Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Time to raise your voice and your pen...


The Hat seldom strays into politics or religion but as someone whose long serving and most powerful weapon is his pen, the events in Paris bring me to the page both full of sadness and full of rage.

Sadness at the pointlessness of it all. Sadness at the ruthless nature of such a pointless crime and sadness in the knowledge that such an act will do nothing, change nothing and serve no particular end that can be understood by the sane and rational. It will polarise positions, which may well be one of the purposes of such barbarism, but, far more importantly, it will also power the resolve of those who stand together and joined in abhorrence at the event and its apparent objective.

The idea that the gun can obliterate the word is absurd. It always has been absurd.

It has been tried countless times throughout history. Imprisonment, exile, torture and death have been used over and over again but in the end, at the final reckoning, the word will get through. On the backs of envelopes, graffitied on walls, in erudite books and in colourful, cheerful, subversive magazines. Those that speak out, write, draw against any human injustice or absurdity have always been vulnerable. It has always been thus.

The pen terrifies those that abuse power. The superb Pen International and Amnesty have case files that fill rooms defending those who have been persecuted for exercising that Right to Write. You do not have to be famous and defiant to be locked up in a Russian Gulag. As we saw today, you can be a French cartoonist going about his business, making us laugh and pricking the balloons.

To be frightened in the face of a cartoonist, a satirist, a writer who puts his or her finger up and presses smartly on your sore spot is to show an insecurity and weakness in your case. If you can only defend yourself with an AK-47 your case is already dead. Cartoonists and satirists were beating up the Pope in the sixteenth century. Swift, Gilray and Cruikshank carried on and duffed up the Politicians and the Pompous Royals. The Onion and The Daily Show are proud standard bearers. It is something the English are particular good at. When did giving John Major grey y-fronts become an excuse for murder? Charlton Heston as God or Moses is a far worse offence.

That is my sadness. Sadness that the fear of the written word is yet again used as an excuse for a violent attack on our freedoms. Sadness for the family and friends of those struck down so casually and cynically. Sadness for those who think that such an act in the name of any religion can do any good, change anything, move anyone an inch towards their convictions. If ever there was a time to raise your pen and tell them where to stick their blood-soaked automatics, this is it.

The rage I will keep to myself.