Not sure if I have the French right but my language skills are non-existent. I also suppose that if I had any guts, I'd have had Muhammad lying on the ground cowering beneath the pen of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists. Did I censor myself? I like to think I simply wanted to draw one of the cowards who committed yesterday's atrocity in the name of a supposedly peace loving god.
The thing I've taken from the day was a revelation. It might seem a trite or even obvious revelation but for me it was quite profound. I suddenly realised that despite all the wars that have raged across the Middle East and Afghanistan, it wasn't a politician or a solder these people attacked. They chose to attack cartoonists. Perhaps it's the cartoonists these people fear the most. That's sobering but it's also a point of optimism. Maybe the best weapon we have against these radicals isn't the bullet but the joke. It's the ability to show the radicals up for the misguided medieval morality police they really are. Maybe the Western governments should redirect a bit of their war chest to cartoonists instead of the companies making munitions. You can't bomb religion out of a person but laughter can sure as hell force a little reason back into their soul.
Excellent!
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