From the minute I heard about gunmen walking into the offices of French magazine Charlie Hebdo and murdering men and women whose only infractions seemed to be drawing, creating too provocatively, I knew I wanted to write something about it.

As usually happens, when violence, apparent ideological hubris and cruelty eschew reason and the deep intellectuality conceivable of human beings, I became deeply angry, befuddled and dejected at the human race. That man is wont to such wanton cruelty remains astonishing and enraging to me. Every time I see such beast-like reactions from our intelligent race, it’s (perhaps a bit naively) as if I am seeing such an act for the first time. It wasn’t until hours later – in the wake of worldwide reaction to the Charlie Hebdo killings – that I figured out what I wanted to write about.

There are certain things assumed of this incident which are yet to be clarified and as such, for now, I will stay away from the political and religious aspects of this tragedy. However, there are things which, even at this early stage, are salient to me.

After staying up the entire night, I fell asleep in the morning feeling dejected and distraught as more and more was revealed about the killings of 12, including Charb, the fearless editor, as well as cartoonists Cabu, Wolinksi and Tignous. Despite being adept in French, I had not followed Charlie Hebdo, aside from hearing the name when they were facing condemnation for publishing an image of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad in an international climate rife with tension.

Despite disagreeing with him at the time, I had abundant respect for the editor’s (Stephane Charbonnier’s) fierce defence of his and his cartoonists’ right to be provocative – even if merely for the sake of provocation (though I don’t think it was merely for provocation). It wasn’t until the evening, however, when I awoke and saw the reaction of humans around the globe that my spirits were raised.

Politicians and commentators condemned the slaying and defended their ideology as they ought to have. But it was the reaction of artists around the world which made me feel better and inspired words out of my previous incensed stupor.

They responded, as only artists could, drawing together (pun intended) and creating beautifully wrought art, cartoons which more than restored my faith in humanity, helped to raise my passion about the event while changing the nature of that passion to one of hope rather than anger.

Only artists could forge such glimmering steel of rejuvenation from such a barbaric event. Only artists could wreak inspiration from such tragedy. Out of mud springs the lotus and the artists have ensured that those ghastly gunmen have only reassured a generation’s faith in the principles of Voltaire – freedom, independence, diversity, thought, and the staunch defence of such necessary ideals. In explaining it to a friend of mine I said that it was more than the fact that ‘hey, people care’, but people heal. People heal.

This has reminded me that, all over the world, we face not so different problems. Crime, terrorism and the cruelty of man shall be overcome. It reminded me that everyone has a role to play, not only in the physical or logical sense, but as the artists have shown. Their role is to heal, inspire and defend our virtues with a heart-warming magnificence incapable of other roles. Because peace needs the constant attention of good men and women. Even as we continue to face crime and violence here in Jamaica, I hope the artists continue to draw, the artistes continue to sing, the writers continue to write, and the speakers continue to speak.

#JeSuisCharlie

Yakum Fitz-Henley is a law student at the University of the West Indies, Mona.