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Angela Merkel Doesn’t Think That’s Funny
One time my husband and I were having a fabulous dinner with friends — he from France, she American. We laughed about everything all night long, until someone made a joke about food. Our Frenchman instantly sobered up. “Food,” he said reprovingly, “is not funny.” Which of course caused the rest of us even greater hilarity.
Mark Steyn has a blistering, brilliant essay on the case of the German satirist facing a criminal inquiry from the German government (at the request of the Ottoman Empire Turkish government) for making a joke about a goat and Recep Erdogan:
A free society does not threaten a guy with years in gaol for writing a poem. If you don’t know that that’s wrong, you should just cut to the chase and appoint yourself mutasarrıfa of Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman sanjak of Berlin.
What a disgraceful person she is, the worst German chancellor since …well, I don’t want to go all Godwin’s this early in the piece. But a few years ago, when Maclean’s and I had our triple-jeopardy difficulties with the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission, the Ontario “Human Rights” Commission and the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal, the response of many of my fellow Canadians to the eventual outcome was along the lines of: “Well, I don’t know what Steyn was making such a fuss about. The process played itself out and he was acquitted. So the system worked.”
…As I said, people who say, well, we have a “strong justice system” so let’s let the process play out are either innocents who’ve never been tied up in court or cold cynics. The German Chancellor can hardly be an innocent in these matters. Like the Canadian Islamic Congress, she has a “strategic objective” and regardless of the verdict this trial will help her achieve it: There will be fewer poems, fewer satirical sketches, fewer jokes — not just about Erdogan, but about Islam in general. To reprise my old line: The process is the punishment.
Boris Johnson also has a hircine-laden essay in The Telegraph making the case for being allowed to make jokes, even puerile and offensive ones.
But I don’t think there is anyone of any importance who seriously believes that there has been any kind of romance involving the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and any other non-human mammal, caprine or otherwise.
Published in GeneralSo, when a young German comedian called the Turkish leader a “goat –––––––”, in a little-watched broadcast on March 31, you might have thought that the best response – from Turkey’s point of view – was a dignified silence. Yes, I suppose it was puerile. And yes, I accept that it was not in especially good taste. But it was what we call a joke. It is utterly bewildering – and slightly shocking – that the Turkish leader has failed to see this.
The episode has, as they say, got his goat, and he has deployed all Turkey’s diplomatic and political weight in an effort to persecute the satirist, 35-year-old TV host Jan Boehmermann. He and the Turkish government have officially demanded that the presenter should be prosecuted for lèse-majesté – in this case causing offence to the leader of a foreign state – under an all-but defunct statute that dates back to 1871 and the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Incredible though it may seem, the journalist could face five years in jail. But what is truly incredible – indeed what is positively sickening – is that the German government has agreed at the express request of Angela Merkel that the prosecution should go ahead. She did not have to do so. She could have said no. The matter was entirely at her discretion. Plenty of German politicians were telling her that any such legal action would be an outrageous infringement of free speech – an act of censorship that smacked of some of the darkest moments in Germany’s 20th century history.
Poor Angela Merkel. Until this disastrous decision to let in a million muslims, she was arguably the best leader in the world. Such are the politics of immigration. A leader would be best served to be rhetorically against immigration while being forced to let in a discriminating few.
And frankly Merkel deserves that graphic of her in a burka or whatever it’s called. She deserves to lose any election that she will be facing.
To paraphrase a line from Gone With The Wind, Muslims should be offended, and often, and by someone who knows how.
But apparently, too many don’t give a ….
What we need is more Scarlett…”I can shoot straight, if I don’t have to shoot too far.”
We did it once 70 years ago, but it took two really big bombs.
Merkel grew up in East German communist politics. Her default position is Stasi.
tim
(Also, lose the nonsense about Berlinski. Don’t agree with everything she says, but a really excellent writer.)
Robert,
To defend Claire she has also raised the question of the rise of illiberal democracy. In specific, she is referring to Putin’s Russia and Erdogan’s Turkey. She is also quite eurocentric and like Mrs. Merkel doesn’t see the complete picture when it comes to the migrants. What I find interesting in this issue is that illiberality is spreading to the EU from Turkey instead of the other way around. This is why Boris Johnson’s response is so pertinent. If the economic scare tactics of EU are overrated, the security posture of the EU nearly non-existent, and finally now the liberal values of Europe threatened by the EU’s slide into illiberality, what is the incentive for Britain not to opt for Brexit?
