Thoughts about the Charlie Hebdo Attack...

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On Wednesday of January 7, a group of terrorists attacked the offices of Satirical Magazine/Newspaper Charlie Hebdo and killed 12 cartoonists including the editor of the said newspaper. Charlie Hebdo, a French Magazine where 12 people were slain, was renowned for publishing content that ridiculed Muhammad, the founder of Islam.

Never fight fire with fire

In our opinion, both parties (Charlie Hebdo and the terrorists) have their equal share of faults regarding this issue. Charlie Hebdo made a provocative deed (through ridiculing Prophet Muhammad) that lit the fire burning within the terrorists’ soul. While the terrorists’ response on the other hand, is not quite acceptable because they responded with violence. Yes, they only did something morbid because they have been provoked, provoked that others are making fun of their religious leader. Just like what Pope Francis set as an example, imagine if someone made fun of your mom, your most immediate response is to punch that person, right? That explains why the terrorists resulted with such an act of killing. BUT, killing still isn’t justifiable. There are still many other ways on how to resolve this issue and violence isn’t one of them. NEVER FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE. A mistake will never correct another mistake that has been committed. It will just worsen the situation so what’s left is that, it never did any good to their religion plus they’ve already killed a lot of people. To think that killing is also against the laws of their faith. They should have thought of other ways to stop Charlie Hebdo in peaceful ways, not in a foul play.

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/cartoonists-world-respond-charlie-hebdo-attack-gallery-1.2070944

Free speech has its limits

The fault of Charlie Hebdo is that, it went far more than its freedom of speech. Yes, we all have the right to liberty in expressing our ideas and thoughts but not to the point that we would sort to ridiculing other peoples’ religion. “Free speech does not imply total license to insult or offend another’s faith…” They should have kept in mind the limitations of their newspaper when it comes to expressing. If only they’ve learned to respect others’ religion that would have never happened to them. As Pope Francis has said, “One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people’s faith, one cannot make fun of faith.” Respect begets respect. If they have only known what respect is, there would have been no bloodbath. 

Source: http://palmertalk.blogspot.com/2012/09/limitations-on-free-speech-color.html

We should never ridicule someone else's religion just for the sake of entertainment...

Freedom of speech has its limitations. It is indeed our right to voice out our opinions and ideas but we should always keep in mind if these opinions and ideas would hurt anybody. Not all opinions should be voiced-out in public. There are those which we have to keep to ourselves especially if these concern the faith and religion of other people. We should always remember that we have to respect others' rights in order for us to be respected as well. Freedom of speech should not be used to condemn others but should be a tool for us to make a significant change in other peoples’ lives. Let us bear in mind that although we have the right to freedom of speech, we should never abuse this right. Always be mindful of the consequences of voicing out our opinions. 

Commentary on how the news was presented:

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Media is all around us. In our generation today, we can have access to media from any source. With just holding our phone, media is already at the tip of our fingers. If we’re walking down the streets, we can already see newspapers, wide screens, and billboard ads which will provide us all sorts of information that we need to know and we would want to know. Even through our tablets and iPods, media can be reached. Indeed, one cannot say that he is deprived of information because whether you’re not looking for it, it will just come to you because of what media can do. But the question is, does media really provide you the information you need to know? Or the information they want you to know?

Just recently, the Charlie Hebdo attack has been on the news. Media played a huge role of disseminating information so that people would know what really happened. We will discuss here how the news was presented by various known media.

The article from BBC news narrated specific details about the Charlie Hebdo attack. It was explained on how the terrorists entered the offices of the said magazine company and how they murdered the writers, cartoonists, and other staff. It also revealed what route they took after, what they did, and how they were captured and killed by the police officers. The point of view was taken from that of the reporter. As we can see, the content of this article is objective because it presented only the actual events or what actually happened in the incident. The way the news was demonstrated was neutral, showing no criticism on both parties.

This is link of the news article:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30708237 

The next article tackled about the effects of the Charlie Hebdo attack to the society. We can see that it showed strong objection against terrorism and favored the victims of the said attack. It also presented different personalities who opposed terrorism and believed that there’ s no reason, no matter how serious it can be, would  justify such crime(Charlie Hebdo attack).

This is link of the news article: 

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/19/opinion/charlie-hebdo-noam-chomsky/

On the other hand, this articlepresented informa- tion about the key figures of the Charlie Hebdo attack, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi. It narrated things about their family and how they grew up. It also discussed the different characteristics of the two through the information provided by the people around them back then. We could say that the article showed sympathy to the Charlie Hebdo attackers.

This is link of the news article:http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/charlie-hebdo-attackers-radicalized-in-search-for-identity-a-1013475.html

The article presented the side of the Muslims. It stated the point of view of Muslims wherein they said that they are against terrorism but also opposes those who mock their religion. It clearly showed that people should not generalize all Muslims just because of what 2 Muslim terrorists did. This article discussed how Muslims defended themselves from the tendency of the society to generalize and see them as people of criminals or terrorists.

This is link of the news article: http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-france-angry-muslims-20150118-story.html#page=1

In the Charlie Hebdo attack, media covered the issue in a very diverse way. Some sympathized for the familes of the 12 people who were killed, some defended the side of the Muslims saying that they only sorted out to such crime because they just want to defend prophet Mohammad, and some favored no side because they believe that both are at fault. It's just up to us people to decide if we'll let media control our beliefs or not. 

We can't really tell which ones are purely made up of truth, but we do have say on which ones are worth believing.