Pens, pencils and flowers were placed as a tribute in London last week after the terrorist attack on the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. (Niklas Halle’n, AFP/Getty Images)
While the French government considers its response to last week’s terrorism, the people of France have identified a symbol for their response: the pencil. While jihadists focus on their neo-religious goals, France has finally given voice to what drives Western society: rational thought. When I juxtapose what comes from that reasoned approach — syncretism, humanism and participative forms of government — with the insecurity of being that requires a violent response to perceived “insults” to one’s belief system, I realize how far we’ve come from the Crusades and how little the jihadists have retained from the Golden Age of Islam. On both sides of the Atlantic, our standard should be: Je suis Charlie!
William C. Lee,Evergreen
This letter was published in the Jan. 15 edition.
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