree with him.
As for what I’d bring to a fight, you’d find out in the first five seconds. It’s the only way to deal with people like you, because the whole “thinking” thing — debate, argument — obviously isn’t your strong suit. You move your own goalposts on a constant basis without having even the first dim awareness that you’re doing so.
Oh well. I guess I’d be angry too, if I was constantly trying fruitlessly to use words to fight my way out of the primordial darkness.
Your speech is empty noise.
La quenelle is firstly an anti-system sign. It is used for example by protesters against the “mariage-for-all” laws (leftist parlance for gay marriage) to say merde to the socialists governement. BTW, do you smell the stink of hypocrisy from socialist President Hollande, who has made marriage-for-all a prominent claim of his legislature, while he himself had married none of his 3 women ?
There are many other examples where la quenelle is used by young people taking photographs with politicians : http://www.lelibrepenseur.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Valls_Quenelle.jpg
But because some idiots has used it as an antisemitic gesture, politicians and the obedient MSM, who are scared to death by the people’s anger, has made the narrative that the quenelle is antisemitic.
Using the race card to silent critics, it’s such a worn agitprop technique. But apparently, it works.
There may be varying usages/meanings of the gesture, but this doesn’t in any way obviate Dieudonné’s blatant anti-Semitism. No one’s been playing the race card – or parlaying it into a lucrative career — better than him.
As for Hollande, yes, I smell the stink in a lot of ways. His hypocrisy, including his past real estate maneuverings to avoid paying taxes, is at the top of the list.