Je Suis Charlie

Yet again we learn of an act of barbarism perpetrated in the name of religion. Ten brave, intelligent, and talented people pulled down by vermin. Two gendarmes killed in cold blood by cowards. All, apparently, because they sought to challenge blind ideology through satire and wit. We can expect that this will happen again. There is really no protection against the random act of violence. We have seen it before, in the name of Catholicism and Irish unity. And we have defeated it, through the power of unity, will, and rational discussion.

What of a religion whose only response to intellectual argument is violence? How strong is that religion? The scum who attacked in Paris shouted that their god is ‘great’. I cannot be alone in doubting the potency of a god who cannot persuade by the power of words in civilised discourse. What value a convert achieved through fear? What god of power and which believers of spirituality require that their idols be protected in the corporeal existence. Surely the place to deal with those who will not, or cannot, accept religious faith is in the afterlife?

The sole possible response is to continue as normal, to question orthodoxy, to challenge ideology, and to seek a society free from violence. In this way we will remember the journalists of Charlie Hebdo along with the others in Syria and across the world whose lives have been cut short in the name of a god. The acts of terrorists are rarely remembered or celebrated. The perpetrators will die and turn to dust in the same way as the rest of us, their names forgotten. The victims, and what they represented, will be remembered forever.

The pen is great.