Comments on: Nick Cohen on Charlie Hebdo

By: Serdar Yegulalp

Serdar Yegulalp — Sat, 02 May 2015 15:18:44 +0000

I still reserve the right to think of “CH”‘s work as gross and not funny, but I would rather not end up casting my sympathies with their murderers by default.

I’m preparing a longer essay about my thoughts on this matter. Short version: free speech needs vigorous defenses and not halfway-housing, and while I may not have liked “CH”, I would much rather live with them than have bullets in their heads. Or mine, for that matter.

(Side note: Another essay invoked Noam Chomsky’s defense of Faurisson’s right to free speech. Not the wisest reference, if you ask me.)

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Fri, 01 May 2015 07:15:16 +0000

When the head of SOS Racisme calls Charlie Hebdo "France's greatest anti-racism weekly", then I'm going to give those saying that the messages in the cartoons get lost in translation the benefit of the doubt.

By: ObjectiveReality

ObjectiveReality — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 22:32:31 +0000

You are perfectly free to believe that Charlie Hebdoâ€™s cartoons are gross, purile, insulting or offensive. But that is not the point.

It was for me, though. I don’t think what happened to the staff of CH was in any way justifiable, but I did think that translating them automatically into heroic martyrs (as seemed to be the mode at the time) was a mistake.

Sometimes, both sides of a conflict can be wrong.