Maybe the biggest news in France today was the terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Since the news quickly spread, I’m pretty sure many of you heard about it. Personally, I saw the report on the TV this morning and later today, my attention was brought to it by friends who went to show their support for the magazine this evening at Place de la République. I’m positively surprised how fast and to what a big extent people reacted to this attack. In contrast to that, I’m sadly not very surprised at all that the attack took place, simply because the magazine has a history of stirring up controversy and also because there has been an incident in the past. Of course, nothing justifies terror and any kind of violence, no matter of which possible reason is unacceptable. But I do understand that certain publications might be considered as offensive or even insulting. And so I cannot help wondering about how we would react to an article or a caricature which obviously made fun of the beliefs, customs and cultural traditions which are enshrined in our society. (Hopefully not with a terror attack, that’s for sure!) Also, I am convinced that people should be able to make comments, express their opinion as well as criticism without having to be afraid of being persecuted in any way or being attacked, neither verbally, nor physically. Still, how far should you go when speaking your mind? That’s a question almost impossible to answer and there surely is no rule to apply. Maybe, today’s tragedy could have been avoided under different circumstances. And maybe, a better cultural understanding could have helped with that. Now, this said, I will go and read some Utopian novel.