You know, on my way home yesterday, I was thinking about Charlie Hebdo.
No, not only the shooting. You see, my family is a dual citizen family. Everyone is a dual citizen of the United States and France (except my father, who never pursued American citizenship). So, there is familiarity with many aspects of French culture that most Americans never come close to.
One of my father's favorite magazines was Charlie Hebdo. Not that long ago, he bought an issue of it for both my brother and I, saying that it was a keeper that we should lock away, since it might be worth money someday. I forgot exactly what the issue was about, but it was something that he felt was special, obviously.
I rarely got the chance to peruse through issues of Charlie Hebdo. Usually, only the ones that my father or brother got, or on those occasions when I was in France. Possibly, once or twice while on visits to Quebec province.
But we definitely had a familiarity with it, and admired the gutsy nature of their satire. It was not aimed exclusively at Islam, and was not really anti-Islam, per se. They targeted other religions, as well as very prominent politicians. There is one issue featuring a cartoon of former French President Sarkozy naked and in an impossible position, bending over so far that his head is fast approaching his ass. The meaning should be quite obvious and needs no explaining.
Indeed, it is the kind of journal designed to piss people off. Powerful people. It uses humor as a weapon, of sorts (and doesn't that sentence take on a whole new meaning following the events of this week?).
Yes, it had enemies.
I think that we felt proud of it. Yes, it was rather extreme, compared to what most countries have, or would allow. But that was part of it's charm. It went much farther than most. It took freedom of expression to what some would call an extreme. Indeed, I found some criticism of it by government officials and other newspapers (mostly in the Middle East) that suggested that the publication had abused freedom of speech.
To me, this is the whole point of free speech. It was never meant to be what it often is for false patriots, something that sounds nice and noble, accompanied by patriotic imagery or music. Freedom of expression is something real, and what it translates to in reality is the right to offend. It was never meant to be pretty. It means the right to disagree, of dissent, and that means arguments - often heated. That means protests, including the right of police to turn their backs on the mayor of New York, the right of Nazis to hold a protest in Skokie, and the right of members of the Westboro Baptist Church to protest at funerals of innocents. It means publications like Charlie Hebdo exercising their freedom to offend powerful people and institutions, including religions.
Including Islam.
One of the tragedies that I find about this whole thing is that people that never heard of Charlie Hebdo had to find out about this magazine in this way. They used humor to poke fun at things. Make fun of people, of institutions, of intolerance, of ways of thinking.
Their lives were taken by men with absolutely no sense of humor. Men who gunned them down in cold blood. Men who wanted to make them pay for daring to exercise their right to free speech. Men who want the world to live in fear of them.
That is why I will reiterate what is being said all over France and, indeed, all around the world now. I said it yesterday, and will say it again today, because it really is a matter of choice. Either we choose to live with a certain measure of freedom, or we choose to live in fear. I, for one, choose to support freedom, even if it offends others. Even if it offends Islam, or Christianity.
Even if it offends me.
Je suis Charlie.
Here is an article of mine on this subject that was published on Guardian Liberty Voice:
Charlie Hebdo: World Reacts to Shootings
http://guardianlv.com/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-world-reacts-to-shootings/
Something occurred to me regarding much of the ire - be it in the form of calls for censorship (which, sadly, were at times heeded), or something far more extreme, like the deadly violence that unfurled during the last couple days - that Charlie Hebdo has attracted. I suspect that deep down, on some level, people aren't angry and offended because they're convinced that we have an excellent collective track record as a species, and that Charlie Hebdo's graphic and unapologetic send-ups of public figures, social institutions, and indeed humanity itself are harsh and unwarranted. I think it's just the opposite - they know that we're one seriously fucked up, neurotic, self-destructive species, largely at the mercy of sociopaths vying for control. They know that the lion's share of what we do is patently absurd, and that the reverence and pageantry people apply to religion, politics, commerce, you name it - is inherently flawed and unwarranted. People don't appreciate having their illusions shattered, their denial exposed. Most of them of course at least possess some modicum of perspective - ultimately these are just images and slogans in a satirical publication, after all. Tragically, a few here and there do not. There's something to be said for pushing the proverbial envelope, the boundaries of what most people would think of as good taste, particularly when there's an underlying intelligence to that whole process, which I feel was often the case with Charlie Hebdo. There are no sacred cows - unquestioning devotion to anyone or anything is never a good thing, and therefore nothing (and no one) should be off limits. From my vantage point we're all fair game. Those who disagree are to me infinitely more dangerous and worthy of intense scrutiny than any cartoonist. Je suis Charlie.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you are saying, except for the human species part. For whatever faults other, more native cultures may have or had, I don't believe that they have the same problems inherent in our global culture. Since they, too, are members of our human species, that is not something to discount. The sickness, in my opinion, is in our culture, which has spread throughout much of the world. It is in our modern society where the root cause of all of these excesses can be identified and, hopefully, cured.
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