Je veux être Charlie

If you have been following along with most news outlets in Europe and have access to social media you have probably stumbled upon the horrifying tragedy that occurred Wednesday morning in Paris where three gunmen attacked a French satirical newspaper.

Charlie Hebdo, a left-winged, non-conformist, religion bashing, boundary pushing, satire magazine has been known to never toe the line of politically correct. In fact, they very certainly always push very far past that. In the past it has stirred controversy leading to the paper being banned multiple times in France and even prompted an attack back in 2011 over a controversial cover, depicting the Prophet Muhammed joking that the reader would receive 100 lashes if they did not find this magazine funny; a play on sharia law’s harsh punishments to crimes against Islam. The calls for censorship and for the paper to perhaps “tone it down” were never entertained. Charlie Hebdo prided themselves in their irreverence for what may be politically correct for the wider population. This was their mission and the principles they stood for. They wanted to stir outrage and poke fun, and on 7 January, they paid a terrible price for their courage.

I have great admiration for people that dedicate their careers towards something they love and believe in. I revere people who expose truths. The journalists and cartoonists of this paper are the type of people I’m describing. They were not wavered by threats. They didn’t give a fuck. They did what they did because satire is not meant to please, it’s meant to shock. And shock they did. The works of the greats like Charb, Cabu, Wolinski, Tignous, and Honoré will be missed. They were brave men, who upheld the meaning behind freedom of the press.

All across social media, vigils, and gatherings people are showing solidarity for this heinous attack. The slogan ‘Je suis Charlie’ has already become the message of this campaign and a world wide symbol of outrage against the massacre. It signifies that we are all Charlie Hebdo — supporters for the right of freedom of speech. Major news outlets have been holding 24 hour coverage, updating viewers constantly on what is happening in their search for the two shooters who have now been pronounced dead after a two separate police shootouts also involving hostages. Videos of the shooters caught on the day are constantly being replayed, their photos shown over and over again stretching out every inch of this story.

While I cannot express enough how grateful I am to live in an era and a country where access to information is so readily available and the ability of the internet to spread information all around the globe, watching this continuous coverage and seeing a lot of my friends changing their Facebook statuses and profile pictures in support leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth.

I am not Charlie. I have never put my name and my writing in the public eye to make a point and take a stance against something. Posting a Facebook status or a tweet don’t count — even if you add a hashtag. Not even this blog post really counts. The cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo made it their mission to shock people and to draw what they believed to be the truth, in a satirical way. They took a stand for what they believed in and they gave all they had including their lives for it. I would love to say I took a real stand and put my life on the line for something I believed in.

But while I admire their actions and grieve for their loss, I’ve never found Charlie Hebdo to be funny. In my honest opinion, I find it offensive, racist, sexist, poking fun and grossly oversimplifying incredibly complex issues. A lot of their covers have made me uncomfortable. I know that’s part of the point, to truly push past the boundaries of what can be joked about. But even they themselves have admitted to mistakes behind some of the jokes and cartoons made in this publication. In 2008, they fired one of their veteran cartoonist, Siné over a column he posted which was met which accusations of anti-semitism. The paper sacked him over the controversy and while the decision was made by the head of the paper at the time, Philippe Val, I cannot help but feel slightly disappointed in the paper who’s mantra is ‘bête et méchant,’ ‘stupid and mean’ claiming there was nothing that can’t be made fun of.

Currently most of the debate on this attack and the implications of this, surround freedom of speech and expression. Reactions towards this attack have been to call it an attack on our liberty to write and draw freely. Many are quick to quote the famous Enlightenment thinker who championed freedom of expression and the separation of church and state: Voltaire.

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend, to the death, your right to say it.”

I would just like to add as an aside, there is no formal record he ever said this, much like all of your Marilyn Monroe quotes — a much better quote if you really want a Voltaire quote about freedom of speech is ”qui plume a, guerre a” or ”to hold a pen is to be at war.” If Voltaire did actually say the above, or some sort of form of this I fully understand why at first anyone would be very quick to whole-heartedly agree and defend this idea. Upon further reflection however, I really think that’s not the case. The ‘freedom of speech’ card is used when we need it most or when it suits us best. In cases like this quote, we will easily say we agree when the opposition of what is being said has no real affect on our own wellbeing or livelihood. When you debate politics with friends and a pub you may disagree over certain ideas such as gay marriage or abortion, but that doesn’t mean you won’t allow someone else to have those opinions. Unless you’re a douchebag I suppose. Logically, why would you care what someone else believed in if it doesn’t affect your life directly?

When the KKK start handing out flyers in Washington D.C., hanging around the Veterans Affairs offices and trying to recruit members from former service men/women who are very disenfranchised after returning, I would be genuinely surprised if you still stood by saying they absolutely have the right to spread false information in an expression of their freedom. (Another aside — they are actually doing this and you should really be not okay with this.) And if you do, then good on you. You are more open-minded than I am. I struggle with this. I believe everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion but I also believe that opinion needs to be grounded in more than just visceral reactions and feelings. And you know what? I’m okay with saying that I wouldn’t I will die for your right to say what you want when it can, in turn oppress in any way/shape/form, someone else. Feeling this way doesn’t always sit well with me. I grew up in the US where we were taught to love our freedoms and to fight for others to have the same. Actually sitting here and thinking about it has made me question my ethics. But if Charlie Hebdo has left me with anything, it’s that you need to take a stand somewhere.

