I AM CHARLIE, BUT I AM LENNY, TOO
The recent, horrific events in Paris will be remembered as a watershed
in the fight for freedom of thought and expression.
Islamic extremists not only massacred journalists, cartoonists and police,
but once again attacked and murdered Jews for no other reason than that
they were Jewish. Yet, we must remind ourselves that the greatest number
of casualties of Muslim extremism are other Muslims and that the vast
majority of French Muslims and Muslims around the world have decried terrorist
acts committed in the name of their prophet.
What makes the Charlie Hebdo assassinations different, however, is not
that innocent people were murdered, but that a fundamental human right
came under severe attack. It is not possible to enjoy freedom of thought
when freedom of expression is under siege. Thinking, without the opportunity
of acting, is oppression of the human spirit.
The German-Jewish Romantic poet, Heinrich Heine, wrote more than 150 years
ago about a fictitious burning of books that became a reality a hundred
years later in Nazi Germany: "That was all a prelude. There, where
they first burn books, they later burn people," to which we must
now add, "There, where they first attack freedom of expression, they
later attack freedom of thought."
That Charlie Hebdo published vulgar, disgusting or even inflammatory cartoons
is beside the point and not a justification for what happened. The fact
that these murders proceeded in tandem with an anti-Semitic hate crime
is as reprehensible as it is unsurprising.
Yet, let us also recall the life and struggles of the vulgar, tasteless
and, under the law of the time, "obscene" American comedian
and satirist Lenny Bruce, whose career was destroyed by Americans who
sought to impose their definition of morality over his right of free speech.
Lenny Bruce's routines, like Charlie Hebdo's cartoons, were meant
to shock, maybe even offend, but they also made us think more deeply about
prejudice and posturing. No one was ever forced to attend Bruce's
nightclub acts, and no one was forced to purchase Charlie Hebdo's
magazine, which was in deep financial straits having lost a considerable
amount of its readers over the years. Ironically, tomorrow’s issue
will likely have a print run fifty times greater than normal. The magazine
now has more supporters than ever before. Similarly, despite the "obscene"
nature of Lenny Bruce's writing, one can still buy recordings of his
performances nearly 50 years after his death, and New York's Governor
George Pataki posthumously pardoned him for obscenity in 2003. What extremists
fail to recognize is that the free world is prepared to take a united
stand against any attack on liberty.
Every nation has had critics whose ideas have been suppressed by hateful
groups or authoritarian regimes. The action to be taken now is not to
point fingers but to stand up and affirm that the pen is and always must
be mightier than the sword.
We have made a financial contribution to the Committee to Protect Journalists at
https://www.cpj.org/ in an effort to fight against acts of tyranny endured by those who are
prepared to sacrifice their lives to bring us uncensored news and opinions
about the world in which we live.
David H. Lowenherz
President