Forget free speech

Previously I wrote about the Hebdo posts on my Facebook news feed and how people said they were defending free speech...although they weren't sure how.

Well, forget free speech. I've found a better reason to circulate Hebdo material thanks to Stephen Fry.
Check out Fry's blog post on this.

Needless to say I don't agree with everything he wrote. Where Fry talks about an obligation to mock, I would say the obligation is for analysis and critique.

This could just be due to the differences in our trade. Fry as a comedy writer is armed with the ability to mock and wishes to apply his skills. My forte lies in observation.

We both feel obligated to react but in different ways.

Yet a light bulb flickered on over my head when I read the third paragraph:

"I cannot be sure exactly how many people since the murders have seen one or more of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons that ‘insult’ Islam or mock its prophet but I should imagine the number is now in the tens of millions. Had the brothers stayed their bloody hands it would have been 60,000 at the very most."

Now there is a good reason to spread the cartoons. The intention of the perpetrators was to stop the cartoons from being published or seen. The more they spread the less successful the mission. The less successful the mission the less likely it is to be repeated.

While we talk about the attack having a chilling effect on cartooning it could also have a chilling effect on further terrorist attacks.

No, I'm still not going to share the Hebdo or similar material on my news feed. 

But if someone were to share for these reasons I would understand that far more than the knee-jerk "because free speech".