Translated by Santiago Perales, edited by Fausto Giudice, Tlaxcala ---- I recently wrote a
short article entitled I'm not Charlie on the reactions to the massacre of members of the
drafting of Charlie Hebdo, as well as some of the content of the newspaper, especially the
trivialization of murder of Muslims. This article, which was published on various sites
and blogs *, triggered a strong polemic which, as expected, did not necessarily intend to
do with the article, but which nevertheless used to stimulate debate, which is seeking to
stifle all sides by simplistic slogans. A friend said that the only thing worth the
trouble of writing it is that bothers power and hegemonic thinking, even if it is
camouflaged as "alternative".
The debate about Charlie Hebdo ... to be or not to be, that is the question
I recently wrote a short article entitled I sui Charlie spas on the reactions to the
massacre of members of the drafting of Charlie Hebdo, as well as some of the content of
the newspaper, especially the trivialization of murder of Muslims. This article, which was
published on various websites and blogs, triggered a strong polemic which, as expected,
did not necessarily intend to do with the article, but which nevertheless served to
stimulate debate, which is seeking to choke on all sides by simplistic slogans. A friend
said that the only thing worth the trouble of writing it is that bothers power and
hegemonic thinking, even if it is camouflaged as "alternative".
As part of imposed manich?ismes (or you're with Charlie or you are with the terrorists),
many people seem surprised that anyone would condemn both the attack against the offices
of Charlie Hebdo and caricatures. Whether by mental blinkers, for misunderstanding or bad
faith or, then by sheer stupidity, some have come to the surprising conclusion that the
denunciation of racist - obvious - many of these cartoons would at best "the hands of the
terrorists "and at worst would be to" endorse the massacre. " The failure to put shirt I
Am Charlie would make you suspect, would make you one of the "other". I do not accept this
blackmail. I think it is a moral duty not only to reject the attack but especially with
more force, to oppose this avalanche of racism and xenophobia that floods in Europe, where
80 years after the failure of old fascism, neo-Nazism becomes trend, precisely because of
Islamophobia. Similarly, we must oppose the cultural representations used to promote
hatred, whether or not handled, conscious or not. This position is not easy to hold given
the prevailing McCarthyism and the attitude of many people, who donned the shirt I'm
Charlie blindly following the trends Facebook.
Ones and those which are not
The article has been echoed by many people who do not believe that the conviction of the
crime perpetrated against Charlie Hebdo by Islamic extremists make acceptable as racist
representations made in this newspaper or other media people from countries Muslims
celebrate these representations, dissemination and uncritical support for such a
manipulated slogan "I'm Charlie." Republish these cartoons is not "brave" or "irreverent"
is free to continue to throw fuel on the fire in a situation already sufficiently
explosive, which requires that opens doors of communication to more great intercultural
dialogue and not that the slap. The article was approved by all those for whom what
happened in Paris should not be discharged from the historical context, as if colonialism
and imperialist aggressions of France and Western powers had nothing to do in this world
carnage. - a position argued very convincingly by Robert Fisk in an article in The
Independent[1] He also hit those who view with concern the handling of this crime justify
future crimes, either in the form of racist attacks against immigrants or judged such or
in the form of military intervention of France, direct and Mali, Chad and Central African
Republic, or indirect as in Syria, where, by the way, the brothers Kouachi military
training with the "freedom fighters" supported by France. Finally, it was approved by
those who can ignore the hypocrisy of many Heads of State or Government who marched in
Paris under the banner of "freedom of expression" but that censor, gag and murder
journalists in their own country (or those they occupy)[2]. Irony of life: one of Charlie
Hebdo cartoonists, Bernhard Willem Holtrop alias Willem said Saturday. "We vomit all these
people suddenly say to our friends (...) while they have never seen Charlie Hebdo".
But the article also triggered the reaction of many critics, from various points of view.
