If yesterday’s massacre in Paris underlined anything, it’s the reality that we live in a world in which human beings are willing to kill others over ideas. There are those so self-important, who take themselves and their beliefs so seriously, that they’re willing to destroy human life in the name of those beliefs.
If your faith is threatened by cartoons and the free expression of ideas and opinions, you have no faith. You have anger management and self-esteem issues.
As one who traffics in ideas, I’m stunned. I’m nowhere near as well known, talented, or notorious as the staff at Charlie Hebdo, but the thought that anyone anywhere could be assassinated over ideas and editorial cartoons is chilling. Over the years, a few trolls have threatened me, which I’ve taken about as seriously as my odds of buying a winning lottery ticket. Now I find myself having to process the reality that ideas ARE enough to drive some to kill.
Like most people who traffic in ideas and opinions, I don’t fear for my safety, nor do I have reason to. What happened in Paris is not something that can, will, or should silence anyone whose raison d’etre is the free expression and exchange of ideas and opinions. What it does is highlight the reality of the world we live in- a world in which some are so threatened by free speech and expression that they could kill without remorse and justify that killing in the name of their religion.
I would never put myself on par with the staff at Charlie Hebdo, except to say that I feel a degree of solidarity with whose stock in trade is ideas, opinions, and free expression. What I do is but an exceedingly small part of the whole, but it’s my part to play, and neither violence nor threats will keep me free from my appointed rounds. If anything, my resolve has been heightened and refocused, as I suspect is true for many like me around the world.
We do what we do because we believe in it. We believe in freedom, free expression, and the reality that ideas aren’t the enemy. They’re ideas, and the thought that someone could think it appropriate to kill over ideas is astonishing and chilling…but it’s something that cannot be allowed to stand.
And so we carry on, possessed of a sense of purpose and resolve that wasn’t there before yesterday.
