Belgian Jews Thank France for Banning ‘Quenelle’ Comic Dieudonne
Not Funny: French comic Dieudonne Mbala-Mbala, shown here with basketball star Tony Parker, maintained his cachet with celebrity friends, even as he has spiralled into anti-Semitic alliances with far right hatemongers.
Leaders of Belgium’s Jewish community rallied outside France’s embassy in Brussels to thank the French government for its efforts to keep an anti-Semitic comedian from touring.
The demonstration Wednesday was organized by the CCOJB umbrella group representing French-speaking Belgian Jews. Some 70 people showed up, police told the Belga news agency, bearing signs reading: “Thank you, France.”
Organizers said the French government deserved praises for its efforts to prevent the anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala from taking his show, The Wall, on a nationwide tour.
France’s highest court banned Dieudonne’s debut in the western city of Nantes on Jan. 9. The comedian has been convicted several times for inciting racial hatred of Jews through trivialization of the Holocaust.
“Freedom of expression is an important principle but Holocaust denial is not an opinion,” CCOJB President Maurice Sosnowski said through a megaphone at the demonstration. “It’s an offense. One must fight the impunity” of those who spread such ideas.
A number of Jewish figures have criticized the ban on Dieudonne as an infringement on basic freedoms.
Jack Lang, a Jewish former French minister of culture who heads the Arab World Institute, has told French media that he opposes the court’s ban because he found it too limiting. Lang, a former professor of law, called the ruling “a major regression” that “regrettably mixes the administrative branch with the judiciary.”
On Jan. 11, Dieudonne announced he would abandon the show, entitled “The Wall,” in favor of a new shows, “Asu Zoa,” which would be devoid of anti-Semitic content.
But AFP, the French news agency whose reporter saw a sneak preview of the cancelled show, reported the shows were almost identical except for “very extreme examples of anti-Semitism.”
On Thursday, the Le Monde daily reported that Dieudonne –- who is already under investigation for suspected tax fraud –- may be thrown out of the theater he is renting in Paris, Main d’Or, because he has no licence to operate it.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
