Je Suis Charlie, One Year Later

As of now (in Paris, at least), it was exactly one year ago that brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi attacked the office of Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people and injuring another 11, in the name of Islam.

Source

When this first happened, I wrote an article about it for my high school's newspaper. Since it wasn't school-related, it was rejected for publication. Now, I've decided to publish this online, for the tragedy's first anniversary. By no means interpret this action as supporting this heinous, despicable crime against free speech.

Here it is:

Prophet and Loss: My Reaction to the Attack

This is a tragic time for journalists of all walks everywhere.

On 7 January 2015, two gunmen, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, stormed into the office of the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, and opened fire, killing eleven people and wounding eleven others. They also killed a police officer on their way out.

The two stated they were acting on behalf of ʾal-Qāʿidah, which later took responsibility for the attack.

The attack was in retaliation for Charlie Hebdo’s 3 November 2011 cover, which depicted a stereotypically-drawn cartoon of Muḥammad (drawn by Rénald “Luz” Luzier), saying “100 coups de fouet, si vous n’êtes pas morts de rife!” (100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter!)

The offending cover.

In response, the French government declared a state of emergency, with military personnel deployed around Paris’s landmarks, metro, government buildings, and the office for Charlie Hebdo. Vigipirate, France’s national security alert system, was raised to its highest level, scarlet, for the second time in its history. (The first time was during the 2012 Touluse and Mountaban shootings.) At time of writing, the scarlet alert level is still implemented in Île-de-France, France’s administrative region.

The next week, Charlie Hebdo’s cover had another stereotypically-drawn Muḥammad, also by Luzier, holding a sign saying “Je suis Charlie” (I am Charlie), captioned above with “Tout est pardonné” (All is forgiven). To date, this so-called “Survivors’ Issue” is France’s most successful periodical publication (beating the now-defunct France-Soir tabloid, which on 9 November 1970 sold 2.2 million copies reporting the death of French leader Charles de Gaulle), with 7.95 million copies printed and sold within forty-eight hours of publication, and translated into English, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, and Turkish. The typical print run for Charlie Hebdo is 600,000 copies. Even though the magazine was supposed to be weekly (“Hebdo” being French for “Weekly”), it was six weeks before the next issue was published.

Cover of the "Survivors' Issue."

Why would a drawing of the Prophet prompt violent retaliation? In some interpretations of Islam, any depiction of Muḥammad is considered blasphemous. The ʾal-Qurʾān, however, does not specifically mention that imagery of the Prophet Muḥammad was forbidden, but it does mention that idolatry, or worshiping of paintings or statues, was banned: “ʾAllāh does not forgive idolatry, but He forgives lesser offenses for whomever He wills. Anyone who sets up idols beside ʾAllāh has forged a horrendous offense.” (4:46) The two sects of Islam are divided in opinion about this passage: Sunni Muslims do not permit Muḥammad’s depiction, while Shīʿah Muslims do, provided said depiction is done in a respectful manner.

Suppose one had a painting of the Prophet in one’s house. Would that provoke worshiping of that painting, and forgetting about the real god? Most Sunnis believe so.

(There are also issues with Muḥammad appearing in films and television. As a compromise, it is a good idea to not show the actor’s face, but have his voice be heard.)

So ʾal-Qāʿidah decided to take it into their own hands, and vowed to kill whoever draws the Prophet, and encouraged others to “defend Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him” [sic].

My reaction to the entire scenario, as a journalist and the editor-in-chief of a high school newspaper, is one of extreme shock, followed by grief, then furious anger rushing forth like the floodwaters of a mighty stream. Seriously. ʾal-Qāʿidah. What the FUCK were you thinking!?

These people were simply exercising their right to freedom of speech and the press, as laid out by Article XI of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Additionally, France is religiously impartial; religious freedom is guaranteed in Article X of the Declaration of the Rights of Man (provided said religion does not interfere harmfully with society at large). Charlie Hebdo demonstrates both of these rights perfectly, and if one doesn’t like it, one is welcome to print a hate letter in the local paper. However, one goes too far and crosses the line when one takes a rifle and takes out one’s anger and frustration on the matter by killing a dozen people, not all of whom are connected to it.

Which brings me to an ironic aspect. The officer that the Kouachi brothers killed outside of the Charlie Hebdo office was Ahmed Merabet, a French Muslim. Yes, you read that right. Two Muslims killed a third Muslim in the name of Islam. And the third didn’t do anything wrong. The forty-year-old officer was a faithful, if moderate, Muslim, and while he may have been offended by Charlie Hebdo, he kept it to himself. He went on duty, was patrolling as usual, when two men came up to him and shot him in the head. No, wait, scratch that-- that’s not ironic. In fact, I think English needs a new word-- a more intense version of “ironic.”

