What happened was obviously 100% wrong. However there is a difference between the right to free speech and the right to offend?
Of course the right to free speech doesn't mean that anything goes. However, some dogmatic folk are offended by things that makes no logical sense, at all. The earlier fire bombing of Charlie Hebdo was caused by a so-called depiction of the so-called prophet by
Kurt Westergaard that Charlie published a copy of as solidarity with Kurt. Why are Muslims 'offended' by that Cartoon? They claim that it was Muhammad himself who said that no images of him were to be made. And they stick to defend that dogma, even with non-Muslims.
Because they stopped thinking, they do not understand that Muhammad said that, because he didn't want people idolizing him instead of Allah. And look what happened, people stopped thinking, started idolizing the prophet and made his words into law, no (critical) thinking allowed ... Feeling(!) offended apparently doesn't require to understand the message or the reasoning, or maybe it's mandatory to not understand?
Another issue is that the principle of
Secularism is not embraced by many religious fundamentalists of all creeds. Also, Western European countries went though "an age of
Enlightenment", and many ideas from that Enlightenment formed a basis for the later French Revolution (that's why free speech is a big deal in France and other Western European countries). The fundamental right to question authority, also sparked a Scientifc revolution.
But there are those who prefer to remain ignorant, and feel(!) offended, followed by an urge to dictate that ignorance to others ...
Cheers,
Bart
