As I set out to revive this blog, I was distracted by that most disconcerting of life’s experiences: a hair in the mouth. Having grappled at my own face for, let’s be honest, a lot longer than should have been required to remove a single unattached hair, my satisfaction at its successful eviction quickly turned to utter bemusement:
This wasn’t one of my hairs.
God knows how it got there (presumably. If there was a god, of course. And it was omniscient… I’m getting off track). It was a long, blonde hair. I am working in a shop, on my own – the only other person to have been here is my very short and dark haired father (I mean his hair is short. He is also short, but that’s coincidental).
Who the hell used to own this hair that invaded my oral cavity?
Were they a clean person?
Where had it been residing before it sought asylum on (and in) my face?
With a grunt of primatial dominance I threw it on the ground, and can now turn my attention back to the blog.
This may seem a rather peculiar way to start a blog, but it does serve a purpose. As uncomfortable and unsettling it is to find a rogue hair from a mystery noggin comfortably settled in one’s mouth, I am far more perturbed by the views and reaction of humankind to recent events – exposed most notably after the heartbreaking events in Paris and the Charlie Hebdo office.
The immediate reaction was of stark horror and disgust – rightfully so, I would maintain. However, as the dust was settling around this heinous crime, some of you humans began to crank the rusty, perishing cogs in your skulls that once, maybe, yielded “thoughts”. It became hastily evident that MOINTS abound in your bizarre species.
The call to solidarity with the victims of the terrorist killings was most strikingly (and globally) exhibited as everyone but “Charlies” seemed to forgo their identities in favour of proclaiming Je Suis Charlie. It was all very poetic and admirable.
Then there were those with other names who began to use the more-often-than-not factually accurate phrase “Je ne suis pas Charlie” – a rhetorical attempt to question the content of the Charlie Hebdo magazines. These not-Charlies were claiming that the offence bruited in the magazine was unnecessary. Like anything that spews from the facehole of Katie Hopkins (who, from what I can infer, is either a satirical character or a hostile alien). Charlies everywhere retorted in a state of offence themselves and boldly dictated that “you can’t say that” – completely missing the irony in their misguided notion – ie “you are not free to speak about freedom of speech…”.
Moints.
There are a few topics in our current society that we are publicly “not allowed” to question it seems. To question whether the Charlie Hebdo cartoons were acceptable or harmful became on par with questioning the rights and wrongs of the Ched Evans saga (yes, that again), or the causes and issues of paedophilia, or why it was OK for my ex to have male friends but not OK for me to have female ones – y’know the taboo topics. They become taboo precisely because we won’t talk about them openly. Being labelled as “sympathisers” to terrorists/paedophiles/footballers/Tories are the only things deemed more socially unacceptable than being found out as a UKIP member. And how does one get labelled a “sympathiser”? Usually by questioning the status quo, or the collective twitter hive mind – or whatever it is these days.
One mointish commentator stated that what Charlie Hebdo printed was legally acceptable and while it remains such, it should be considered as acceptable and that is the end of the matter. Case closed. Well done Inspector Clouseau, but “legal” and “acceptable” are two very different things, you moint. When the fools from Westboro Baptist Church “picket” the funerals of dead soldiers, they are not breaking the law – yet, I don’t know many people who would consider it acceptable. In fact, I personally think it’s about as acceptable as microwaving your nan’s dog in front of the family on Christmas day. But it’s still legal (the picketing, not the dog thing…).
Does questioning the content of Charlie Hebro make you an enemy of free speech? Does supporting it make you racist? We don’t know. The answer is probably “no” to all of them, but we’re not allowed to have reasoned discussion on these topics so all we can do is get offended and antagonise anyone who dares to raise such questions.
Being offended is a facet of free speech, but to extend that to trying to silence the offending party without discussion seems very wrong to me. Now where did I put that hair – I need a distraction from real life again, however uncomfortable.
themointblog 