The shooting of 12 people that were in the office of the satirical cartoonist newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, was a horrible and useless killing.
Having never heard of Charlie Hebdo, until the killing of their 12 employees; cartoons were soon showing up on my computer screen. As a Catholic, I found the cartoons about the Pope and the Catholic Church offensive and insulting. Especially at this time when the present leader of the Church, Pope Francis, is receiving high praise for his reform within the Church from people of all faiths, even some lapsed Catholics and atheists.
But the meanest and most disrespectful cartoon that Charlie Hebdo created depicted a human being lying nude and wearing a turban with his back side up in an uncompromising posture! This is the kind of cartoon that may send extremists or fundamentalists with guns to seek revenge.
The murder of the Charlie Hebdo employees brought out a million people into the streets of Paris to indicate that everyone should have unhindered liberty and freedom of speech, and the right to print or publish their own view of whatever they like and let the barbs fall where they will. I would humbly suggest that it is a sad state of world affairs when liberty means the freedom to insult, demean and mock people’s most sacred beliefs.
Humanity lives in a world of double standards. For example, where were the million pencil-armed Parisians when the USA and their allies invaded Iraq, known as the Gulf War, and the illegal 2003 Shock and Awe war against the citizens of Iraq, killing thousands? And Afghanistan with Canada’s help? Where were they when Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu’s powerful military forces shelled and bombed Palestinians in Gaza; killing, wounding and displacing thousands of civilians,including women and children? All these invasions have also caused billions, perhaps a trillion dollars in collateral damage, and unbelievable hardship for the poor.
As long as western military powers and their allies continue to invade regions in the Middle East, for whatever reason, and Israel continues to expand their settlement programs on Palestinian land, supported by the Israeli military; there will continue to be extremist individuals or groups who will demonstrate their resistance with the use of weapons. They will be labelled as “terrorists.”
Leo Kurtenbach
Saskatoon, SK
