Whenever there is a tragic event with a large loss of life, it's always horrifying. When a plane goes into the ocean, when a tsunami hits a small island or when gunmen go on a rampage like they did yesterday in Paris, it's always a difficult piece of news to digest.
The shootings yesterday at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris were particularly troubling for me as a journalist. Journalists can very often be the target of anger and hostilities, which is understandable. Being the targets for violence is not understandable. But this isn't what was so troubling about the news from Paris to me.
The shootings in Paris weren't an attack by the insulted against the insulter, they were an attack on free speech. The purpose of any news product is, in part, to disseminate information. The greater purpose, however, is to provoke thought. The only way news organizations can do this is through protected freedom of speech. The absence of free speech creates room for oppression and tyranny. Think about it like this: as Americans, the very first act we did to push ourselves into independence was to write down our complaints and send them to King George.
Free speech is the foundation of our liberty. The concepts that define us as Americans - liberty, freedom, independence- all stem from free speech. Think of it a different way: Recently, there have been protests across the country against police brutality. What being truly free is about is your ability to protest against the police while being protected by the police. Part of what the police "serve and protect" are the people who distrust or otherwise dislike the police. Certainly it seems unfair from the police perspective, but that whole notion is what freedom is really about. As a journalist, my defense of free speech means I gladly allow your right to write an angry letter calling me the worst person who ever lived. I'm glad people take that measure. I want them to want a voice, to have an opinion. But at the threshold of violence, that right ends.
These killings are personal to me, as a fellow journalist to my colleagues in Paris. They should be personal to you as an American, too. When you try to stop free speech, you're stomping on American ideals. Free speech is independence, it is liberty. Those things can't exist without it.
Certainly I understand that France and the U.S. haven't always had the rosiest of relationships -cite: 'Freedom' fries. But even a superficial examination of American history reveals that the United States isn't what it is without France. The French aided us greatly during the Revolution, they sold us nearly half of our entire country in the Louisiana Purchase and, as a way to thank us for laying out the template for their own Revolution against tyranny, they gifted us the Statue of Liberty, which is, aside from the flag itself, our most visible and enduring symbol of freedom. So journalist or not, freedom fries lover or not, we should never forget that, on par, our relationship with France has been strong and beneficial to both nations. This attack on Parisian soil should be viewed by us the same way an attack in Washington DC, New York or Los Angeles would be viewed.
If ever something good can come from a tragedy like this, it did my heart good to see the response the French had in the wake of the shootings. Throngs of French took to the streets of Paris last night, candles in hand. The movement wasn't necessarily a vigil for those killed. Rather, it was a statement to the gunmen and those like them that the French are not scared, won't be intimidated and will continue to satire what they want, how they want for all of their days to come.
While free speech is the foundation of liberty, the determination to not be bullied, intimidated or silenced in any way is the foundation of free speech. To borrow (with a slight twist) from Martin Luther King, a threat to free speech anywhere is a threat to free speech everywhere.
To put it in a simpler way, the remainder of our rights are pointless without free speech. Our right to bear arms exists as a means of protecting our right to free speech. Other Constitution rights that protect us from the government and its forces, its systems and conventions, afford us fair treatment and equality are all meaningless in a world without free speech. The right to speak out against the empowered is what really keeps you protected; that your voice is the same as mine is real equality; being able to express an opinion in the manner you see fit is the real way you protect yourself from lawless actions of government forces.
So when you think of these attacks in Paris, express yourself. Say something. Do something. Say or do anything. We have in this country the right to remain silent. In this case, don't use it. If we remain silent, then we are all victims of those gunmen.
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