Somewhere near Bastille, off Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, is a small street without any pretension or, until then, historical significance. Mere walking minutes from the beating, pulsating heart of French identity, stand beige buildings, post-war architecture, with unadorned windows and empty balconies. The traffic of the boulevard is heard faintly during rush hour, but after shops close, it returns to an almost suburban quietness. The backstreets of the 11th district have a lot to share. Rue Nicolas-Appert, ten years ago, was temporarily renamed Rue de La Liberté d’Expression (Freedom of Expression Street).
I grew up with Charlie Hebdo. I grew up with Le Canard Enchaîné. I grew up with old school, sometimes crass, often biting, satirical press. From them I learned critical thought, and the stubborn refusal to yield to power, no matter how democratic. I learned that what happens in the hallowed halls of said power is not necessarily more important or more solemn than fundamental freedoms, including that of opinion, expression, and information. I learned that dissent can be funny; that pompous ceremony is hardly a celebration; and that we should all, if we believe in said freedoms, always remain vigilant. No matter how stable the nation, no matter how safeguarded the human rights, nothing, or no one, is ever safe.
The second thing I want to say is that my memories of ten years ago have no sound.
History came to Charlie Hebdo, and I have never stopped thinking Charb would have hated it. He hated it in 2011, when the firebombing of 2011 forced him under police protection. In 2012, someone called for Charb’s beheading online. In 2013, Al-Qaeda put Charb on its “most wanted” list. The constant reminder of violence and the presence of uniforms in a magazine’s editorial office ring odd, uncomfortable, because unnatural. Can the press truly be free under the watchful eye of its detractors and of the state? Some had then argued, cynically, that liberty has a price, but the cost is unaffordable. If this means leaving behind Charb, Cabu, Tignous, and others, it is unacceptable. This isn’t a contract through which any of us can willingly engage. It is not a debate. It is not a disagreement, it is not even a conflict. It is silence. Silence that has enveloped the district in diffused pain, almost ashamed of its gaping wound: the pens that were now lying on the floor of the magazine offices, covered in blood, next to those who had huddled under desks for the longest ten minutes of their existence.
We know the story. A tragic two-day manhunt resulting in a hostage crisis and the trial by bullet of the gunmen, two brothers who claimed to have killed in the name of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) with weapons supplied from Belgium. France will then plunge into deep counter-terrorism waters, yet barely had 10 months’ reprieve before the next terror attack that would then change the country forever, and for the worse. In this interim, the legislation stopped solely relying on the 1905 principle of laïcité, a French exemption to the typical understanding of freedom of religion, which imposes state secularity. It created the criminalisation of what it called “apology for terrorism”, ie. its support or endorsement; it limited reporting on national security and defense matters; it demanded complete and total subjugation to a new order, in which prevention of radicalisation and extremism would exceed its constitutional ambitions to preserve speech and opinion at all costs. What Charlie fought for seems to have vanished with them, somewhere, indeed, between Bastille and République.
We should never forget them, and never forget that Charlie Hebdo’s refusal to bend the knee wasn’t reactionary, or disrespectful. It was foreshadowing what the world had become, and would continue to cement: a timid, non-confrontational analysis of world events. I often ponder what Charb would think of France today, under Le Pen’s spell, causing chaos in the Assemblée, unable to find its place in an increasingly polarised world. The silence is deafening.
A week after the shooting, on the 14th of January, Charlie Hebdo rose again in an act of defiance. The Prophet Muhammad is depicted on a green background, holding a pen, and shedding a tear. “Tout est pardonné”, “All is forgiven”, the front page read. It ran almost 8 million copies worldwide.
Pour Cabu, Elsa Cayat, Wolinski, Charb, Philippe Honoré, Bernard Maris, Mustapha Ourrad, and Tignous.
⏩ Sarah Kay is a human rights lawyer.
Sarah - great piece. Takes me back to the time you and I stood in the rain outside the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris.
ReplyDeleteThe attack was religious cancel culture in its most vicious form.