On
January 7th, the French satire newspaper Charlie Hebdo was attacked by Islamic extremists/terrorists,
killing 11 people. The newspaper was attacked because of a (potentially) offensive
rendition of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The extremists “justified” their
attacks by yelling out phrases like "Allahu
Akbar", meaning “God is the greatest”. Not only was the shooting a
massive impact on France, but on the whole world as well. Supporters everywhere
found a common phrase: Je suis Charlie
(I am Charlie). Social networks everywhere quickly blew up with the hashtag #jesuischarlie, and the posts and tweets
are still rolling in, nearly 3 weeks later. Charlie Hebdo responded with a caricature
of Muhammad holding a sign that said “Je suis Charlie” on the front page of
their print.
American
newspaper publishers have been faced with a challenge of sorts: To republish
the “Je suis Charlie” message, or to ignore what happened. The opportunity cost
here is to either support Charlie Hebdo and express free speech, or be barred
by terrorism; you can’t have both.
In
parallel, Sony suppressed the release of their satirical/offensive movie The Interview after threats and
hack-attacks on their company and the United States by North Korea. The premise
of The Interview is simple:
assassinate Kim Jong-un, the standing leader of North Korea. North Korea was
not happy about that, at all. Sony initially completely recalled the movie, and
it seemed dead, but they eventually released it in a few select theaters, and
on YouTube’s streaming service.
Both
of these attacks threatened freedom and expression. By choosing not to release
either the newspaper or the movie, terrorism wins. By choosing to release them,
freedom wins, but there is still a threat from the opposing forces. President
Obama spoke out after Sony pulled The
Interview, saying “We cannot have a
society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in
the United States... we can’t start changing our patterns or behavior.”
Even Obama realizes what will happen if this becomes a societal norm! If you let
the terrorists win, then freedom loses, and that’s what America is built upon.
This is really good. You draw two great conclusions about freedom and terrorism and use excellent examples. This was a good read, I enjoyed you intelligent input.
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