It had to come didn’t it? The attack on freedom of speech, the sad tales of all the courageous journalists lying in their own blood pools, the callous response to a man lying on the ground claiming to be Muslim, and then shot in cold blood. The fear, the trembling, the realization, that this will never end, until we as a civilization realize what is basically on stake.
Seen from the ivory tower, this was what I knew would come, I warned about it a few days ago, but now when it is here. There is no feeling of “I told you didn’t I”. Just the sad feeling of remorse and the tears that creep to ones eyes, when you think about all those courageous persons continuing on their quest for the freedom of our democracies, of our societies.
To me this is not a time to start pointing fingers. Blaming the stupid politicians creating the situation, or being bitter on the police for not seriously protecting the few remaining die hard intellectuals, or blaming the leftists for being too weak and understanding. This is a time for unity. A time for forgetting all that makes us different, and start remembering what binds us together.
It has two roots. One the Viking, two the Hellenic. The Franks, the Anglosaxons, the Danes, the Germans, the Rus and many more held to the belief, that freethinking was something worth. In our Free States, intellectuals were called by that name in the olden times freethinkers, because this was what intellectuals did; thought out of the box, were critical, challenged the old ideas. This is what has developed us as civilizations, each new generation, building on the former to elevate our societies. For five thousand years has this happened.
The other root is Hellenic. It comes down to Socrates through Voltaire.
When they thought to kill Socrates, because he would not shut up. He, said ok, no problem, I will take that cup of hemlock. I will continue criticizing you, not because of any bad will, but because how are we to grow, if we cannot look our own stupid ideas in the eyes? How are we to be free, if we cannot speak freely? How are we to have democracy, if we are not able to criticize those in power? How? He left this world, in honor of that principle, as all the courageous journalists did. They adored him, and as his children of France, did they give their life for an ideal larger than themselves. They were the best of us, and yet we can only truly honor their deaths by honoring the principles they died for.
This is not a time for internal bickering, this is a time for unity. Unity banded together around the values that our heroes have lived and now died for.
May spirit of freedom be with all the brave journalists of Charlie Hebdo.