The aggressiveness of some is clearly a reflection of the belligerent atmosphere that is
breathed by the mass media as an integral part of the "War against Terrorism" and we
breathe particularly burdensome way here in Europe. Just see the comments raised any
mention of Arabs on the Internet to realize that reigns an impressive Islamophobia. This
aggressiveness, far from being rhetorical, is expressed in attacks against members of the
European Arab community in symbolic attacks and insults, with an open or tacit support to
the Arab countries bombing or strangulation Palestine. The week ended with the extremists
slaughtered after a relentless hunt that could end only by death; but there are still five
million Muslims in France, all potentially dangerous, all threatening, all guilty until
proven innocent. It takes a good dose of paranoia to power this despicable sentiment:
according to some commentators, one could believe that we live in a Europe dominated by
Islamist imams who impose sharia, stalk secular and Christian thought and bite "our" women
. Steve Emerson, for example, a so-called expert "terrorism", said on Fox News that
Birmingham (UK) was a totally Islamic city that could not get people who do not belong to
this religion[3]. Although the stupidity of this comment is not gone unnoticed, there is a
body of opinion that believes, against all evidence, that we are surrounded and that we
need to track down these people, catching them where they hide in neighborhoods or in
their countries, and continue to feed this endless war of civilizations.
The openly racist argument
What are the objections against those who condemn the attack without putting Charlie's
shirt?[4] In addition to those who do not exceed the level of insult or slogan seeking to
stifle criticism of proto-fascist manner ("if you do not like it, do not buy it and shut
up" ), certain objections come back. The first group of objectors brandished openly racist
arguments. They are not lacking, those who write that "Muslims", without exception, are
all barbarians, who consider all of us other "Westerners", without exception, as infidels
who must die. This is generally the position of people who have not experienced in their
life a single Muslim except through caricatures of Charlie Hebdo or through the equally
grotesque thesis of the clash of civilizations. Within these pearls we find those who say
Muslims are blind fanatics, they are retarded medieval, animals, send them back to their
country if here it does not like them to go, teach Israel that made them see reason, we
must crush them, do not calm down the game but are facing them, decide which values we
belong, lynch them, forget the rights of man and hang him by them balls, and whatnot. I do
not ?terniserai on what type of comments, but I think this validates my point that there
is an undeniable substrate racism among some of those who claim I Am Charlie and the
interest of some to reproduce these unfortunate caricature goes well beyond an innocent
defense of freedom of expression.
The sacred ideology of freedom of expression
The second group consists of those who are defending the principle of freedom of
expression as a sacred and absolute value. But as any democratic partial freedom, freedom
of expression has limits. And the absolute freedom of expression that many commentators
celebrate, this alleged nihilism of Charlie Hebdo criticizing "everybody in the same way"
is a fiction: first, because not all are equal. There unavoidable sensitivities when
flouts a vulnerable sector of the population, or culture of a country that your government
invades, bombs or colonized. Symbolic violence is associated with actual violence: if the
Western powers used only caricatures there would be no problem, but in addition to the ink
there is a lot of bombs and bloodshed.
This is highlighted very clearly by the French Jewish Union for Peace, which in its
statement on this, clearly states that we can not ignore the context in which the cartoons
were published: "Can we imagine cartoons from newspapers critical of progressive Judaism
during the thirties at the time of the rise of anti-Semitism and the persecution of the
Jews? ", noting that the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo are part of this Islamophobia in France
pare the call to protect "their" "secularism".[5] Beyond the fact that pornographic
cartoons of Charlie can hardly be considered beautiful, we speak of humor, irony, satire,
as if these categories to put them beyond criticism: we all know that, when machismo is
camouflaged in fun, face criticism appears the "Club Toby" * to say that feminists have no
sense of humor.
Second, the argument of freedom of expression is artificial insofar Charlie Hebdo was not
criticizing everyone in the same way. The anti-Islamic humor overload in the last decade
(curiously coinciding with the War against Terrorism) is obvious to anyone who has read
the newspaper lately. Not to mention that there was taboo in this newspaper, for example,
the Holocaust. Certainly it would be horrible to make caricatures of the Holocaust, but it
is just as horrible to them about the killing of Egyptians or the tragedy are the suicide
bombers. So do not say that we laugh at all if, in practice, we do not do. In practice,
some are victims and other humorous material.
This, of course, is not just the double standards of the newspaper. This is a double
standard in the French devoted laws themselves that prohibit any questioning of the
Holocaust, even debating whether there has been a 6 or 5 million deaths. The position of
Noam Chomsky said that freedom of expression has only one meaning for the opinions we
hate, that is to say, that everything must publish without exception. Another position
would be to accept that the absolute freedom of expression does not exist, that nihilism
is not acceptable solvent, which can be insulted that you want as you like, but there must
have clearly defined rules and constituted equally for all. I can not say obscenities in
front of minors or incite hatred against minorities: there must be some rules for
community life, especially in highly diverse societies.