The French philosopher François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, once said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” And this is exactly the case that Arouet was talking about. A magazine published material that the Muslim community at large had disapproved, but nearly everyone across the globe, even moderate Mus-lims, have banded together to defend their right to do so.

American cartoonist Molly Norris once proposed a holiday called “Everybody Draw Muḥammad Day.” Held on 20 May, this is a day when people across the world draw pictures of the Prophet Muḥammad, despite threats of violent retaliation. That way, if ʾal-Qāʿidah threatens to kill anyone and everyone who draws the prophet, such a threat would be unrealistic.

Furthermore, there are two quotations, both straight from Islam’s holy texts, that I would like to mention here. The first is Hadith XIII: “None of you is a believer until he desires for his brother what he desires for himself.” This is basically a rephrased version of the Golden Rule. The second is from the ʾal-Qurʾān, specifically, the Sūratu ʾal-Māʾidah: “Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land-- it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one-- it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors.” (5:32) In other words, if one person messes with another human being, that person messes with all of ’em, even the ones s/he is supposedly fighting for. This includes the Prophet Muḥammad. And this is where I believe ʾal-Qāʿidah stopped thinking.

They are trying to defend Muḥammad from slander, but they hurt the Prophet more than any cartoon would. People will draw what they will draw, and say what they will say; “Haters gonna hate” is the commonly-used phrase on the Internet.

ʾal-Qāʿidah, if you happen to be reading this: stop. Just stop. I doubt the ʾal-Qurʾān can determine one’s fate, nor the Bible, nor the Torah, nor the Vedas, nor even the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. So what makes you think you can?

There is only one God. That much is true. But it’s not ʾAllāh. It’s not Yahveh, nor Brahman nor any other conventional God. Who is it? It’s us. All of us. Individually, we are mere lifeforms, albeit sapient. But when humanity assembles itself, we are the collective God. When we team up together, we can do what is naturally impossible. We can crack continents in two. We can level mountain, fill in valleys. We can dig deep tunnels to extract minerals, then manipulate them to suit our needs. Where there is a swamp, we can build a bustling city. Is this not godlike?

Therefore, I believe whoever goes to Heaven or Hell is determined by collective consensus. The people who will go to Heaven tend to leave this world better than they found it, like Robin Williams, who made the world laugh, or Colin “kitty0706” Wyckoff, a famous Machinima artist who passed away this last January of leukemia, or Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr, who won civil rights for all African-Americans. None of these people will ever be forgotten. All of them, no matter the religious viewpoint, enjoy life in Heaven.

Conversely, there are people like Báthory Erzsébet, who murdered 80 Hungarian virgins (official estimate) just so she could drink and bathe in their blood. Or perhaps Adolf Hitler, who as leader of Nazi Germany set on a campaign of creating a perfect “master race,” which involved total extermination of whoever he deemed impure, including six million Jews. These people will be remembered, but only because their specters still hang over the rest of us. They burn in Hell, no matter what religion they belonged to.

Which brings me back to you, ʾal-Qāʿidah. You murdered people because they did not share your opinions. You declare your ideas to be superior. But they are accepted by a sliver of a minority, the overwhelmingly vast majority condemning you to the deepest, darkest regions of Hell. If Muḥammad were still alive, he would agree with me.

So, as a journalist, I say to the world: Je suis Charlie. Yo soy Charlie. .انا شارلي Я Шарли Эбдо. 我是查理。Ich bin Charlie. Som Charlie Hebdo. Jsem Charlie Hebdo. .من شارلی هستم Unë jam Çarli. Mi estas Ĉarlion. la liēn λi-xārlī; Tôi của Charlie. Ja sam Charlie. Ni Charlie Hebdo. હું ચાર્લી છું. 私はチャーリーです。찰리입니다。mi cu la .carli. SarlI ebDo jIH. Io sono Charlie. Ben Şarlıe’yim. Eu sunt Charlie. Ik ben Charlie. Eu sou Charlie. I am Charlie.

If nothing else, may the reader take away these two quotations:

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

And:

When humanity assembles itself, we are the collective God.

The reason I took on this story (which admittedly turned into a two-and-a-half-page rant) was because of my fury. With the threat of ISIS rearing its ugly head right now, who knows what the future will bring.

(Also, being a reporter, it's also why I end all of my blog posts with the phrase "Good night, and good luck." That's the same phrase that radio/TV reporter Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965) used to sign off all of his broadcasts on Hear It Now and See It Now.)

So ends my blog-post. They may be gone-- but they will not be forgotten!

Good night, and good luck.