Charlie Hebdo is a provocative magazine. Everyone and everything is fair game. It is like the boy in class who enjoys pissing off every other boy, while revelling in the reactions that immediately follow ‒ of disgust, shock, anger and even threats. All this would only spur the magazine on. A mutual symbiotic relationship ‒ and a stable one, even. Till the eventual escalation. I used to argue with Wolinski about the purpose of being merely provocative. Wasn’t intention or substance also important? The constituency that the magazine addressed was already the converted (or un-converted). It was, well, preaching to the choir (see, one can’t get away from religion even if one tries). The French take their freedoms seriously. “I’d rather die standing up than kneeling down,” said Stephane Charbonnier, the editor of Charlie Hebdo. They may have known of the danger, but death is a very high price to pay for the freedom to offend. French society today is in flux, as are other parts of Europe. The recent attack will help only further polarise views and erect barriers, between states, and also between minds.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 21:58:15 +0000
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