Fanatics represent an aspect of humanity that will resort to violence. Muslims to not hold the patent on resorting to violence, but we are so quick to denounce what they do while not taking responsibility for the violence inflicted on others in the name of Freedom. I would have liked for the cartoonist in Paris (R.I.P) to have also focused on lampooning the racism and intolerance sweeping France and Europe, but I know thats a lot to ask of anyone, really. Its so easy to focus on one type of violence and forgetting that if one type is unacceptable it all is. Demonizing a particular group of people is violence because it adversely affects how they are seen by the people around them. We know what humans are like. Repeatedly depicting Native Americans, Africans and Jewish people grotesquely went hand in hand with treating them as sub-humans. Its not harmless fun. Freedom of speech and expression has its limits as does everything else. Everything thats set up to focus on mocking a particular group of people should be seen as a subtle act of violence against those people. TO BE CLEAR: I do not believe that those cartoonist deserved to die for expressing themselves and my heart goes out to their souls and their families during the worst time in their lives. I dont think anyone deserves to die except lots of people who are already dead like Hitler and Ide Amin...Thats convenient...
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 20:08:02 +0000