And further to that using freedom of speech as a blanket to cover our indiscretions is ignoring how incredibly sensitive and far more complex of an issue it is. I can’t fully wrap my brain around it. Nevertheless, I will attempt to provide my opinion. Us privileged white people cannot create something offensive to a certain sect of people and then act incredulous and up in arms when they are actually offended. And further to that, those brave Muslims standing up now saying they are more offended by this atrocity than any depiction of their Prophet I say to you: yes, I think anyone would would rationally agree but you cannot skip everything in between drawings and murder. It is okay to be offended by the first and the second and all things in between. Our focus is too heavily on one or the other. And we continue to share and retweet posts of people coming forward to saying they are more offended by the attacks than any cartoon perhaps because we want to justify laughing at those cartoons in the first place.

I don’t believe I’m in any position to come to an actual conclusion on satire and what should be done about it. I don’t know where and if you even can draw a line for it. This is what the debate is all about, us sitting down and talking about it. This is what we need to do. What we are doing isn’t helping.

Mass media, world leaders alike and your old college roommate have you fooled. What happened to the 12 victims of the attack on Charlie Hebdo was a disgusting act of brutality, but it goes so far deeper than just freedom of speech. The Islamic State doesn’t really care all that much about your freedom of speech. You know who does care about freedom of speech? The US and UK governments. They care so much about your freedom to express yourself, they collect and store all of your freedoms in databases, occasionally scanning it to make sure you say the right kind of freedom.

Charlie Hebdo’s mission was to shock and to call out those with power and influence over the fuckeries they were stirring. I wouldn’t put it past them to make fun of this whole attack and the response to it. To argue that this attack came from radicals who were angry at a cartoonist who drew a profane picture of their prophet, is closing your eyes to the real problem. We’ve created a war with them, we’ve sent in our freedom drones and our freedom soldiers and have been crushing them. For the most part, they are the only ones suffering casualties. We disenfranchise them by creating this divide. We’re laughing of course at the extreme radicals who we wouldn’t even classify in the same group as Muslims but nevertheless, Muslims are the ones being roped into the joke as well. France for a long time has had a history of disenfranchised young men turning towards religious extremism when they have no where else to go. This is them fighting back. This is them hitting us where it hurts most: in our freedom. But the fact of the matter is that it’s not about this freedom, the picture is much bigger than that.

We cannot allow ourselves to be swept up by these large scale rallying calls to action when we ourselves don’t fully understand the predicaments behind them. We must be incredibly careful not to allow this incident to spiral into something that it’s not. Already there have been reports of explosions near mosques and Muslims being targeted as the ones to blame. Polling data suggests currently that the Front National, the French far-right nationalist party have gained an increase in their support. Marine Le Pen, the head of the party is pushing her anti-immigration agenda in light of this incident. What’s really comedically ironic, is that cartoonists from Charlie Hebdo in 1996, including Stephane Charbonnier (Charb), created a petition with the aim of banning the Front National because it’s principles had infringed upon articles 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The petition received 173,704 signatures, though the party still remains.

The lesson to learn here isn’t just about standing up for freedom of speech; it’s to understand that we have waged a war with these people fuelled with the same ignorance and intolerance they show us only from us to them. I’m in no way justifying or condoning their actions, they make me sick to my stomach. But so too do the bombing campaigns and drone strikes reigning down in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. etc. by Western governments as well as the lies being propagated by far-right parties that are now gaining traction within our governments. We are fuelling extremist with our never ending war on terror. But we have an opportunity at our disposal to put our leaders on the line and tell them we are not okay with these attacks like the one on 7 Jan. And their response cannot simply be to retaliate as they have been but to consider what has led to this and what we can do differently to ensure this stops happening all together because what we are doing now sure isn’t helping.

Charlie Hebdo to some extent I believe was about doing just that. It is outrageous and offensive but it stood for something. Je veux être Charlie. I want to be Charlie. I want to stand for what I believe in not because everyone else is but because I think it’s important. I don’t want the truth given to me, I want to find it myself. This doesn’t mean doing what they did. As I previously mentioned, I don’t find Charlie Hebdo funny I find it really offensive and the couples times I’ve read their magazine I thought it oversimplified complex and multi-layered issues. Nevertheless, I admire those journalist and what I am getting at by saying I want to be Charlie means doing what I personally believe to be important. This atrocity has inspired me to write this and to get back into writing for this blog I created over a year ago. I want to go back to doing something I enjoy and to try and aspire to create things I can be proud of. I want to be part of a movement to reeducate, against intolerance and hatred. I’m not saying by posting this, I can compare in anyway the sacrifice made by those who died on Wednesday, but perhaps by me writing this and by you reading it we’re at least doing something.

If you didn’t hate this, check out my blog http://thewau.com for more articles.

Originally published at thewau.com on January 9, 2015.