In the West, freedom of speech has become deified. Secularists and liberal fundamentalists praise it as the solution to our problems. "Oh there is too much extremism? Counter it with more freedom of speech! Any other issue? More freedom of speech!" In the recent Charlie incident, many secularists have actually claimed that the solution to the terror attacks on freedom of speech is more free speech. This is so illogical. Freedom of speech cannot stand for itself nor should. Freedom of speech should not be exercised for its own sake. It should be defended on its merits, but that is different. Freedom of speech is intended to protect citizens' right to express an idea. But free speech for its own sake, like the new Charlie Hebdo cover with Mohammed on it, strays from what point of freedom of speech and the good it can achieve.
Freedom of speech ought only be used in pursuit of truth. Not for its own sake and shock value, as in Charlie Hebdo. I believe that the Holy Catholic Church contains the fulness of Truth, but I believe the pursuit of truth is a valuable thing, and I think freedom of speech is required for that. I think people should be able to get their feelings hurt. Life hurts, truth hurts. I do not think it is the governments role to censor someone like Charlie Hebdo, just because it will offend someone.
HOWEVER, although I believe it is not the governments job, I do not support Charlie Hebdo. It is an imprudent use of freedom of speech for its own sake. It is not the governments role to censor it, but it should be the people's responsibility to discourage it. And even if not just discourage it, at least not deify Charlie Hebdo as the solution to all of our issues. I protect the right to freedom of speech, but I do not support its abuse.
Je ne suis pas Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Mr. Jahjah put it best here:
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI don’t mean to offend here at all, but I completely disagree.
ReplyDeleteI assume that as a logical person you would not condone any of the extreme violence in reaction to the publication of cartoons depicting Mohammed. While I say that, I think your opposition of Charlie Hebdo is misplaces. When you address the value of the cartoons, in this instance, for their "shock value," I also think you fail to fully understand the manner in which terrorists act. Contrary to a common misconception, the leaders of terrorist organizations, while horribly manipulative and monsters, are actually extremely intelligent, well organized people. By this, I mean that a master propagandist can twist anything to support his cause. In the case ISIS or al Qaeda, these leaders target even the most minor "faults" of Western society and exploit in to the far extreme. The Charlie Hebdo attack was not simply a response to cartoons. Rather, it was an extremely manipulated, targeted, and calculated attack meant to push an agenda. While high-profile, the attack was no different than a normal terrorist attack. It fulfills the same purpose: the promulgation of a culture of intimidation, censorship, and fear. In my essay, I argued that it is illogical to believe that the terrorist organizations are actually "offended" as much as they claim. Rather, they took one instance of the West "wronging" them and inflated it to compel a crazy following (ISIS, jihadists, true radicals) to action in order to "defend the faith." If you think these well-organized groups would not have simply allocated their resources to a different, likely less-profile attack if these cartoons were never published, then I think you are fairly naive. Because the purpose of every attack is centered on the "terror" side of "terrorism" (i.e. pushing intimidation, fear, control, censorship), I think the Charlie Hebdo attack is no different than any other. Since terrorists kill and blow people up for the sake of maintaining power or for the sake of making us change our lives for the sake of appeasing them, I think there is no possible situation in which we as a people cannot fully support an organization exposing truly crazy radicals (terrorists/jihadists).
Ultimately, the point of Charlie Hebdo, while you may not support it, is to create controversy and to bring issues and news to the public eye. They did exactly that. Charlie Hebdo sent a message to terrorists. And terrorists sent a message in return: "We are violent, crazy, and master manipulators." If that's the response they choose to give in return to criticism, then they are ultimately a laughable organization. Consider this: the greatest threat to terrorists is a cartoon or an idea, whereas the greatest threat to Charlie Hebdo is a violent massacre. I think you should reconsider your stance, since a group’s response to controversy is often more important than the controversial message initiating the conflict. Charlie Hebdo serves a purpose, while outlandish and provocative, to simply provoke and wait for a reaction. That provocation of a terrorist group was costly to them this time, but it exposed the issues with radicalism and created an even greater whole in the philosophies of the groups controlling with fear and intimidation.
I think what Bain is trying to say is that Charlie Hebdo has no real message, and if you look at their cartoons you'll see that they aren't attacking extremists and terrorists. What they do is generalize the entire Arabic/Middle Eastern population and their culture and make racist and offensive drawings. What they do is not an effective or useful form of communication. It's just a really really bad joke to the effect of "your mom" or let's draw a penis on a school desk that'll be funny. Sure they may have provoked a response, but sadly it got them killed and in the end it accomplished nothing besides spreading racist anti Arab sentiment throughout the world, especially France, and they accomplished nothing in terms of actually finding a solution to extremism, in fact they accomplished more bad than good.
Delete