Secondly, it has no relevance to hide behind the argument that the cartoonists were left,
as if being left immunisait us against prejudice: especially as it is established that the
French had left recently a significant change in favor of "humanitarian intervention"[6],
Cohn-Bendit, May 68 icon, arriving to the invasion of Iraq. Another argument is worthless
as some of them sympathized with anarchism, as if it gave them a license to practice the
"humour" racist or deny the importance of certain rules to regulate society in
communication - as much as I know, the anarchist position is not the absence of rules, but
the collective agreement on the rules so that it is more acceptable to all concerned and
for minorities. But this republican position an absolute freedom of expression, but only
when it suits us, is unsustainable. With this double standard the French authorities have
banned in the past pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and censored comedian Dieudonn? and now
Prime Minister Manuel Valls said not to be Charlie can make you suspicious.
Within this group of opinion, there are those who say outright, without blushing, that
"freedom of expression" marks the dividing line between the "two cultures", western and
eastern accordingly ... what they say, if I can write this article, it is thanks to our
freedom of expression; I was living in an Arab tyranny, surely I could not do it. This
ignores where the situation of freedom of expression in our "Western civilization" is, to
say the least, precarious. First, because the information monopolies, which control 90% of
media control, set very clear boundaries between what is acceptable to say and what is
not, a subject on which Noam Chomsky has long worked. There is space in the media for the
single thought and any journalist who wants to have a job knows to avoid some annoying
issues: the market is much regimenting citizen opinion that religious fanaticism .
Alternative media are frequently framed, it requires them to "balance" to dilute
alternative messages when certain political messages they are banned outright. In
countries like Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, to name some of "our civilization", which
formally share its secular values and freedoms, hundreds of journalists have been murdered
and thousands threatened in recent years, without this creates some international scandal.
A friend of a French blog told me also that while fully agree with the content of my
article, she feared if she published on her blog, which forced him to withdraw: the
self-censorship in our media is huge. But also the opinion of those who believe in an Arab
country can not express themselves, also ignore the value of the work of thousands of Arab
journalists and alternative communicators who constantly write and speak from countries
such as Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Tunisia, Syria, every day, sometimes challenging
occupations or military aggression[in Gaza 13 Palestinian and foreign journalists have
been killed in the latest Israeli aggression], sometimes defying dictatorships, sometimes
fanatics, ignorant. They do not know that an Arab media, Al Jazeera, has a much wider
repertoire of opinions and informative quality far greater than most major Western media
and CNN did seem like a seedy organ of propaganda. The fact that the Arabs, or the people
of Muslim countries do not necessarily speak one of four major colonial languages
(Spanish, French, English and Portuguese), does not mean they do not speak all or they
have nothing important to say. This bias reflects the colonial arrogance of which I spoke.
We who are so special ...
Finally, there was those who argue that we do not understand or that we do not know and
that is why we critique. This argument is partly an old colonial arrogance democratically
distributed among Europeans of south and north. According to these, the western culture
(and of course French) is well above the capacity of understanding us other barbarians. It
must be understood in context, they say; admitting that this criticism may partially be
valid, the images of Charlie Hebdo have been circulating for a while outside of this
context, in a world that does not have the intellectual capacity to understand the unique
French culture (except a few intellectuals Frenchified over here and there). They claim
the distinction of republican values of France, the "cradle" of human rights and the
modern state. But the current France is not backward direcet of revolutionary France in
1789-1793, it is much the heir of the excesses of the Terror and the reaction of
Thermidor. France is not so much the descendant of this provincial Republic of the late
eighteenth century, this vast empire of the late nineteenth century. Which explains why it
was not long ago the Minister of Education recommended to introduce into the school
curriculum lessons on the positive aspects of colonialism.
There is in this group of critics not a lesser dose of elitism as well as a double
standard: it must be sufficiently sophisticated and intelligent to understand the genius
of Charlie Hebdo. As is sometimes said of art: if he does not like is that we do not
understand. It would be impossible as it may not be to who has the ability or education to
understand it. Any criticism necessarily from the ignorance of the one who criticizes.
Some comments from French said I can not criticize Charlie because (they assume) I know
nothing of their culture, others because I do not live in France and someone even, because
I not live in Paris (!) ... but they can criticize Islam from France because there, they
know everything about everything.
It is curious that this requirement on the part of those who ask that we have read all the
Charlie Hebdo numbers to be able to criticize, that we have experienced long periods of
time in this country to be familiar with the peculiarities of the French culture, and that
without it the subtleties of "Charlie Hebdo humor" we would be inaccessible, do not apply
to themselves. Blessed by their passports, cartoonists and their advocates can criticize,
and also make fun of cultures or religions that they barely know, if at all.
