Charlie Hebdo & freedom of speech: Why we need to cherish our capacity for meaningful debate more than ever - Women's Agenda

Charlie Hebdo & freedom of speech: Why we need to cherish our capacity for meaningful debate more than ever

The senseless attack on journalists in Paris last week was unspeakably horrific, and there is little that can be done or said to mitigate the trauma that resonated the world over in its aftermath. There is little more craven than killing a journalist to silence his or her views, and any threat to the freedom of the press is grave.

Last Wednesday, three men walked into the offices of French magazine Charlie Hebdo and executed eight of its editorial staff and two police officers in cold blood. Murder is wrong, whenever, wherever and however it occurs. Political murder is not only cowardly but it is traumatic and terrifying. There is no excuse for killing someone for disagreeing with your values or beliefs.

While there is nothing we can do to reverse or erase last week’s horror, it is important that we are vigilant in ensuring our response to it is focused on alleviating the global tensions that drove it, rather than exacerbating them. What we have seen in the wake of the Paris terror is a worrying pull towards political and moral binaries that paint a black-and-white picture of what happened that day. We see this in the backlash against anyone who even suggests criticism of the content of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons; we see it in the condemnation of editors and publications that decline to reprint them.

The reaction to the shooting has been to polarise a debate between freedom and terror. All of a sudden, it seems, you can either be on the side of freedom of speech, or on the side of the terrorists, and nowhere in between. Either you are Charlie, or you align yourselves with those who sought to destroy it. If you suggest the possibility of restricting the freedom of the pen, you become the one drawing the sword. We each declare which side we are on, remembering there can only be two. You are either with us or against us.

This makes us reductive about a series of issues that are unimaginably complex. It leads people to latch on to one clear, compact explanation for what happened. It was about religion; it was about politics; it was about war; it was about terror; it was about Islam. All of these explanations are too simple to properly explain what led to Wednesday’s massacre. They each may explain something about what happened, but none can explain everything. Creating these simplistic binaries only makes us less likely to conduct a realistic analysis of the complicated forces that drive political violence.

It is, of course, important to mourn the loss of lives as a global community when tragedy strikes. Collective grief is cathartic but grieving for the losses does not require us to take sides.

We should not have to announce #JeSuisCharlie in order to prove we are against politically motivated murder. Being a proponent of unrestricted free speech should not be a requisite quality of someone who is against the execution of innocent people. Similarly, just because a person is of a particular religion, they should not be asked to prove they condemn murder. There is room for every decent human being on the side that condemns the senseless taking of innocent lives.

On the other hand, the side of those capable of or approving of cold-blooded murder is very small. It need not include every person who suggests limiting the right to free speech. As Gary Younge aptly pointed out this week, no-one elected these three gunmen. They do not represent anybody, and no section of society should be undeservedly aligned with them.

Creating these moral imperatives distorts the very principle of free speech itself. Free speech allows citizens to express themselves when they are offended or alienated by the actions or words of others. By silencing anyone who criticises the offensive nature of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, and by condemning editors who refuse to republish them, we are restricting the very freedom we are seeking to defend.

Polarising this debate also means we are less able to conduct an open, informed and helpful analysis of the situation and how we might best prevent it in future. At the very heart of the concept of freedom of speech is that it allows for the development of a society that can openly debate difficult concepts and encourage the dissent of others. Freedom of speech means no idea goes unchallenged; the idea that Charlie Hebdo is henceforth immune to criticism should be no different. Freedom of speech means that complicated and difficult ideas and problems are challenged and cross-examined until a solution becomes attainable.

Being reductive about the causes and consequences of this tragedy will not help us to figure out how to make our world more peaceful and less violent. The aim of terrorism is to violently punish those who disagree with fundamental principles, and so in the face of it we need to cherish our capacity for complex analysis and debate more than ever.

The world of a violent man who commits senseless acts of terror is radically black and white, but ours need not become that way in response.

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