I was going to write about Charlie Hebdo, and then I wondered what I could add to the many eloquent words and images created by artists around the world. But I do have some thoughts, and so here they are.
As humans I believe we should be free to worship whomever or whatever we choose – faith is an intensely personal journey.
As writers and artists we should be free to create what comes to us, to use our voices unfettered.
As consumers of said art, if we see something we don’t like we can look away, give a bad review or write a rebuttal. Violence is never the answer.
And I am so very tired of people with guns and knives and bombs using religion as some sort of justification for their terrible actions (a problem not confined to Islam, so please no negative comments).
By their actions, these gunmen have succeeded in disseminating the literature they found so offensive to a far wider audience than it would ever have reached alone, as well as causing further damage to the religion they claim to hold so dear.
There is no action without consequence.
Helen Glynn Jones 
Well said Helen. I just don’t know if the gunmen’s manipulators are very clever or very stupid. I am sure that they used the reasoning of your last sentence to justify their own actions yesterday.
Thanks Barbara, and that is so very true. Let’s hope the next action taken doesn’t involve further loss of freedom or lives x
You’re right, of course, Helen.
Well, I think you’re right anyway.
But the terrifying thing is that there are all these others who do not share our notions of freedom. And there I go, slipping into the tribalism that I so want to abhor. I hate the way, particularly on Twitter, people are lining up behind one camp or another; the people who are saying, “but what of the Al-Jazeera journalists killed by US fire in Baghdad? Why doesn’t the West mourn their deaths?”; the people who want us all to slot into “west” or “east”, Muslim or not-Muslim, moderate Muslim or raving fanatic. Whatever happened to people – just people? Or have we always been too messy to fit such a simple description?