The impunity of censorship

I was educated successively in a school run by nuns, one run by priests, and one run by the Opus Dei. In other words, I was educated in the principles of the Catholic religion. The result of so many years of Catholic education was a self-possessed atheism that revealed itself in me while I was still sharing a desk at the school run by the "work of God." And I remain so more than 50 years later.

From my Catholic upbringing, I remember how terrified I was by the teachers' claims that "God comes everythingThe concept that everything you did, said, or thought was scrutinized by an omnipotent non-being who, at the end of your life, had the capacity to punish you eternally with all kinds of torture terrified me and made some of my childhood nights endless. Misdeeds, no matter how small. Doing evil could also be very bad business. They told me that for a confession to be valid, it was necessary, among other things, to feel profound sorrow for the sin committed and the firm conviction never to sin again.

This impunity is the value on which censorship has been based for centuries: nothing ever happens to the censor. However, the censored person, whether an artist, a programmer, a curator, or even a curator, ends up being punished for their audacity. It is this perverse system, which blames the victim and rewards the perpetrator who sacrifices freedom of expression, that allows for such surreal actions as last week's in Les Escaldes, in the Principality of AndorraThe consul did not need too much reflection: just look at the cover of Charlie Hebdo, was shocked and decided that this would not happen under his jurisdiction.Not in my watch", we hear in American movies. And so she stood as the last wall of defense against the inevitable death of her defenseless fellow citizens. "I'm in favor of freedom of expression, but not at the cost of spilling a single drop of blood," she told me. A magnificent phrase. but not at the cost of spilling a single drop of the blood of my fellow citizens. I don't distribute bread. I don't do anything for myself. censorship. An exhibition that she herself and her government had commissioned to show how the phenomenon of censorship has worked over the centuries. And so she herself became a living example of this perverse system. defending Andorra from an imminent terrorist attack and that I, in some way, was provoking it. Victim and victimizer. well-deserved medal of civil merit.

When people ask me, I always answer the same: to censor, you only need a little power, no matter how small. No one with power is immune to that unique feeling that comes with the power to decide that what you don't like no one else has the right to see. The consul's power last week was enough to assert her fear and her most deeply held personal feelings over the rights of a diverse citizenry that has the right to make its own decisions.

The censor thinks that, in his petty pettiness, he is so powerful that he decides what his subjects can see. And he does so because all of them have given him the strength and impunity to do so. Because this Andorra case, too, will be talked about for a few days and then forgotten. With total impunity.