I am writing these words on September 11th, 2025, only several hours after the horrendous assassination of Charlie Kirk.

While I realise that by the time this article is published, it will be long after the story has made headlines, I believe the topic I am about to write about will remain as important and relevant as ever.

I am writing this piece with a terrible, gut-wrenching feeling. A heavy, physical sensation that can be characterised by a mixture of shock, disgust, and sadness, which I’ve been carrying with me since I heard of this tragic incident last night.

I was at work when I read the news: Kirk was shot in the neck by an unknown assailant at one of his events at a college in Utah.

I literally gasped in shock – my colleagues were alarmed at my response because, frankly, it was an intense one. I’m not one to gasp at things so easily, but you see, I have been following Charlie Kirk for several years and enjoyed much of his content, specifically everything that was centred around debates.

And while I wasn’t in agreement with much of what Kirk had to say, I always appreciated his tenacious spirit to talk to anyone about anything and give everyone – even radicals – a stage to voice their opinion in the public square.

In fact, it was this relentless willingness to speak to others in the spirit of open, polite debate that pulled me so hard towards his content – not his political beliefs, views, or opinions.

Seeing Charlie seeking to listen, understand, and discuss matters that for others would be considered “no-discussion” topics gave me not only an understanding of both sides of the political sphere but also hope – hope that we can actually talk to each other.

Theoretically, I wouldn’t have anything in common with a man such as Charlie Kirk; I live in Europe – he lives in the US. I am not a particularly religious person – he is. He is a hard conservative – I am more centre-leaning. I try to back off from politics – politics was his life.

However, it was precisely through watching Charlie communicate clearly and openly with wide and diverse populations that I got to see that he and I – to my surprise – shared much in common as well...

We both believed in family. In freedom of speech. In God, although in very different ways. We both believed in the importance of having difficult conversations, especially because they are difficult. Through Charlie’s content, I was able to listen to intelligent folk from both left and right, and as a person who always seeks to understand the bigger picture, I found it to be a refreshing breath of fresh air in the extremely divided cultural landscape that we are currently in – a culture that never ceases to demonise different opinions just because they are different. A culture that produces echo chambers upon echo chambers, instead of promoting diverse conversations.

I find it so bizarre, but Charlie’s death hit me particularly hard, and in the hours following the assassination, a strange thing happened to me: I felt like I lost someone I knew. I found myself sitting alone at home, crying, mourning. Hurting.

I guess that following him on social media for a long time and listening to him speak for hours got me feeling like I knew the guy. I mean, he was present in my life almost daily. And when someone who is present in your life so fluently is suddenly gone, especially in such a brutal fashion (and believe me – I’ve seen the video – it was brutal, alright), you can’t help but feel particularly disturbed.

You find it very difficult to comprehend the fact that they are simply gone. Forever.

It’s like the world you knew was suddenly dipped, like a giant cookie, in an even bigger mug of chaos tea. It’s like a part of you was broken off and is now missing.

But I believe there was something more to it than one-sided familiarity with a popular online influencer. The murder of Charlie Kirk meant so much more than one man's life being taken by another. As I was thinking about the whole ordeal, I realised what it was: To me, Charlie Kirk was a symbol of two basic, fundamental truths I believed wholeheartedly since forever:

  • That no matter what your opinions are, no matter where you stand on the political, ideological, or gender spectrum, we are first and foremost human beings.

  • And secondly, that we are mostly good-natured.

In a way, when I saw the bullet pierce Charlie’s neck, I felt like the part in me that believes these claims was hit alongside him. And I believe that is where the pain I feel as I write this article comes from.

As I mourn, I don’t only mourn the friend, husband, and father of two toddlers – I also mourn our society and feel the pain of the new moral low we have descended to. That we somehow, under some twisted and cancerous deformation of morality, now believe that words are violence and that it is OK to use violence against someone if they think differently than we do.

Charlie Kirk toured the United States talking to anyone who wanted to have a discussion because he believed that we need to actively seek to understand each other if we want to function as a society. He believed that no matter the opinion, as different or as radical as it may be, it should be given space to be expressed, and he was brave enough to put his own beliefs to the test and say, “Convince me I’m wrong.”

And I am writing these words with tears in my eyes, knowing that he died just because of his opinions and because someone thought they were evil.

Someone decided to take it upon himself to “shut down evil” by acting as judge, jury, and executioner. That he alone knew what “evil” is.

Let me be clear: this is not to say that evil does not exist. Evil exists, alright, as every student of history will attest… It’s that we as a society, as a community, desperately need to have different, unified standards about what we think evil consists of.

And we must – we absolutely must – stop believing the “other” is evil just because they are “the other”.

It seems to me like nowadays we constantly assume the worst about each other. When I see someone being called a racist, a fascist, or a bigot because they simply want to have an uncomfortable conversation, I can’t help but wonder: Have we lost all faith in one another? Do we really believe our fellow humans are so low, so detestable, so evil?

If someone says something we disagree with, they are either stupid, hateful, a misogynist, a xenophobe, or a racist. Either they are absolutely right or absolutely wrong, 100% good or 100% evil. The possibility that they are 25% wrong, 37% right, or simply well-meaning and see things from another angle is completely off the table.

