Knee jerk reactions are popular with those who struggle to understand the complexities of any given situation. So it should come as no surprise that Charlie Hebdo got branded as a racist publication by people who didn’t understand French.
One of Charlie Hebdo’s writers, Robert McLiam Wilson, patiently expressed his displeasure in the New Statesman at those journalists who criticized Charlie Hebdo without being able to read it.
The notion that seemingly intelligent writers would attempt to assess the political stance of a journal based on looking at a cartoon without understanding the caption, or the subtlety of its language, beggars belief.
I am on shaky ground here. I commented on the freedom of the press to lampoon religions after the Charlie Hebdo murders, without having read a single issue. My knee jerk reaction was that taunting religious fanatics in the press was a dangerous game, and that caution, as well as respect for sincerely held beliefs was advisable.
Sometimes caution has to be thrown to the winds, and those brave enough to do it in order to expose hypocrisy and shine light in dark places deserve our respect.
It will be interesting to learn the outcome of the symposium organised by the Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities at Queen’s University Belfast, Understanding Charlie: New Perspectives on Contemporary Citizenship after Charlie Hebdo.
Panel papers and keynote lectures will be collated to form a journal special edition, to be published in 2016.
odespinner 