From Huffington Post yesterday:
The attackers stormed Charlie Hebdo's Paris newsroom during an editorial meeting and began firing indiscriminately, police and prosecutors said. Witnesses told police that the gunmen shouted "we have avenged the prophet," according to Agence France-Presse. Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Corinne Rey said the gunmen spoke to her in fluent French and claimed to represent Al Qaeda, she told French newspaper l'Humanite.
I'm no great fan of satire when taken to extremes. To my taste satire works best when directed at one's own fads and foibles, or at the fads and foibles of one's own country and culture. When satire reaches beyond that it can rapidly flounder into the realms of questionable or downright bad taste. That was the problem I had with the recent media furor about the movie The Interview. The satirical cartoons featuring Mohammed carried by Charlie Hebdo didn't as much flounder into a similar bad taste realm as march directly into it, with provocation.
I guess I'm in a tiny minority (again) in my opinion on this. I surprise even myself - but I feel as I feel and cannot change it. I found just three comments, out of many hundreds I read yesterday, which aligned with my own feelings:
We live in treacherous times. Even though we have freedoms, it is imperative that we learn to exercise those freedoms with wisdom.
(Minnie Taylor)
You can have freedom of speech but, with that freedom comes responsibility. As the saying goes, if you keep poking the bear.... Condemning all Muslims because of radical extremists is ridiculous. While there is no excuse for such violence, we all know that there are extremists out there, and this type a "humor" provokes. Was the satire worth human lives?
(Isabella Kirchner)
Not at all condoning this violence or these crackpots, but this newspaper has had death threats from them before, because they re-published the inflammatory Danish cartoons and also other comments about Mohammed. Then they hide behind the free speech argument, so surely they have to take at least some responsibility. Its like antagonising fundamentalist Christians by insulting Jesus.
(Robert Forton).
Freedoms - all freedoms - carry with them responsibilities, especially for those with the power to incite and inflame. So what has been gained, at the expense of those 12 lives, and the agony of their families and loved ones? What - exactly? Have extremists been taught any lesson? Would they ever "see the funny side", get the message ? Don't we all know the negatives of fundamentalist religions already without benefit of satire? Maybe some of us don't, but was it worth the cost of human lives to highlight it yet again? Really? I feel very sad for the bereaved. I feel angry at the sheer waste that could have been avoided by the realisation of what can be seen from this event as the extremely serious levels of responsibility that come with free expression.
