The Charlie Hebdo massacre hits close to home for millions of people around the world and particular for those in the media who’ve seen the once somewhat risky job of reporter become increasingly dangerous over the past few years. And now we cartoonists and the larger issue of freedom of expression that are in peril. Will and can terrorists control freedom of expression? It seems like they are having some success so far in the wake of the murder of 12 people in France, including four of the country’s to cartoonists. Some newspapers and agencies have blotted out or removed covers of the offending magazine in the wake of the killings.
I feel some deja vu in reading about this case. I was covering Tijuana as my beat for The San Diego Union in 1988 when when the cofounder of the newspaper Zeta Hector Felix Miranada was assassinated — and many still believe it was because of his newspaper and what he wrote in his often snarky column. I still remember the shock on both sides of the border and the vows of journalists not to be intimidated about who or what group they would write about as I stood in the funeral home and looked at the coffin and smelled that sickening sweet smell in the room. And Zeta and Mexican reporters and American reporters from San Diego (including one who wound up wearing a bullet proof vest after learning he was on a drug trafficker’s hit list) most assuredly were not halted in their gathering and reporting of the facts when “El Gato Felix” was riddled with bullets.
Multiple that now times 12 — and make the targets this time not newspaper reporters who dig up facts, or publisher, or even newspaper owners who write columns. But cartoonists who draw images to try and make a point and elicit a laugh.
But The Daily Beast’s John Avlon says it best for all of us who worked or work in the media — and any of us who don’t intend to have our de facto publishers become people who aim guns at people or hold knives to their necks to control ideas and thwart opposition. Here are some chunks of what Avalon writes:
In adversity we learn so much about ourselves. Now is not the time for accommodation and fear. We must stand up for free speech.
The shock brings clarity—a reminder that evil exists and free speech, no matter who might it offend, is a bedrock value of liberal democracy. An attack on journalists anywhere is an attack on civil society everywhere.
The closest parallels to this attack are last decade’s deadly riots over the cartoons of Muhammad published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. But there are more recent echoes of this intimidation game in the brief panic over The Interview after the Sony hackers threatened 9/11-style retaliation if the film was ever released. For a time, theater chains and the studio caved. Then popular demand did an end-run around their cowardice and the film was released without consequence other than profit and laughter.
Terrorists, by definition, try to affect people’s behavior through fear. That is their strategy—violence is just a tactic. The right response is reflexive: Don’t ever give in to people who try to intimidate you. Instead, straighten your civic backbone and push back in clear conscience. Insist on your right to live in freedom from fear.
But even as blood and tears dry in Paris, we’ve seen supposedly civilized voices try to calm passions through accommodation. The Associated Press officially censored images of Charlie Hebdo’s offending covers from their coverage of the attack. Other major news outlets made the same decision, hiding behind a misplaced sense of multicultural sensitivity. But let’s be honest. The decision not to run the cartoons is motivated by nothing more than fear: either fear of offending or fear of retaliation.
There were tweedier arguments for accommodation as well. On Al Jazeera America, Arthur Goldhammer argued against reproduction of the images, assuring us that “If the magazine’s omnidirectional impudence had been limited to words, it probably would not have ended in a bloodbath.” FT columnist Tony Barber indulged in a lofty game of blame the victim, writing: “Charlie Hebdo has a long record of mocking, baiting, and needling French Muslims. If the magazine stops just short of outright insults, it is nevertheless not the most convincing champion of the principle of freedom of speech… some common sense would be useful at publications such as Charlie Hebdo, and Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten, which purport to strike a blow for freedom when they provoke Muslims, but are actually just being stupid.”
Then he notes (these are excerpted partially):
First, Charlie Hebdo was a proudly equal opportunity offender—as one of their journalists said, “We want to laugh at the extremists—every extremist. They can be Muslim, Jewish, Catholic.”
Second, the “common sense” standard advocated by Barber is essentially self-censorship—the ultimate condescension of applying different civic standards for different groups in Western society. This kind of excessive politically correct respect for multiculturalism can slide quickly into the swamp of moral relativism, where otherwise educated people shrug their shoulders and say dangerously dumb things like “one man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist.”
Finally, the complaint that Charlie Hebdo’s satire was “stupid” is a refrain also evident in the aftermath of The Interview incident: How come defense of something as important as free speech needs to be done in the name of sophomoric dick jokes?
Republishing Charlie Hebdo’s offending covers was an easy decision at The Daily Beast.
Further down he writes:
So as the shock slowly subsides, what’s the proper response to this attack beyond bringing the killers to justice? Defiance. Resolve. That’s why republishing Charlie Hebdo’s offending covers was an easy decision at The Daily Beast after the attack. Newspapers around Europe have also done so in solidarity with the slain. Along with the massive rallies in support of the satirists, we send the same message: We’re not afraid. We will not be intimidated.
Standing up to extremists is one of the great challenges of our time. It is the obligation of citizens and journalists as well as governments. And we can confront the terrorism that too often comes from radical Islam without getting dragged into ugly, endless, existential debates about a clash of civilizations.[Boldface added byTMV]
We can do that because of men like Ahmed Merabet, the police officer murdered by the Islamists on the street outside the offices of Charlie Hebdo. He was Muslim—something that apparently didn’t occur to the theological thugs with Kalashnikovs…
He concludes:
In the end, the clarity that comes from moments of horror can help us recommit to deeper principles. Real liberal values—an unyielding defense of individual liberty and its essential tributaries like freedom of speech and freedom of the press—are worth fighting for without apologies. The choice between freedom and fear is not difficult when seen with perspective. And the slain satirists of Charlie Hebdo have given us a parting gift, the reminder that laughter can inspire the confidence and the courage to confront the absurdities of extremism.
A bittersweet gift, to be sure.
And, I can easily predict, out if the bitterness will grow a resolve on the part of the press, populations around the world — and governments that had not yet pulled out all steps to try and eliminate the spreading terrorist toxicity from our troubled 21st century.
GO HERE TO READ AVLON’S PIECE IN ITS ENTIRETY
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.