In praise of blasphemy: Why Charlie Hebdo is not islamophobic - Caroline Fourest (+ other free speech books)

epub/mobi

Product details

Format: Kindle Edition

File Size: 747 KB

Print Length: 49 pages

Publisher: Grasset (1 Dec. 2015)

Language: English



“Threatened by fanatics, censored by cowards, freethinkers on all continents continue to fight on all fronts to ensure the survival of an enlightened world. And the right to commit blasphemy plays a central role in their struggle.”

Caroline Fourest



In the overwhelming emotional aftermath of the terrorist attack against Charlie Hebdo in Paris, Caroline Fourest reaches those who refused to “be Charlie” in the name of “responsibility”, or concerns about “offending” or being seen as “islamophobic”.

In this ruthless and pedagogical analysis, Caroline Fourest looks into debates on freedom of speech. She also warns us about the risks associated with the globalization of bullying. She puts into perspective the breaking point between French secularism and Anglo-Saxon relativism, between the right to commit blasphemy and the calls for hatred, between Charlie and Dieudonné, and between laughing about terrorism and laughing with terrorists.



Free Speech pack



You Can't Read This Book: Censorship in an Age of Freedom - Nick Cohen





epub



The uncompromising Nick Cohen exposes the reality behind the freedoms we enjoy in the book that won Polemic of the Year at the 2013 Political Book Awards.



After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of Communism, and the advent of the Web which allowed for even the smallest voice to be heard, everywhere you turned you were told that we were living in an age of unparalleled freedom.



‘You Can't Read This Book’ argues that this view is dangerously naive. From the revolution in Iran that wasn't, to the Great Firewall of China and the imposition of super-injunctions from the filthy rich protecting their privacy, the traditional opponents of freedom of speech - religious fanaticism, plutocratic power and dictatorial states - are thriving and in many respects finding the world a more comfortable place in the early 21st century than they did in the late 20th.



Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech? - Mick Hume





epub

Product Details

Paperback: 320 pages

Publisher: William Collins (June 18, 2015)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0008125457

ISBN-13: 978-0008125455



In this blistering polemic, veteran journalist Mick Hume presents an uncompromising defence of freedom of expression, which he argues is threatened in the West, not by jackbooted censorship but by a creeping culture of conformism and You-Can’t-Say-That.



The cold-blooded murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in January 2015 brought a deadly focus to the issue of free speech. Leaders of the free-thinking world united in condemning the killings, proclaiming ‘Je suis Charlie’. But it wasn’t long before many commentators were arguing that the massacre showed the need to apply limits to free speech and to restrict the right to be offensive.



It has become fashionable not only to declare yourself offended by what somebody else says, but to use the ‘offence card’ to demand that they be prevented from saying it. Social media websites such as Twitter have become the scene of ‘twitch hunts’ where online mobs hunt down trolls and other heretics who express the ‘wrong’ opinion. And Trigger Warnings and other measures to ‘protect’ sensitive students from potentially offensive material have spread from American universities across the Atlantic and the internet.



Hume argues that without freedom of expression, our other liberties would not be possible. Against the background of the historic fight for free speech, Trigger Warning identifies the new threats facing it today and spells out how unfettered freedom of expression, despite the pain and the problems it entails, remains the most important liberty of all.



The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam -Ayaan Hirsi Ali epub







Product details

Paperback: 208 pages

Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK; New Ed edition (5 Feb. 2007)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1416526234

ISBN-13: 978-1416526230



Raised a Muslim but increasingly outraged by her religion's hostility towards women, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has now become one of today's most talked-about, admired and controversial political figures because of her desire to free women from an oppressive Muslim culture. Her bestselling collection of essays, THE CAGED VIRGIN, now available in English for the first time, brings together some of her most passionate and compelling writing on a wide range of issues concerning Islam. Drawing on her own first-hand experience and cultural background, she assesses the role of women in Islam both in practice and in theory; the rights of the individual; fanaticism; and Western policies towards immigrant communities. Provocative and compelling in equal measure, THE CAGED VIRGIN is an important addition to the ongoing debate about the 'clash of civilizations' and marks the debut of a writer and activist destined to be one of the key international figures of the early twenty-first century.



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