#JeSuisCharlie

Listening to the news these days leaves you feeling depressed. Everyday, a new attack. Everyday, a fresh story more gut wrenching than the previous. The recent attacks in Paris led to a rally today which many of our world leaders attended. A reaction to the attack on the people who worked at the Charlie Hebdo magazine, which is basically anti-establishment and had satirised Prophet Muhammed, among many other religious leaders and politicians. It was an attack on free speech. How dare anyone encroach on someone else's right to an opinion. Sure, maybe the cartoons were in 'bad taste' as my mom tactfully put it; but then, so are the infinite write-ups and paparazzi photos that invade the privacy of the famous. That doesn't mean we retaliate with violence. We retaliate with our voices.
We have the right to offend. We have the right to be offended. We have the right to express our beliefs without having to worry about death threats and actual attacks. And when it comes to religion, how can one's faith be shaken by reading an article or seeing a caricature showing an ugly truth? Being devout doesn't mean being a sycophant. Blindly believing whatever you're told is naivety. And just as you have the right to defend your faith,  you also have the right to see that its not perfect. All religions have their ugly sides. Fanaticism is present in all of them. But we have to be willing to recognise that. I was watching a debate on free speech with my mother. One of the panelists said that freedom of speech should exist, but in a controlled form. This caused one of the female panelists, a stand-up comedian, to say, "Controlled freedom is like being slightly pregnant". The idea is ridiculous. You either have complete freedom or you don't. And why shouldn't we have the right to speak our minds? We were endowed with them to use them-to think, to evaluate. Not to mechanically listen and accept whatever we are told.
Don't be afraid of voicing an opinion. Its an intrinsic right. And frankly, its insane that we are hesitant to use it. If these terrorists aren't afraid to pick up their guns and shoot more than a hundred children in Pakistan, cartoonists at their workplace, innocent shoppers buying their groceries, and countless other heart wrenching and blood-boiling crimes, why should be be afraid and be denied our right to speak up? Every single time we hesitate to speak up for what we think is right, we're no better than the person we hesitated to speak up against. I'll sign off with this French statement by the philosopher, Descartes - Je pense donc je suis. It means, " I think, therefore I am".
My interpretation of it is that we were blessed with the ability to think, to understand, to draw conclusions, to look at the whole picture. And when we don't take advantage of that, what are we really?