Kerre McIvor: Violence the resort of weak-minded

Thousands thronged Lyon, central France, for a moment of silence. Photo / AP

It's easy to be brave when you live in a democracy. It's a little harder to be true to your principles when you are living in a country where you can be killed because of what you say.

I wouldn't still be alive doing what I do in some countries around the world. I make my living speaking my mind - on radio and in this newspaper. I put my name to my opinions. I'm not some whey-faced internet troll happy to vent, anonymously, via computer from the fug of a smelly, solitary bedroom.

Which means in a country this small, nutters, if they chose to, could find out where I lived, to whom I was married, where my child was and what time I finished work.

When I first took up with the man who became my husband, he was so concerned about my safety when I left the studio at midnight he asked me not to bike to work because of being an easy target.

Free speech is in the spotlight in the wake of the terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris that left 12 people dead and eight others injured. Charlie Hebdo had been targeted often in recent years by Islamic fundamentalists because of the blasphemous cartoons of Muhammad that Stephane Charbonnier, the magazine's feisty editor, chose to publish, to tweak the noses of rabid fundamentalists.

When he published the cartoons, he believed in the power of the pen over the gun. He thought the ability of a cartoonist to see the absurdity of a situation and sum it up in a pithy series of line drawings would win the battle between fundamentalist Islam and the free world.

Charbonnier dismissed the threats made against him by al-Qaeda, saying he would rather die than live like a rat. This week, he and 11 colleagues did die, when three men coerced their way into the Charlie Hebdo offices and opened fire, telling survivors they were avenging the prophet.

Former broadcaster Derek Fox wrote a controversial Facebook post after the attacks, saying Charbonnier had paid the price for his bigotry and arrogance. He claimed that "power cultures" enjoy the right to ridicule people who aren't exactly like them under the banner of free speech, but they ignore the ramifications of what they say.

And some people on talkback this week said if the magazine hadn't continued to bait fundamentalists with provocative cartoons, the victims would be alive today.

But freedom of speech is a fundamental right - at least in Western democracies.

New Zealand's pre-eminent cartoonist, Tom Scott, says cartoonists are the canaries in the coal mine. He says the first people in Munich and Britain to see Hitler for the monster he was were cartoonists. They were also the first victims of fascism, as Hitler couldn't stand to be mocked, and in Munich, cartoonists were among the first arrested in the early days of the Third Reich.

Scott says freedom of speech and expression is paramount. And I agree, acknowledging that it's easy for me to do so when I live in a country where it's unlikely I will die for my belief in free speech.

The closest I've come to being pilloried was a few years ago, when I said on the radio that I didn't believe the Falun Gong should be entitled to a float in the Santa Parade.

A number of Falun Gong representatives rang to remonstrate with me. We had what I thought was a healthy debate on the matter and that, I thought, was that.

Oh no. The next day, members of Falun Gong camped outside the Newstalk ZB studios with banners and flags, and there they stayed. For months.

Peace and light, my Aunt Fanny. They were obsessive and mounted a 9 to 5, months-long protest simply because they didn't like what I'd said.

But nobody died and eventually, after my bosses met their bosses, they left. Had I been threatened, or my family targeted, I don't know that I would have been so keen to protect the principle of freedom of expression.

Charbonnier knew the risks in what he was doing. He understood the threats made against him were real. And he paid for his principles with his life.

Charbonnier wasn't the bigot. Derek Fox should see that the terrorists are the real bigots: closed-minded, irrational individuals who can only win arguments through violence.

• Kerre McIvor is on NewstalkZB Monday-Thursday, 8pm-midnight.