Some of the cartoons are profane and provocative. Many are not—at least not to civilized people who have a contemporary sense of humor. Satire provokes people to laugh and think.
I am heart-broken about the deaths of 10 Charlie Hebdo journalists and two police officers in Paris yesterday. These extremists struck at the heart of the one of the fundamental rights of a civilized society—the right to think and say something that is out of orthodoxy and dogma. The right to disagree. The right to dispute. The right to satirize.
The number of shootings and bombings is growing. These are but a few of the most notorious examples.
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An image of a weeping Muhammad has the headline, "Muhammad Overwhelmed by Fundamentalists." The dialogue bubble adds, "It's hard being loved by assholes." |
Brussels, May 2014. A radical who had fought as an Islamic extremist in Syria shot three people dead at the Jewish Museum.
London, May 2013. Two British-born converts to fundamental Islam were found guilty of murdering a British soldier, who was run over in a street and then hacked with knives and a meat cleaver.
France, March 2012. A member of Al Qaeda killed a French paratrooper in Toulouse, then seriously injured two soldiers in Montauban before shooting a rabbi and three Jewish children outside a Jewish day school.
I am through with all of the excuses, apologies and rationalizations about the difficulties these seventh century people are having living side by side with our 21st century values.
If these extremists wish to promote their seventh century values, then they should find a small niche on the planet for their own exclusive use. Disconnect them from the benefits of modern civilization such as the Internet, Facebook and blogging. They'll be free to stone and behead themselves over their own interpretations of Sharia law. But leave the rest of us alone.
The rest of us—Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, agnostic, atheist and everyone else—should be able to live our civilized life unimpeded.
Your fatwas do not apply here.