Je suis Charlie

My name is Jack Daniel Mills, I’m nineteen and I live in the North East of England. I enjoy travelling, reading and writing poetry, keeping two online blogs and holding hands with my girlfriend in public. I’ve never introduced myself to the readers of either of my blogs, and I realised yesterday, this is because I take my freedom to express my views for granted. I post articles, or my own general musings, or I post critiques of religion and cultural events and yet I never stop to think that maybe one day I will die for doing the thing which I enjoy. And that is because I have freedom. On January 7th I was reminded of the value of freedom, and that is what I want to talk to you about today.

This is the first post that I’ve published on both my academic blog and my personal blog in the two or so years that they have been running together. The reason I’ve done this is because both have different readerships, with my academic blog reaching a much wider audience, and my personal blog being seen mainly by friends and family. Quite simply I want this post to reach as many people as I am able to reach, not because I care about my WordPress statistics, or my LinkedIn page views, but because the topic of this article is the most serious and the most important I’ve ever discussed. I can never do justice to the events I am describing, the beliefs which I and so many others hold or the principles which many over the years have died defending.

The principles I speak of are encapsulated in their entirety by the motto of the French Republic; “liberté, égalité, fraternité”, meaning ‘Liberty, equality and fraternity’. The motto was institutionalised as the foundation of the 3rd French Republic at the end of the 19th Century and encapsulates the ideals upon which the society are founded. A society with the liberty and freedom to express itself through all mediums, with respect shown to all expressions of mind and being through equality, and a unity of persons within that society through fraternity. The satirical Parisian magazine Charlie Hebdo is a publication representative of those principles. While consistently controversial, arguably humorous and at times offensive, the magazine is symbolic of a society which holds aloft the principle of freedom of speech. A society which respects this principle because of the historic struggles taken to achieve it. A society which on January 7th 2015 saw the Charlie Hebdo Headquarters, and it’s sacred principle of ‘la liberté d’expression’ brutally attacked.

This is not the first time the magazine has come under physical attack. In 2011 satirical cartoons of the prophet Mohammed prompted an attack on the office of the magazine which was violently firebombed. The attack was of course condemned by people on both sides, with Mohammed Moussaoui, head of The French Council of the Muslim Faith, stating that his organisation deplores ” the very mocking tone of the paper toward Islam and its prophet but reaffirms with force its total opposition to all acts and all forms of violence.” This year however has seen the magazine bear the full force of Jihadist anger. On 7th January two Islamist gunmen forced their way into the head offices of the magazine, after killing the police officer protecting it, and opened fire. Two gunmen, allegedly trained by Al-Quaeda to be assasins, killed 12 innocent people for using their rights to freedom of expression. A lot of mainstream media has focused on the identity of the killers and their accomplices. I want to focus on the names of the victims, the people who died for freedom.
Staff Cartoonists and Maintenance Staff
Stephane Charbonnier aged 47
Jean Cabut aged 76
Phillippe Honore aged 73
Bernard Verlhac aged 57
Georges Wolinski ages 80
Bernard Maris aged 68
Elsa Cayat aged 55
Mustapha Ourrad aged 60
Michel Renaud aged 69
Franck Brinsolaro aged 49
Frederic Boisseau aged
Police officer Ahmed Merabet aged 42.

The attack on the Charlie Hebdo headquarters resulted in 12 deaths. 10 of those deaths were of men and women who worked directly for the magazine, as cartoonists or columnists who supported and utilised the freedom of expression that French people had fought for, for centuries. In the French Revolutions of 1848, in the 1st world war and in the 2nd world war, French people and people from all around the world have died to protect humanity’s freedom. Initially however the death of Ahmed Merabet was overlooked. He was counted among the dead and his sacrifice was mentioned fleetingly in news reports. Yet as events slowed down and reflections began, the world took notice of this mans’ sacrifice. Ahmed Merabet, a police officer in the 11th arrondisement of Paris was a Muslim. He was a brother and a son. He was murdered by men who claimed to be brothers of the same faith, but they were not Muslims, they were jihadists and they were extremists. Ahmed Merabet died to defend the rights of people who openly mocked his religion. And that is a beautiful thing. Ahmed Merabet died because while he did not agree with their depictions of his prophet, he loved the freedom he had to worship, the freedom he had to express himself, and he extended the rights to this freedom to his French counterparts. To say we should learn from this mans’ sacrifice is an understatement. He stands as a symbol now of what we must strive to protect: liberty, equality and fraternity.

The aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo shootings has been felt worldwide. The largest united marches in French history took place on Sunday 12th January with over 3 million people marching through the streets of France, to remember those who lost their lives and to symbolise that the French nation stood tall in the face of those who wanted it to fall to its knees. In this country (UK) the government are talking of using ‘all available measures’ to protect against terrorism, and this itself is political lexis for ‘spy more, intercept more, watch more’. We the people of the United Kingdom, France, Europe and in fact the world must make sure that the deaths of those people in France was not in vain. They did not die so that our own governments may encroach further on our freedom, they did not die that we may forget how fortunate we are. They died because they brandished their freedom of expression with pride. We all have a duty to stand united in their name.

I am Charlie. All those who stand to represent freedom, you are Charlie. We are all Charlie.