What happened at the offices of Charlie Hebdo last week was a tragedy. No human being deserves to die at the hands of another. It was a tragedy on so many levels and so much is brought up by it but for me the greatest tragedy that it highlights is that of our failure to understand each other.

The question of the cartoons that ostensibly gave rise to this tragedy has been rumbling on for years and in the wake of last week’s events has given rise to outrage in favour of freedom of expression and a general feeling expressed by Hari Kunzru (Guardian Jan 8^th) when he says  ‘Mumblings about “respect” and “avoiding giving offence” seem cowardly and dishonourable.’

It is indeed tragic that those who were offended by the behaviour of the editors of Charlie Hebdo felt they had to kill in order to be heard, but it makes me think about the amount of times I have heard people in this country talk about child abuse with a similar desperate intolerance. It is not uncommon for people to say that they would ‘kill’ anyone who abused their children. It seems to me that this feeling about ‘paedophilia’ in the West perhaps mirrors the feelings of those who were offended by the cartoons. Of course it would be tragic if a group of people decided to kill someone because he or she had committed a sexual offence against a child, but I have a feeling it might receive a level of understanding that seems a bit lacking in the wake of the killing of those who supported the cartoonists.

The things that upset us are cultural. We exist within ideologies that are not universal. Even death and killing have different meanings for different cultures. For some people the cartoons were deeply offensive and more, and to suggest that Christians wouldn’t react the same way to irreverent cartoons of Jesus is to miss the point.

Unlike even fifty years ago there are many of us now who live between cultures and have mixed cultural backgrounds. I wonder if this gives us a unique perspective on this tragedy of misunderstanding and whether we should be doing more to help bridge the gulf between cultures that is responsible for some of the saddest happenings in the world today.