It is like we have lost all ability to see the colour grey, and it’s all black and white now. It is like the new N-word of the 2020s is "nuance".

One of the reasons for this is that we just don’t talk to each other anymore. We turn around and walk away from any uncomfortable conversation and dismiss anyone who isn’t “all in” in our “camp” as an enemy. I’ve personally had friends who completely broke off all contact with me because I believed in something they didn’t. Nothing I said helped; they wanted no contact.

When I see journalists who peacefully try to interview left-wing protestors in the UK being called “aggressive”, “provocative” or “racist” by their interviewee as what seems to be an excuse to avoid a hard conversation, I can’t help but cringe in disbelief at the lack of willingness to talk in a civil manner.

It seems to me that all this is because we constantly assume the worst about each other. We fail to differentiate someone’s opinions from their character; we fail to see that someone’s opinions can be different and that this person can still be a great human being. But worse than all, we are so damn lazy about it; we rarely bother to take a few moments to actually understand one another.

We don’t ask – we say. We don’t investigate – we assume. We don’t steelman – we strawman as if it’s the only way.

When we alienate and distance ourselves from others morally and spiritually, it becomes almost a necessity to label the other as “evil”. Because if he is not me, and he is evil, that means I’m the good guy. I’m the moral one. I’m the compassionate one.

Here’s the thing: I don’t think any evil person in human history thought they were evil. Adolf Hitler thought he was saving the world from impurity. Stalin wanted to create a utopia and was willing to kill millions to do so. We all tell ourselves a story justifying our actions as good. Even if those actions are pure evil.

If we never bother to step outside of ourselves and our echo chambers, if we silence all those who think differently, we can never get our own opinion challenged by a different one and see the holes it might have, and remain forever stuck in the cage of fundamentalism.

One thing I can say for sure: evil doesn’t care about politics – evil is evil across all spectrums. And if we cannot agree as a society on a basic standard of what evil is…. If we make it a habit to “otherise” everyone who doesn’t agree with us, call them “evil”, and turn the term evil into a subjective idea...If we decide that “words are violence” and that everyone who disagrees with us has no place amongst us, we become totalitarians.

If we have a culture that allows, celebrates, and supports this moral fluidity based on individual truths, what stops any of us from deciding another is evil, taking a sniper rifle, and shooting a 31-year-old father of two in the neck because we think it’s “right”?

I can’t help but think that in our helpless chase of accepting the different, we lost something extremely important – our fundamental belief in our innate good.

We rush to dismiss, hush, or cancel opinions that are different from our own because we fear for our “democracy”, our “feelings,” or our “children”.

We think that if we can just make those opinions go away, then we’ll be safe, because people aren’t moral enough or smart enough to reject them on their own.

But here is what Charlie Kirk showed the world about radically racist, xenophobic, or antisemitic ideas: society rejects them outright, because most of us are not in fact racist, xenophobic, or antisemitic.

Extreme ideas are always shunned in the public square, and this is precisely why we must bring them to public debate constantly. Wilfully.

If there was one thing that Charlie’s public debates showed us, it is that people who spoke in a truly racist, exclusive, hateful, or evil fashion were rejected by the entirety of the crowd attending, often from both ends of society – right and left alike.

Charlie himself has made it clear that these ideas are devoid of all logic by dismantling them thoroughly, politely, and more importantly - peacefully.

Charlie’s events showed that society is generally good-natured and that we generally reject evil, racism, bigotry, or violence. All of us do.

We fail to see that precisely for that reason, those radical opinions should not be censured or silenced but be heard in the public square instead, so they can be rejected in a bipartisan fashion and be pushed out into the fringe, away from public discussion. Such ideas become irrelevant not because of censorship but as a result of open and peaceful discussion, followed by a consensus about the standards we have towards evil.

Charlie Kirk didn’t have a single hateful or racist bone in his body, and those who say that he was hateful or racist have never bothered to truly listen to him or talk to him. Most of them either listened to out-of-context clickbait memes or were too busy shouting their own opinion.

Please don’t get me wrong: Charlie Kirk had very different opinions from mine on many topics; some even triggered me. But being triggered, offended, or emotionally hurt isn’t bad; it’s part of our journey to understand each other and to live alongside one another. I chose to see that behind the opinions of the person was a well-intended, good-natured human being – a family man, a lover of life, man, and nature. Someone who was fundamentally good.

By consuming Charlie Kirk’s content, I chose to look past differences, dared to put my beliefs to the test, and listened to a wide array of opinions that are different from mine. That in turn helped me polish, balance, and diversify my own thinking, have more compassion and understanding for others, and be less judgmental or argumentative.

And this is what Charlie fought and died for.

Look, I know: believing the other isn’t the worst person ever can be scary – because if we just listen to each other and be willing to accept that the “other” isn’t evil, well… they might turn out to be more like us than we thought.

But is it really that bad?

As for me… Despite Charlie’s mistimed, tragic death, I’ll keep believing that we are fundamentally good. That love flows in our hearts. That there is a future for us as a species and as a community.

I won’t let the evil deeds of one person break my trust in my people. Charlie helped me see that, and he will always be in my heart for it.

Rest in Peace, Charlie Kirk.