The right to offend, which the French secular republic with its long tradition of anti-clericalist satire holds particularly dear, is in everyday conflict with the values of the republic’s second largest religion.
Surely #JeSuisCharlie was more than just a convenient slogan for the day?
It has been exhausting having to confront the visceral divisions among us about the nature of what happened, the roles of religion, geopolitics, and racism. And the possibility that the west, thinking it ‘is Charlie’, has been spitting on their graves.
My friends and I, either in the past or more recently, all had some kind of personal and/or activist link with people among the victims…
The recent attacks in Paris were the latest round in a conflict of violence, not of “values”. The primary perpetrators of this violence are western states, with Islamist terrorism representing an inevitable blowback.
I am for leaving believers in peace. Believers are individuals like any other, neither superior, nor inferior to atheists or agnostics.
The massacre in Paris spreads fear and reinforces the retreat from free expression in Europe. It also sharpens an unavoidable choice over legal and political order.
Despite the strong support for ‘free speech ‘from politicians in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo murders not a single proposal has come forward. The only response has been to re-double security.
Europe’s hypocrisy and latent racism was also displayed after the Paris attacks.
Freedoms are not unlimited but who, when and how can we limit them? Two colleagues agree to disagree. Content warning: graphic and potentially offensive imagery, including torture.
