Last week, French satire magazine ‘Charlie Hebdo’ had its Paris offices stormed by masked gunmen who opened fire on the staff. As of this writing, twelve members of the staff were pronounced dead and the apparent cause of the shooting is that the magazine posted a cartoon of the Islamic prophet Muhammad that Islamic fundamentalists found offensive. This isn’t the first time that ‘Charlie Hebdo’ has come under fire, either. Back in 2011, their offices were firebombed when they published an issue with another cartoon of the prophet Muhammad, and listed him as a guest editor-in-chief.
Reactions to the attack have been those of outrage, as one would expect, and large demonstrations erupted all over the country in support of the publication and its slain workers. What concerns me, though, is the number of people who have stated that the publication was “playing with fire” and never should have published the cartoons to begin with.
These are very dangerous times we’re living in, folks. I talked about it a couple of weeks ago when Sony Pictures pulled the movie ‘The Interview’ from theatres under a threat from entities thought to be associated with North Korea. Threats were made to people’s lives because of a stupid stoner comedy, and here we have a dozen people dead because of a newspaper cartoon. The very fabric of our right to free speech is being threatened by those who don’t like what we have to say, and it’s scary to see how many people are willing to acquiesce to the demands of others who believe their right to be offended trumps our right to freedom of expression.
It’s time to be concerned.
As someone who shares my opinions in this publication on a weekly basis, I should feel somewhat secure in my ability to speak my mind on any topic I choose. Although I continue to speak openly and honestly, there’s always a niggling voice at the back of my head that always asks if I should be censoring myself from time to time – and what I say isn’t even that controversial most weeks. What if I do say something that offends someone? Do we live in a culture now where someone could perpetrate or threaten an act of violence against me and there would be a segment of the population who would think that I “got what was coming to me” because I touched on a taboo topic? Could my views subject my loved ones to harm because someone disagrees with them so vehemently? I’m not sure of the answer to that question anymore.
We should be at the height of civilization right now, but we’re not. We’re a society of weak and scared people who have forgotten how to stand up for our rights and freedoms. We are a population of the willingly oppressed and politically ignorant who sit back and allow our way of life to be stripped away from us in the name of political correctness and an overwhelming hesitation to rock the boat of status quo. In a world where satire is needed simply to cope with the overwhelming amount of garbage that’s pushed down on us from above, a dozen people responsible for shining a harsh light on the sacred cows and the ridiculous conventions of our social order are dead – and some people think it’s okay because they “pushed the wrong buttons” with some people.
That’s all kinds of messed up.
In a culture where we’re constantly bombarded with media that tells us how we should live every aspect of our daily lives, I refuse to be told what I can think and what I can say because of the possibility of offending someone. Knowing that there are people condemning the Charlie Hebdo attack on one side of their face while insinuating that it may have been deserved on the other side sickens me, and I am ashamed to share this planet with them.
The Charlie Hebdo massacre should serve as a wakeup call to people about the importance of speaking loud and speaking often about issues that are important to them. This tragedy should increase satire by one hundred fold toward the elements of our society that are wrongly viewed as ‘off-limits’ to show that we will not be threatened by those who do not agree with what we say. We should savor now, more than ever, our inalienable right to speak our minds no matter the topic, and know that we will be safe in doing so.
As I type this, I find out that news sources all over the world are pixelating the cartoons out when reporting on the massacre to avoid further upset.
That sound you hear is our collective spine withering away.
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