A reply to barbarism

This morning’s attack in Paris on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead prompts many questions. I was stunned by the absurdity of the event, its brutal disproportionateness, whichever way you look at it, as well as by the seeming impossibility of dealing with people whose actions lack any basis in rationality. But above all, what happened today suggests to me that the only way of fighting these people is to show that they will not achieve their ends by violence, and in fact that terror attacks of this nature usually have the opposite effect: extreme censorship of this nature will only lead more people than ever to read the publication in question.

From the perspective of circulating information, this kind of intimidation, whereby people pay with their lives for having published something that others find “offensive”, requires an immediate response. And that response cannot and must not be to censor Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons, as some sections of the media have done; instead, we should make the magazine’s content more visible than ever.

This is where the internet can play such a vital role: it sees actions like today’s as an error, something that must be isolated to prevent it damaging the system. Today, 12 people have died, among them artists, journalists, police, and several bystanders who simply got in the way. We must not forget however, that today’s killers and those who support them cannot murder everybody who publishes something they find offensive; what’s more, a life where we cowed to such barbarism would not be worth living. This isn’t about humor, or religion, or respect: it is even more important than that. Herewith my humble contribution.

(En español, aquí)