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Not hiding perse, they were more like... putting on display. That which they were putting on display was the casual French bigotry, racism and xenophobia towards all of those who aren't entirely French. The same Muslims who they had no problems slaughtering in Algeria, the blacks who they have no problem enslaving for years were the ones they casually attacked in their pages. It is a magazine that gave a voice to the mostly white academic class in France that finds no problem punching down. I won't pretend like they were some beacon for an important form of free speech, they are a racist and xenophobic publication whose entire raison d'être was the offense of other groups. Sure, their freedom of speech should be defended but it's not as if these people will be considered anything but racist and xenophobic a 100 years from now. Sort of like the cartoons I posted. :shrug:
You're wrong about CH. I don't think you understand them at all. These guys were ultra left wing hippies. Children of the "Mai 68" revolution. Anti-establishment, anti-religion, anti-capitalism, anti-authority, anti-Western imperialism. White academics hate CH as much as any other group they made fun of. There is nothing inherently racist or xenophobic in any of their cartoons. If there was, they would have been shut down under French anti-racism laws. The very same government who is now hailing them as heroes tried repeatedly to shut them down. And failed miserably. Some of the CH survivors working on the upcoming issue, are reportedly nauseated by this display of support from countless people who attacked them in the past. If I remember correctly, you speak French. I urge you to look up the entirety of their work, put it in the context in which it was published and you will see that they treated everyone, white, black, muslim, christian, Jewish, man and women in the exact same offensive way. There is a story behind each cartoon. There is a specific context behind each caricature. I hated their work and thought their humor too crass and crude, but I've never seen anything racist or xenophobic in them. Not a single cartoon elevated one race over another, or one ethnicity over another. They made fun of ethnic French people with the same vitriol they directed at everyone else they thought deserved their weekly scorn.