“Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.”
Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human
The attack on Charlie Hebdo’s journalists on the 7th January was the saddest episode in the recent history of humanity; a deadly assault on its core principles was made. Will humanity survive it? Will it resist falling on its knees before terror? “It is not so much power that corrupts, but fear”, said Aung San Suu Kyi.
Neither she, nor Malala Yousafzai, nor Gandhi genuflected before fear and they were ready to offer their lives for the sake of truth and principle. And it is in the highest, the most fearless defenders of freedom and democracy that humanity can survive, and perhaps even grow stronger. Stéphane Charbonnier and his team at Charlie Hebdo will now join this Pantheon. The Hydra of terror, however, has a habit of growing ever new heads that feed on cowardice and the euphemisms of so the called ‘tolerance’.
There is a huge difference between principles and convictions. The latter are close to delusions and full of hatred for any doubt: religious, political or scientific. They are virtually the dead end. By contrast, principles (of freedom, of honesty, of integrity) defend the right to doubt and to question even the most cherished ideas. And this is what Charlie Hebdo did. As Nietzsche said (in The Gay Science): “A very popular error: having the courage of one’s convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one’s convictions!”
A personal expression of grief Jeannette Bougrab say more than my, no matter how passionately stated, words ever will.
