I was thinking about America this morning, prompted by the discovery of a new country song on Apple Music. AirPods in, walking to where I needed to be, I was thinking that it would be fun to visit one of the southern states next. Texas, perhaps. Thoughts fast-forwarded to whether the one of the states would make for a good home in the not-too-distant future. My mind immediately hit back with “Fuck no, it’s crazy there.” I was referring primarily to the political culture, where ideology is intense, loud, aggressive, and frequently violent. This was before I’d checked the day’s headlines and read that another political figure, Charlie Kirk, had been assassinated.
I’d never heard of this person. I actively try to avoid anything to do with the hyperreality that is domestic American politics, actually. But assaults on democracy and freedom of speech anywhere require attention. This privileged existence that we in the West live is not something that can be taken for granted. Authoritarian oppression seldom begins and ends with violent revolution. Rather, the frog is slowly brought to the boil.
It’s easy to dismiss such an event as an isolated act of extremism that will send a nation into a state of shock and mourning, as had been the case in the past. The assassination of JFK fostered a brief period of national unity. Similarly in Britain political figures emphasised unity after the murder of Jo Cox, an event which caused widespread sorrow across the country although there were approximately 50,000 tweets posted in celebration. 50,000 is nothing compared to what’s going on on social media now. If posts are not celebratory, they’re a passive “Yeah well, he had odious opinions. I won’t mourn him.”
It is not about mourning Charlie Kirk. It is about the fact that a democracy cannot function when the threat of being murdered for espousing your beliefs exists. Or the threat of any unnatural consequences, for that matter.
My MA cohort was a mixed bag, with people hailing from India, Japan, China, Iran, etc. I will never forget my conversations with the Chinese and Iranian students when we were thinking up project ideas, where they expressed having to exercise caution and self-censorship over what they wanted to say with their art “because we might get arrested when we go home”. I certainly felt pressure to keep to a narrow scope of topics and I’ll speak more on that at another time, but I have never worried that anything I made would be cause for arrest (and if I were arrested for it, it would be a boon to my reputation). I don’t think many Westerners are fully cognisant of how free we are in relation to most of the word, and how valuable and precious that freedom is. Our freedom to speak, debate, disagree, protest, fly flags, make art, create content to share with the entire internet-connected world – it’s special and it’s rare and it’s not a given.
So, once again, Je suis Charlie. We are all Charlie. Even those posting stupid celebratory dances on the clock app. You’re free to choose to be a jerk, and I’m glad you and I have that same freedom, even if I find you odious.
Current mood: 😠defiant