If one wanted the EU to survive Mrs. Merkel would invite Boris to tea immediately and seriously consider any policy recommendations he had. Otherwise Brexit baby.
Regards,
Jim
In honour of Angela Merkel’s decision, Douglas Murray is hosting a “President Erdogan Offensive Poetry Contest” over at the Spectator.
So much for Bono’s proposal to a US House of Representatives committee that the way to fight ISIL is to send comedians to mock them. He specifically mentioned Sacha Baron-Cohen, Amy Shumer, and Chris Rock.
Leftists don’t understand true evil until they’re about to get their heads chopped off.
Das ist nicht lustig.
Gren,
Well, it takes a village doesn’t it. I recommend that the three of them be parachuted immediately into an ISIS held village in Iraq. We can start a betting pool on how long each of them survives. Bergdahl shut up and collaborated. I don’t see these three having that much sense.
Sacha Baron-Cohen beheaded immediately.
Amy Shumer gang raped for the first day. When they realize she would never stop talking beheaded the next day.
Chris Rock is doing well as they find him funny at first. Then on the second day, Chris makes the mistake of insulting the Prophet. He is beheaded immediately.
What’s your best guess?
Regards,
Jim
Humor was a great way to alert the public to the evilness of Islam in the beginning. It’s too late now. And most leftist comedians are cowards. Understandable. Muslims are the only group that has the muscle to carry out their threats after all. They’re the ones that wait for us at the end of our driveways or in front of our offices. So we censor ourselves or in this case, the state censors us. This is how Free Speech dies.
du und deine mutti
” Take my head….please!”
This is the appropriate response when some punk Turk attempts to throw his weight around Europe. A word of warning: the Zaporozhian Cossacks did not have a CoC; the above link is a masterwork of invective.
A man after my own heart…
Please – don’t use that familiar, 2nd person, tone with me when talking about meine Mutter :)
I was trying to replicate “Yo’ Mama!” in German, so I’ll let it stand…
“Deine mutter ist so lustige…” “Wie lustige ist sie?”
Boris Johnson (Go BoJo!) unveiling the replica of the Palmyra arch destroyed by Islamic State (Russia Today had better video up, but I feel wrong using their links):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6d7pFBEdPk
Ich bin fertig mit dir. Jetzt ist die Zeit, auf Ricochet , wenn wir tanzen. (Ich bin mir sicher – das ist nicht idomatisch.)
And Mama Toad – I loved the: you and your mother!
German is simply under appreciated as a language of comedy. Good, guttural, funny language.
Oh my G-d. What if Berlinski is right?! Imagine what the other people in German politics must be like!
Sigh. I miss Johnny Carson.
(But I love my dashboard translator!)
“I am finished with you. Now the time, on Ricochet, is if we dance. (I am safe me – that is not idomatisch.”
“Idomatisch” beat my dashboard translator.
This reminds me of something my nephew (yes, the tool) tweeted a few months ago: “OMG. What if Trump wins . . . and he’s great?”
Did you ever watch the sitcom “30 Rock”? There was a running joke about the two leads’ common love of German.
Everybody’s taking the opportunity to jump (pardon the expression) on Claire. I’d like to see her original statements in context and hear her response.
I thought the picture of Merkel in the hijab was funny as hell. I don’t buy the Nazi comparison. This is a new phenomenon. It’s more a question of political correctness gone off the rails. What’s the Muslim connection? Erdogan is a head of state, Turkish Muslim, not a German immigrant Muslim. Is Merkel playing to her new constituency? Yeah, likely. If so, it’s pathetic seeing Germany bow to intimidation by waves of immigrants with no intention of becoming Europeans.
Same kind of thing happening in the U.S. Gutless politicians and their followers bending over for people who have no respect for the country.
“Everybody” is doing no such thing. I haven’t even mentioned Claire, either in my OP or in any subsequent comments. Most of these comments neither speak of Claire nor reference any comments about Claire. Chill, brother.
Mike, it’s not everybody. Believe me, most people are holding their tongues. Do your own homework. Search from Google.