The war on freedom of Expression

It seems lately that a lot of factions have been taking a shot at freedom of artistic impression. From the North Korean Cyber-Attack over the movie "The Interview" to the terrorist attack on Charley Hebdo in Paris just yesterday. These aren't the first time that such groups have resorted to threats and violence over opinions and views that they don't want to see expressed. What I find almost more disturbing than these attacks is the responses to them.

With the hack attack on Sony Pictures over "The Interview" their response was 'okay, you win, we're not going to release the movie ... just don't hurt us.' And it wasn't just Sony, several movies related to North Korea have been shut down including a documentary about life in a North Korean internment camp based on the life of someone that escaped.

No! Wrong answer ... BAD Hollywood, no cookie for you.

Now Sony did (I suspect under pressure from the Administration) release the film to theaters on schedule, but the canceled movies are still canceled. While the attackers may not have prevented that particular film from being released they still managed to STOP THE DEVELOPMENT of several other projects, one of which was a TRUE STORY. Yes, that's right, with nothing really more than a THREAT they have stopped the truth.

They won. They told the film companies that making movies that they disapproved of would not be allowed, and they got the movie companies to SELF CENSOR themselves so as to not 'offend' the North Korean government.

Likewise news agencies around the globe are now self censoring the cartoons that prompted the attack on Charley Hebdo in Paris yesterday. They're saying, on the one hand, that they stand with the magazine against this oppression. But on the other hand saying 'but we won't show the images because that might upset people and cause US to get attacked too.'

In other words 'Yeah! You stand up to them Charley! We've got your back! From over here, under the table where we hope the bad guys don't look. If you get attacked we'll feel bad for you while we say that you asked for it by provoking them in the first place.'

Yeah, that's right, some are saying, in essence, that they deserved to be attacked because they chose to print material that they knew that Muslims would find offensive. (Mind you it's okay that the magazine also published things that OTHER religions frequently found offensive, those religions don't attack, murder and behead people when they get offended.) Yes they published those cartoons, they were (and are) a satirical magazine ... they made satire from news headlines. Just like political cartoonists here in the US often OFFEND different groups of people with their Satire it was natural that they offended people from time to time. That they wouldn't be intimidated into 'protecting' a particular group or religion was their strength and what we should respect most.

Some people say 'is nothing sacred' ... and the answer is in a multicultural world such as we live in, no. Because what is 'sacred' to my culture isn't sacred to another. Should they be 'banned' from commentary on it because I or others from MY culture might be offended by it? If you do that then we're very quickly going to run out of topics of discussion, because anything has the potential to offend someone, particularly someone of a different culture.

If you're going to set aside a group and say that 'we can't offend these people' then to be honest and fair then you have to treat ALL groups the same. If you can't offend Muslims then you can't offend Catholics or Baptists or Jews or Buddhists or Hindus, or or or or or or or .... and on and on.

It is one thing to respect a people or culture. It is something completely different to FEAR them to the point that you won't allow something to be printed because it might offend a minority of them. And remember that's mainly what we're dealing with ... a MINORITY of Muslims. The radical minority, but still, realistically a minority. They just happen to be a minority that has no qualms about killing indiscriminately, that does not in any way value the lives of themselves or anyone else, and has zero respect for anyone else's opinions or rights. These are people that if you show them that they can push you around and that you'll let them, they'll just push harder and more frequently ... the answer isn't to fear them, the answer is to show them that you will not fear them and that they have no power over you.

Be louder.