I can't find that offensive cartoon...

Not seen it either. All UK news providers are showing loads of people buying the magazine, but none have shown the cartoon.

I could go on for ever about this. The irony being terrorists or Jihad's etc (better words fit!) are pathetically short sighted. Not only was the magazine months or even weeks away from collapse, and they have essentially guaranteed its long term future to a whole new audience; they have even worse managed to seal a fate for fellow Muslims - normal human beings - and that is of hate and fear and its dangerous. The magazine isn't really helping this. I'm not saying they shouldn't - one rules for them and another for Jews or Christians isn't right either, but perhaps the tact is missing somewhat at a volatile time. France cant go around with Troops on the street corners. Not practical.

Of course you will see other loonies who want to massacre the people of the developed west for crimes they perceived they committed - the logic isn't entirely missing but of course they actually started it. Bottom line, we didn't plow two jets into the twin towers and that's when the heat really turned up terror organisations. IS and Al Qaeda feel the need to execute not just other ethnicities but anybody, even Muslims - Shia or Sunni - who don't fit their 'requirements' - one of the officers they shot in France was Muslim. Its all well and good hairy ***ts saying we will terrorise you West in VHSs, well you know, its your own people, the Muslims you seek to "represent" that loose out most and you end up building a stronger more determined West.

I have close Muslim female friends who accept me for being gay and even actually very interested in it - they even said to me to them it doesn't matter, though their male counterparts not so much but "they wont really interfere". I know these are the normal people, the people who have a future, not the women who I've seen on street corners holding banners up pissing off people, "we will bring Shia law to Britain" - are they totally mindless. Clearly because you they don't notice they're actions are counterproductive.

Most terrorists are losers, they live of the state that feeds them, they've had a poor upbringing - sometimes not helped by Western actions - they're not educated and they're living in a fantasy world where they've been wronged for whatever reason. The Hebdu killers are prime examples. They were losers who relied on France to pay for a roof over their heads. The Lee Rigby killers in London were losers who were radicalised by pathetic little men in gowns and thirst for power they don't have and who, balls on the line, wouldn't sacrifice themselves as they encourage. Its always the case.

Education is the way forward. Always will be, even for us LGBT folks. You teach young people, you impart knowledge, and you end up with people who respect difference. I suppose the example I like; you get idiots in tracksuits and benefits beating gays up in back alleys because they're freaks or weak or losers etc. The irony usually lost on them. They weren't educated.

 

You think that's offensive? Look up coal black and da seben drawfs. It is speller like that

 

On a side note, a UK study a few months ago found this song had overtaken Frank Sinatra's My Way as the most popular song played at funerals, and given that churches are the go-to location for funerals I'm guessing that means a lot of them are now common places to hear it. Ironic.

 

Honestly, I think the difference here is that in Life of brian, the only time Jesus was ever shown in the movie, all he did was give the sermon on the mount. The jokes that followed concerned the people at the back of the crowd who couldn't hear properly, and not Jesus himself. The rest of the movie was about Brian, not Jesus. And crucifixion was a common thing in those days, Jesus was not the only person to be crucified. It seems to me at least that Life of brian was more about the other people misinterpreting what Jesus said, rather than making fun of the man himself. I mean, Jesus is only IN the movie for, what, 30 seconds? whereas the cartoons in Charlie Hebdo depicted Mohammed specifically.

My music teacher used to tell me this story of when she was travelling in the US with a tour group a few years ago. All the people in the tour group were Indian and so they had to show their passports to the airport security people everywhere they went. And one of them was born in the city of Allahabad. And she used to get held back and interrogated almost everywhere because it was in her passport that she was born in Allahabad (which has nothing to do with Muslims, apart from the fact that some live there, like they do everywhere) and she wasn't even Muslim, she didn't have a Muslim name. She just happened to have been born in Allahabad, and she was apparently taken away and interrogated everywhere they went, for that.

When things like this happen (and these are not isolated incidents, you read about them a lot) when a minority community is both ridiculed and mistrusted in society, they start to feel victimised.
Simply being ridiculed is one thing. Everyone is ridiculed at some point, and not because of religion. It's when people are ignorant about Islam and think it's inherently evil and therefore do not trust any Muslims that it becomes a problem, in addition to the ridicule. Everyone has seen ignorant comments about muslims in comment sections and discussion forums. The cartoons in Charlie Hebdo must have been just a trigger to the expression of feelings that had been simmering under the surface for a long time.

Of course it's not a justification for the killing. That's not even a question. But even after the attacks, you read comments saying "Muslims are evil" "Islam should be eradicated" "how can a religion glorify murder" and what not, so they accomplished nothing by it.
Charlie Hebdo cartoons did nothing to help the general view of Islam. Killing the people who made/published the Charlie Hebdo cartoons definitely did nothing to help the general view of Islam.

My point is that this attack was a manifestation of a much larger social problem, and even if the cartoons themselves weren't that offensive (I wouldn't know, I haven't seen them either and I wasn't familiar with the Charlie Hebdo magazine before this happened) the attack came from feelings that ran much deeper than a few pictures.