In response to “Spare a Thought For Those Who Are Not Charlie”

Rosa Brooks’s piece in Foreign Policy this week reminds me of every time I’ve donated money to an urgent cause while I, myself, was in debt.

It’s not two weeks since the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo and the pundits are nearly done discrediting the public outcry over the deaths of journalists, police, and grocery shoppers — those hypocritical world leaders, that faux French populace, the silly pencils. Brush your hands together and prepare for the maudlin, bizarre “let’s compare deaths” ritual that is now as inevitable as a funeral.

We cannot respond to death emotionally anymore. When we do we are mocked for it. The truncated news cycle has obliterated our reverence for loss of life. The fact of death, not the means, not the method, but the fact of its devastating permanence used to unite us, if only for a month or two. Before 9/11 and the news ticker we permitted ourselves a period of raw emotionality, insanity and despair over our helplessness to bring back the dead. Now death is analyzed and picked over while the gun is still pointed, before the crime is fully perpetrated and last breaths expelled. A dead person is controversial for being dead, and he or she divides us.

I’ve never understood the thinking behind comparing deaths. I’m generally an admirer of Brooks’s commentary but her piece in Foreign Policy this week angered me. It’s a laundry list of tragedies under the umbrella of “je ne suis pas Charlie.” She seems to view mourning as a finite resource and thinks the world is foolishly wasting its supply. This process of death comparison is rooted in the absurd and I feel compelled, in my own emotional state, to push back. All of the victims of murder over the last two weeks are strangers to me, but still I’m able to make different meanings out of their deaths without holding them up side by side. “Spare a thought” for the non-Charlie victims? That directive is insulting.

I value free speech, and the attack on Charlie Hebdo was a symbolic attack on free speech.

I live in a country where I could be a victim of that kind of attack. The perpetrators of those attacks are trying to dismantle a right that I live and die by: the right to speak my mind. My solidarity with Charlie Hebdo has nothing to do with their cartoons and everything to do with the free speech they exercised courageously in the face of threat. I didn’t hear a single person interviewed over the past ten days say “I love Charlie Hebdo! It’s my favourite publication and I never miss an issue.” If Brooks had watched television coverage of the historic march across France she would have heard this refrain from the multinational crowd again and again: I didn’t like what they said but I support their right to say it. “Je suis Charlie” asserts a value. I feel the same solidarity with the Al Jazeera journalists who are imprisoned in Egypt, and the blogger in Saudi Arabia who is undergoing weekly lashings for his website posts. People marched after the Charlie Hebdo attacks to find their voice together and confirm their shared value of free speech in a country that purports to offer that freedom. Three-and-a-half million people made the greatest physical statement in the history of France: The French must be free to speak. The march was not a statement about every other death in the world. Their march does not say “I care about this but not that.” The suggestion that racism and callousness stand in the shadows of this display of “unearned angst” damages the potential for progress. A much-needed conversation has begun about topics people often avoid and it must be encouraged to continue.

I value human life, and the violence in Nigeria is an attack on human life.

My heart aches for the victims of Boko Haram’s rampage through Nigeria. I follow the stories. I am moved and horrified by the news that trickles out of the country with less regularity, and notably less reliability, than what is available in more accessible countries. I also understand why those murders do not inspire public marches the world over, despite the fact that beautiful, innocent children and unarmed adults are dying by machine gun bullets. Those victims are bystanders in the path of mass murderers. A march is not going to help us mourn their deaths. We are already openly in agreement that murdering innocent people is wrong. We don’t need a conversation but a plan.

Brooks voices similar sentiments to quite a few journalists I’ve read this week when she states:

“[Maybe] I just find it depressing to be reminded that the murder of a dozen mostly Caucasian people in a major European city seems to bother us more than the mass slaughter of non-Caucasian people in other parts of the globe.”

It is hard work not to become cynical. We don’t discuss this aspect of life cogently as a society. Instead, reality assaults people and we reserve the right to judge them when they respond in ways we deem ineffective. But what is an appropriate response when people are slaughtered for drawing, or joking, or playing games with their friends in front of their house? Perhaps a futile death engenders a futile response. It’s what follows that matters. Injustice can be addressed. In my experience, cynicism cannot. Cynicism is never satisfied. That is its only power.

We try to make meaning out of world events, and that meaning generally begins with personal values. As someone who grew up internationally, I have great sympathy for people who work in geopolitical realms of study and reporting because I share a frustration that multiculturalism is lacking in cultural dialogue. I fight the temptation to become cynical on a daily basis. It is horrifying to know that most deaths are needless and unjust. I feel it to my core. I know other people do too. That’s where I look to strengthen my optimism — in other people who share that value. We will address injustices eventually. Taking a long view and ignoring the rhythm of the internet is imperative.

To Ms. Brooks and her likeminded colleagues I say: Be depressed about the tragedy and the needless deaths. I am, very. But please be inspired by the marches in support of free speech. Don’t compare deaths and see racism. Don’t undercut people from all walks of life who are struggling to find a unified voice in defense of a value. If we encourage people’s outpouring of solidarity in the aftermath of these tragedies we might see more of this cooperation. A motivated citizenry is a powerful weapon in the fight against ideological brutality, but it takes practise to get a population of 66 million people walking in the same direction. Three-and-a-half million people is a start. Today the French are taking on al Qaeda in their country. That’s also practise for ending Boko Haram. People must secure their own rights before they can successfully defend the rights of others.