Response

I am feeling sick and shaky. I have been writing all day with tears running down my face. I don’t suppose I’m alone in reacting like this to the massacre at Charlie Hebdo, which is an assault on journalists and free speech. Like many people, I am trying to react to both aspects of the attack, thinking about the victims – human beings capable of feeling pain and terror – and the principle of free speech, which has to be defended at all costs.

It does not feel right now as though the pen is mightier than the sword, but I have to believe that the ideas of the Enlightenment will defeat hooded men with guns.--Joan Smith

The Guardian has this human disaster covered like nobody else.

In a parallel universe.


TS