Copyrighted Image? DMCA | The value of intellectual freedom is far from self-evident. It's hardly natural to defend the rights of one person over the feelings of a group; to put up with all the trouble that comes with free minds and free expression; to stand beside the very people who repel you. After the massacre at the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, in January, even defenders of free speech couldn't help wondering why the cartoonists hadn't just avoided Islam and the Prophet, given the sensitivities involved. Why be provocative? And when freethinkers are a tiny minority in a terribly poor and overwhelmingly religious country on the other side of the world, with no First Amendment or republican tradition of laà ¯cite, it's easy to feel that they're admirable eccentrics who speak for nothing and no one beyond themselves--which may explain why they've received so much less attention than their brethren... |
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At www.newyorker.com
At www.newyorker.com
