What Say
You? Charlie Hebdo
SUSAN CLOKE
Columnist
January 15, 2015
Charlie
Hebdo, the French satirical magazine, published the
issue dubbed as “The Surviors’ Issue” on January 14. The cover is a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, a tear in his
eye, carrying a “Je suis Charlie” sign.
The caption above reads, “All is forgiven.”
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Charlie Hebdo
The Survivor's Issue
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Sadly the magazine Charlie Hebdo is known now to the whole world because of the
terrorists attacks of January 7 in Paris. 11 members of the magazine staff, a
policeman and 4 people in a kosher market were murdered by crazed gunmen
shouting “Allahu Akbar” which translates “God is great.”
Charlie
Hebdo is wildly famous in France. The cartoonists who died were household
names with star status. The
magazine carried on the French tradition of irreverent satire that doesn’t have
a parallel in the U.S.
On January 11, more than a million people took
to the streets of Paris to demonstrate their support for the French principals
of “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite,” to condemn the violence and to support
principles of democracy and tolerance.
They wore “Charlie” headbands and carried signs
saying “Je suis Charlie.” (“I am
Charlie.”) President Hollande of
France and Chancellor Merkel of
Germany were among the many world leaders present at the march.
In the U.S. the violent and murderous attacks
have been everywhere in the news and on the media. Artists and actors, writers
and journalists, politicians and community leaders, philosophers and religious
leaders have all paid homage to the people who were killed in France and have
tried to understand what to do to address the violence and protect democratic freedoms.
At the same time, as reported in the New York
Times, the response had been mixed in Muslim Countries.
“Al-Azhar University, the
foremost institution of Sunni scholarship, on Wednesday called on people to
“ignore” the cartoons. “Ignore this unpleasant trifle,” the statement advised,
“because the Prophet of mercy and humanity (peace be upon him) is on too great
and high a level to be affected by drawings that lack ethics.”
“The Egyptian Family House, an organization of the country’s
main Muslim and Coptic Christian authorities, issued a statement decrying the
cartoons because they “increase the gap between people and religions” and
calling on media outlets not to “negatively target the prophets and the
heavenly religions, and not to provoke the feelings of Muslims.”
“Egyptian courts have recently sentenced a 21-year-old student
to three years in jail for atheism and what were deemed blasphemous statements
on his Facebook page, and a Christian man was sentenced last year to six years
for “insulting Islam.”
“Insulting the
prophet can never be regarded within the context of media freedom,” Ercan
Ezgin, a Turkish lawyer, wrote in the complaint that prompted the ruling in
Diyarbakir, according to the CNN Turk channel. “This cartoon bears the danger
of deeply provoking billions of Muslims. It should never be acceptable to
depict our prophet in such a cartoon, poking fun at him, showing him as if he’s
shedding tears.”
“But one Turkish website, T24, translated the entire new issue
of Charlie Hebdo into Turkish and those pages were still accessible Wednesday
evening.
“Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah,
last week criticized extremists who kill those they consider infidels in the name of
Islam — without explicitly denouncing the Paris killings — released a statement
Wednesday condemning the new cartoon.
“Such an action is absolutely rejected,” it said. He called cartoon “a
big provocation to the feelings of more than one and a half billion Muslims in
the world, all of them believers in heaven’s messages and keen for dialogue and
common values. Such actions directly contribute to supporting terrorism,
extremism and extremists.”
“The Islamic State militant group – to which one of the Paris
attackers swore allegiance — declared on its Internet radio channel: “In a very
idiotic move, Charlie Hebdo published in new edition an offensive drawing of
the greatest prophet, peace be upon him. The atheist journal is seeking to
exploit the recent events to gain more money with today’s edition.”
“Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, said in comments published
Wednesday in a Czech newspaper that the attacks in Paris were a result of
Western support for “terrorism,” referring to Western backing of insurgents
opposed to his rule.”
“We are against the killing of innocent people anywhere in the
world,” Mr. Assad said, drawing anger and ridicule from Syrians opposed to his
rule, who noted that his government has killed countless Syrians in
indiscriminate bombardments during four years of civil war that have left more
than 200,000 dead.
In an essay in Politico,
Hisham Melhem, the Washington bureau chief of Al Arabiya, the Saudi-owned
pan-Arabic news channel, sought to explain why there was little groundswell of
interest.
“Western politicians and scholars anticipating or asking for
meaningful political and religious reforms by the nonexistent organized
‘moderates’ in today’s Arab world will be better advised to be patient and bid
their time,” he wrote. “Can those living in Baghdad, Aleppo, Sana, and Tripoli
— just to name few Arab cities — be blamed if they were not shocked by the
killing of the Charlie Hebdo twelve in Paris? Not is only Islam’s religious
text being distorted, a whole Arab generation has been totally desensitized by
unspeakable violence.”
In Britain, more than 50 prominent Muslim leaders wrote a joint open letterappealing for calm.
“Most Muslims will inevitably be hurt, offended and upset” by the latest
cartoon, the letter said. “But our reaction must be a reflection of the
teachings of the gentle and merciful character” of Muhammad.
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Charlie Hebdo Magazine Cover
July 2013
Anonymous street postings
Pacific Palisades and Brentwood
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Just this week, Charlie Hebdo posters were put
up in West LA.
Anonymously taped to transformer boxes along
Sunset Boulevard and in the Palisades and Brentwood they show a July 2013
Charlie Hebdo magazine cover.
On the cover is a cartoon Muslim holding the “Coran” and a caption that
reads in French, “The Coran is shit it can’t stop bullets.” Added to the surround is the film
title, “Good Will Hunting?” with a question mark.
Are the posters in West LA in tribute to Charlie
Hebdo? I think yes. That leaves me wondering about the
addition of “Good Will Hunting” on the borders of the poster.
The Hollywood blog, the WRAP, thinks the
addition may be related to the Ben Affleck/Bill Maher heated and confusing
exchange on the Bill Maher show. Or they speculate that the words were added
because the film “Good Will Hunting” was co-written by Affleck and Damon. That Affleck and Damon both live in the
area and would see the posters.
But really, that all seems to be quite a stretch.
What do you think? If you know the reason for adding the movie title, or
have a good guess, please share your information with us.
What we can and do all share is the profound
shock of yet another act of senseless violence. With each one our world is shaken. School girls kidnapped. Elementary school children shot, suicide bombers,
torturers. It’s a list that goes
on and on and
with each senseless act of violence so many
suffer, so many die, so many lives are condemned to grief.
Yet I take heart from the humanity of a crying
Prophet. From the outrage
expressed by Muslims around the world, joining their voices to the outrage
expressed in France and really everywhere.
“Nothing Sacred” is a motto at Charlie Hebdo. Always offending someone through their caricatures and
cartoons they also always have a moral point to make. Humor has the magnificent
ability to expose deep flaws in humanity and yet to allow us still to hear what
is being said. We usually don’t
think of people who can make so many people laugh as being in danger. But they clearly are.
Charlie Hebdo attorney Richard Malka said, “A
good issue of Charlie Hebdo is one that you open, one that frightens you when
you see the cartoon, and then makes you laugh out loud. We won’t give in, otherwise it wouldn’t
make any sense.”
What Say You?
