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avevale_intelligencerNever, never, never blame the victim. That's what we're always told. And most of the time it's absolutely right. No woman should ever be blamed for being raped, or for daring to seek an abortion. No gay or bi or trans person should ever be blamed for being assaulted or bullied or driven to suicide. No one who belongs to an ethnic minority should ever be blamed for the insane acts of racists, and no atheist or member of a different religion should ever be blamed for the hate crimes committed against them by extremists of any religious stripe. The people who commit these atrocious acts are simply and solely to blame for them. Nobody else, and least of all the victims.
But. The Charlie Hebdo case is not entirely like that.
Let's take this a step away from reality. Suppose you are Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, and young Captain Carrot brings you a report on the clacks from Quirm. A gang of dwarfs have stormed the offices of a satirical magazine and butchered the entire staff plus several innocent bystanders. Nobody knows which dwarfs they were, but there's been bad feeling among the more extreme grags and deep-downers ever since Koom Valley failed to turn into a war. Nonetheless, dwarf communities in Ankh-Morpork and all across the Disc have declared their sorrow and outrage at this terrible crime, while of course lamenting the fact that they don't know who did it either. Seems a simple enough issue.
And then you discover that this particular magazine made a habit, indeed a feature, of publishing offensive caricatures of dwarfs, and trolls, and vampires, and werewolves. (Hardly ever humans.) You find that they put on their cover, for instance, a picture of Tak, the dwarf god, being buggered by a troll. You discover that, in the wake of this incident, various groups of humans are saying that well, it's the principle of the thing, innit, if you can't say things like that about the rocks and the gritsuckers what's happened to freedom of speech, eh?
Now, you're Vimes. You're used to seeing offensive caricatures of yourself in the Times, and mostly you pay no attention. But maybe you think, just for a moment, that if they printed a picture of you being buggered by Lord Vetinari, you might just get a trifle irritated yourself, as indeed might he. Not that they would, of course. But maybe you think, just for a moment, that while a terrible crime has most certainly been committed, perhaps the issue isn't quite as simple as it at first appeared, and perhaps there's such a thing as taking a principle too far. And you wonder what Vetinari would have done if such a magazine had been started up in his city.
But then, this is Ankh-Morpork, where no-one would think of suggesting that a person who stood on top of a tall building in a thunderstorm wearing a copper helmet and shouting "All gods are bastards" was not, in point of fact, asking for it.
Maybe I'm wrong. But maybe I'm not. Those people should not have been killed, and the people who did it (whether Islamic extremists or not) are cowardly murderers trying to incite hatred and division and start a war. But it's arguable that, in their non-lethal way, the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo were doing exactly the same. And some of the responses I have seen to this crime have been deeply alarming.
Freedom of speech is not just a right. It's also a responsibility.
That's what I think, anyway.
EDIT: interesting. Only one commenter seems to have noticed my repeated statements that the crime (a) was a crime, (b) was perpetrated by murderers, (c) should not have happened, et cetera et cetera. Apparently, not condoning either the cartoons or the murders is not an option. Sides must be chosen and nobody is excused. Oh well.
FURTHER EDIT: and when I said they were trying to start a war, this is what I was trying in my fumbling way to hint at. I think this writer is correct; the thing was done entirely to polarise people and "sharpen the contradictions," and I have seen too many on the net who seem all too willing to allow themselves to be polarised.
But. The Charlie Hebdo case is not entirely like that.
Let's take this a step away from reality. Suppose you are Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, and young Captain Carrot brings you a report on the clacks from Quirm. A gang of dwarfs have stormed the offices of a satirical magazine and butchered the entire staff plus several innocent bystanders. Nobody knows which dwarfs they were, but there's been bad feeling among the more extreme grags and deep-downers ever since Koom Valley failed to turn into a war. Nonetheless, dwarf communities in Ankh-Morpork and all across the Disc have declared their sorrow and outrage at this terrible crime, while of course lamenting the fact that they don't know who did it either. Seems a simple enough issue.
And then you discover that this particular magazine made a habit, indeed a feature, of publishing offensive caricatures of dwarfs, and trolls, and vampires, and werewolves. (Hardly ever humans.) You find that they put on their cover, for instance, a picture of Tak, the dwarf god, being buggered by a troll. You discover that, in the wake of this incident, various groups of humans are saying that well, it's the principle of the thing, innit, if you can't say things like that about the rocks and the gritsuckers what's happened to freedom of speech, eh?
Now, you're Vimes. You're used to seeing offensive caricatures of yourself in the Times, and mostly you pay no attention. But maybe you think, just for a moment, that if they printed a picture of you being buggered by Lord Vetinari, you might just get a trifle irritated yourself, as indeed might he. Not that they would, of course. But maybe you think, just for a moment, that while a terrible crime has most certainly been committed, perhaps the issue isn't quite as simple as it at first appeared, and perhaps there's such a thing as taking a principle too far. And you wonder what Vetinari would have done if such a magazine had been started up in his city.
But then, this is Ankh-Morpork, where no-one would think of suggesting that a person who stood on top of a tall building in a thunderstorm wearing a copper helmet and shouting "All gods are bastards" was not, in point of fact, asking for it.
Maybe I'm wrong. But maybe I'm not. Those people should not have been killed, and the people who did it (whether Islamic extremists or not) are cowardly murderers trying to incite hatred and division and start a war. But it's arguable that, in their non-lethal way, the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo were doing exactly the same. And some of the responses I have seen to this crime have been deeply alarming.
Freedom of speech is not just a right. It's also a responsibility.
That's what I think, anyway.
EDIT: interesting. Only one commenter seems to have noticed my repeated statements that the crime (a) was a crime, (b) was perpetrated by murderers, (c) should not have happened, et cetera et cetera. Apparently, not condoning either the cartoons or the murders is not an option. Sides must be chosen and nobody is excused. Oh well.
FURTHER EDIT: and when I said they were trying to start a war, this is what I was trying in my fumbling way to hint at. I think this writer is correct; the thing was done entirely to polarise people and "sharpen the contradictions," and I have seen too many on the net who seem all too willing to allow themselves to be polarised.
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no subject
Date: 2015-01-10 06:40 pm (UTC)Though I probably would have mentioned off-switches in there somewhere.
And also the massacres currently being carried out by the killers' "co-religents" in Nigeria.