Je suis Charlie

By Jason Lim

I am Charlie today, as should everyone who values the freedom to say what you want when you want and how you want to say it.

Note that I didn't say where since I believe that each people and country have the right to define what constitutes acceptable speech for them according to their traditions, cultural sensibilities, and political maturity. However, in a liberal democracy where freedom of speech is enshrined, no one has the right to threaten or intimidate others for expressing their thoughts, however distasteful, disrespectful, and downright offensive.

And there is no question that Charlie Hebdo's satires were offensive. While they were an equal opportunity offender, there is also no question that their past satire of the Prophet Muhammad rubbed especially hard against Muslim sensibilities around the world. In many ways, they were admittedly vulgar. But what is freedom of speech if it doesn't include the freedom to be as offensive and vulgar as you want to. After all, one person's vulgarity could be another person's satire.

When Charlie Hebdo was first firebombed back in 2011 the day after it published an edition that featured a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad that read, "100 lashes if you don't die of laughter," many critics suggested they should use better judgment when publishing satirical cartoons that could inflame Muslim sensibilities.

Bruce Cumley of Time is quoted to have said, "Not only are such Islamophobic antics [as publishing cartoons] futile and childish, but they also openly beg for the very violent responses from extremists their authors claim to proudly defy in the name of common good. What common good is served by creating more division and anger, and by tempting belligerent reaction?"

But freedom of speech is not about creating the common good. What common good is served by KKK's marching through a town espousing their racist beliefs? What common good is served by Zaitokukai in Japan when they spew their hatred of Koreans? Closer to home, how about the actions of the Ilbe when they mockingly ate Chinese food in front of the families of Sewol victims when the latter were undergoing a hunger strike to push for a thorough investigation? Are any of these examples less offensive or vulgar to our sensibilities?

Also, if Muslim sensibilities should be so coddled, then who's next? Why not Christian, Buddhists, Sikhs and every other major and minor spiritual traditions around the world?

Or, how about North Korea? Why shouldn't SONY have used "better judgment" when producing a movie that openly mocks the leader of North Korea and shows his head get blown off? In this light, isn't North Korea perfectly justified in showing its righteous anger and doing everything it can to stop SONY from showing the movie that so offends its sensibilities?

As you can see, self-censorship of free speech due to concerns about "sensibilities" can be a slippery slope because everyone can be offended by anything. I am not saying that you can't be judicious in how and when you exercise your free speech. But the right to free speech itself should be a fundamental democratic value that we defend absolutely; our defense of free speech can't be relative to how much the content of the free speech agree with our sensibilities.

No less than Voltaire, the great French satirist, is purported to have said, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Which is exactly how France, and other liberal democracies, should defend against such terrorist attacks: by recognizing that this was an attack against one of our fundamental democratic values. Once we recognize the nature of this attack, then there is really only one path forward: to be as loud and vocal ― in deeds and words ― in defending the democratic core values that have come under attack.

We can begin by honoring the rule of law and publicly acknowledging that a variety in culture and ethnic background, race, lifestyle, and belief is not only permissible but desirable and beneficial in a pluralistic society. In a word, we can defend ourselves by being even more fiercely and absolutely democratic, not moving away from what defines us to strike back at those who would hurt us. We can't be like the terrorists in order to defeat the terrorists. We have to be even more like us to remain as us.

Some say that the employees of Charlie Hebdo were not heroes but merely victims of a terrorist attack. But they became the victims of a terrorist attack precisely because they ferociously defended their right to offend. In a very real way, they were killed because they were exercising their right to free speech in the face of explicit threats and attacks. Whether that free speech was vulgar or offensive to others is not the point.

Yeah, they were heroes in my book. And I am definitely Charlie today and every day.

Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C. based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006. He can be reached at jasonlim@msn.com, facebook. com/jasonlimkoreatimes and @jasonlim2012.