On That First Cover

Could this be the very portrayal of the (wrongly attributed) Voltarian dictum of defending the right to speak of the one we disagree with?

Charlie Hebdo created a first cover after the massacre of which everybody disagrees. That is sort of the order of things; we should not have known them again otherwise. The artist of this drawing is among the disagreeing. And yet he has chosen to draw the disagreement as exactly that. Not his own stance as he had every reason to. But the very discussion of which we shall never find consensus.

Khalid Wad Albaih has thus portrayed the very heart of democracy. Democracy stands its test, when everybody gets his and her say, fighting on words for and against and is still alive when leaving the ring.

Even if Voltaire had no say in it.

Khalid Wad Albaih, Tout est pardonné, January 19. 2015.

The Khartoon shown is courtesy of Khalid Wad Albaih and must not be reproduced without his permission.