Everything in context
The cartoons are not just that, simple caricatures, as many commentators claim. The
cartoons deliver messages in specific contexts, such as the one we currently live in
Europe, can inspire a xenophobic hatred, racist attacks and justify colonial adventures in
progress. I already talked about this before, in an article written with Irish academic
Jewish David Landy: "Political cartoons go beyond pure about 'freedom of expression' Treat
the theme of this single point. view begs a debate on the legacy of colonialism and an
unjust imperial order in today's world, a world in which some feel entitled, through these
drawings innocent ', to justify Violence of this kind. A innocent drawing 'can be more
effective to spread intolerance that a discourse ".[7] The cartoons do not kill, but they
generate discourse around physical violence. It is not enough to say "that may therefore
be an artist if some racist idiots use his work"; So the artist does not control
everything and misunderstanding can play tricks despite his intentions. But the artist can
not be divorced entirely a responsibility to his work, especially when we speak of models
and recurring themes. I know that in the postmodern world in which we live, a rabid
individualism, speak of a "moral responsibility" is almost a dirty word. But I prefer this
language to sound old fashioned to some, the antisocial selfishness we are inculcated with
the ideological apparatuses of the system and enhances the extraordinary individualization
of new digital technologies. In addition, on January 12, there had been at least 42
Islamophobic attacks in France, totally inaper?ues- past and fortunately were not dead -
including shooting, grenade throwing, inscriptions the slogan "I'm Charlie" on mosques and
physical assault.[8] To say that cartoons are not something so innocent or that their
authors have a moral responsibility vis-?-vis the use that is made of their works in any
way justify the killing: but this explains why I do not associate myself with the mode
"I'm Charlie."
Charlie Hebdo not only insults the "extremists," Charlie Hebdo insulting all Muslims
amalgamating, using stereotypes when their countries are bombarded and controlled by NATO,
France, the USA, etc., and while in Europe they are treated as second class citizens as a
"fifth column" or as a tumor to eradicate. I had the opportunity to share with the
Egyptians, Turks, Palestinians, Kurds left, lay people, and no one thought the cartoons
were great: they felt them as something deeply hurtful and unfair. Nothing justifies a
massacre, but we can not justify degrading treatment of others.
If there is something that summarizes the progressive spirit that inaugurated the French
Revolution (in which, for the record, one of my ancestors - Georges Danton - lost his
head, literally) is the "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity". The three are inseparable.
Liberty is a disgrace when it is not accompanied Equality, which is much more than being
equal before the law. And both are an illusion if there is no fraternity. And it's not
brotherly to mock the beliefs, culture or lifestyle company vulnerable sectors from a
privileged position, especially when the majority of Muslims are not found in France by
chance, but because of the colonial history of this country.
This is the difference between humor of Charlie Hebdo and that of, for example, Quino,
creator of Mafalda, a fine political humorist, who has never had to resort to vulgarity
sensationalist, or the "anything goes "nor mockery of the excluded, to generate reflection
and critical thinking. Critical thinking more and more difficult in the world of "hashtag"
and transnational messages" of two lines in "real time." Defend this area of critical
thinking in a world that is increasingly haywire, it means today, in my opinion, not be
Charlie
Jos? Antonio Guti?rrez D.
January 12, 2015
* The Club Toby Toby is a character of a cartoon US very popular in Latin America, Little
Lulu. It has a forbidden club access to women. This refers in Latin America macho.
NdA
[1] Original: Charlie Hebdo: Paris attack brothers' campaign of terror Can Be traced back
to Algeria in 1954. Spanish version: Argelia Agrega contexto al ataque contra Charlie
Hebdo [2] These include the King of Jordan, Prime Minister Turkish Netanyahu of Israel,
the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, US representatives, the dictator of Gabon Ali
Bongo etc.
[3] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/....html
[4] Given the large number of comments, I will not mention them individually, but I have
grouped into three broad categories to facilitate their contribution. In this debate, I
also lean on favorable comments to the article that responded to criticism from some. In
this sense I consider the arguments that I develop below as a collective development.
[5] http://www.ujfp.org/spip.php?article3760
[6] What Jean Bricmont discussed in detail in his book "Humanitarian Imperialism".
[7] http://anarkismo.net/article/21217
[8] http://paris-luttes.info/deferlante-raciste-et-islamoph...-2397
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27803
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