Charlie Hebdo

Last week, gunmen burst into the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and gunned down a number of the cartoonists working there. The gunmen claimed they were doing it to avenge the publications of offensive cartoons depicting Mohammed in 2006 - they were previously attacked in 2011 for these. They published more cartoons ridiculing Mohammed and Islam in 2011 and 2012.

While we are, sadly, all too familiar with terrorist attacks of various sorts, these were more effective than many have been of late - twelve people dead. The response to this across Europe and the world has been substantial (over 2 million turned out in Paris). As I have mentioned elsewhere, this seems to be because it serves as a focus for the pain of all the suffering, all of the intolerance, all of the bigoted hatred we experience. That is not to dismiss the response to this event, because it is seen to strike against the critical media, which is one of the bastions against an oppressive and dictatorial leadership. And quite rightly too.

This is, to my mind, the core of this attack. It is an attack on the media who provide a challenge to the accepted position, to the dictatorial powers, to those who would oppress us. I may not agree with them all, I may find myself offended by some of their reporting, but I would support their right to exist and to their freedom forever, because they are the last bastions against a dictatorial rule by those in power. In truth, we are not that far from this anyway, which is why these types of media are so important today.

In the world today, we do have a number of rules who rule oppressively, who abuse their people and their power. We know many of their names, because our leaders (who hide behind the curtain of "democracy") tell us about them. But I suspect that the biggest oppressors of people - directly and indirectly - are some of the major religions. While it is easy to point to Islam, Christianity is as bad. Of course, it is not the majority of leaders or followers of these religions who are oppressive, who are dangerous. Islam, properly taught and followed, is a religion of peace. I have known all sorts of Muslims in my time, they represent the normal breadth of people, although - in my experience - they have tended to be kinder, gentler and less insanely vile as some who don't profess any faith.

The same, of course, applies to Christians - most of them are nice enough people, they tend to represent the normal variation of people. The problem comes, I think, when people take these religious ideas to the extreme, and use them to justify hatred aggression and violence. Sometimes this comes out in actions like the Charlie Hebdo attack (which was perpetrated by violent terrorists, not Muslims, whatever their claimed justification), but it also comes in some of the appalling actions that occur in countries, where people are abused, attacked and killed because they break the norms of a religious belief set.

Islam is not a violent faith, any more than Christianity is. What is violent is rampant capitalism, nationalism, and religious0inspired dictatorship. It is the likes of Charlie Hebdo that temper the worst of these, which is why we should protect them with our lives.