Why I Am Charlie

"I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity." -- Salman Rushdie

I am Charlie.

I am Charlie because on January 7th, 2015 two masked gunmen forced their way into the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and murdered twelve people, including three police officers, and injured eleven others.  I am Charlie because the targets of this attack included the editor of the magazine, Stephane "Charb" Charbonnier and his fellow cartoonists Jean Cabut, Georges Wolinski, Bernard Verlhac, and Philippe Honore.  Also murdered that day were columnists Bernard Maris and Elsa Cayat, copy-editor Mustapha Ourrad, caretaker Frederic Boisseau, and Michel Renaud, who was there visiting a friend.  The police officers murdered that day were Brigadier Franck Brinsolaro, policewoman Clarissa Jean-Philippe, and Ahmed Merabet, whose murder inspired  Je Suis Ahmed.  So, yes, I am Ahmed.

Ahmed Merabet died on January 7th not because he was a Muslim but because he and his fellow officers were there to protect their fellow citizens, the editor and employees of Charlie Hebdo, from the violent, religious fanaticism, as it turned out, of a two, three, four or more of their fellow citizens of the French Republic.  I am not French, but an American. I am not Muslim.  I am an atheist. I am not, nor do I know personally any serving police officers.  Yet, I am Ahmed.

And I am Charlie.  I am Charlie because, again as the novelist Salman Rushdie once said, “From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.” I am Charlie because I sincerely believe that there is no justification for the unjustifiable: no God, no Prophet, no policy, foreign or domestic, no text that can justify murdering people for drawing cartoons.  I do not accept that anyone has the right to kill another human being for "blasphemy."  I do not believe in blasphemy.  I reject both the premise and the presupposition of God.  You may believe whatever you like, and I will defend your right to do so, but your faith can not and will not change my disbelief.  More importantly in a larger sense, your faith may not dictate the limits of my expression of that disbelief.

Because I draw, I am Charlie.  Because I think, I am Charlie.  Because I have every right to be, I am Charlie.

I have friends who have in the past few days questioned the both utility and the motivations of the Je Suis Charlie signs and marches, friends who have, quite rightly pointed out the bitter irony of despots and dictators marching at the recent rally in Paris.  Some have also drawn attention to the deaths of innocent civilians in the American campaign using drones to assassinate our enemies in Yemen.  I have read more than one person I respect suggesting that the work of the murdered cartoonists was both racist and hateful.  Then there is the overwhelming horror of the massacre by Boko Haram of hundreds, if not thousands this week, and the question of why we are not marching in the streets to protest those murders as well.

It is not in spite of but because of these outrages and their resulting moral and ethical complications that I say, I am Charlie.  It is because France -- the cradle of the Enlightenment -- much like my own country, has had to struggle, and will continue to struggle with her own history, her own culpability in the perpetuation of racism, intolerance and violence, that I say, I am Charlie.    Those struggles are inherent to not only our system of government, but to the founding missions of both our revolutions.  It is for Voltaire and Honoré Daumier, for Clarence Darrow, for H. L. Mencken and the American cartoonists Paul Conrad, and Herblock, that I am Charlie.  It is because we not only may, but must challenge long-held assumptions and the smug assurance of our own superiority that I am Charlie.  It is because I may be uncomfortable with some of the content of Charlie Hebro that I am Charlie.  It is because I am revolted by the slaughter of innocents that I am Charlie.

I do not say any of this because I see myself as in anyway representative.  I add my own voice to the chorus, that is all.  I am just a bookseller.  I am Charlie because we must all be, one way or another, heard, if we are not all, by either violence, indifference or timidity, to be silenced.  I speak for no one but myself.  I speak because I still can.  I speak, as I write, and draw and do the little that I can, because to not do so is to concede to the fanatics my silence in the face of this latest outrage.  I will not be silent, even if I can do nothing else, even if I address only my friends.

Humbly then, defiantly and if to no other purpose than to remember and honor those who were murdered on January 7th by the enemies of secularism, freedom of speech and the right to laugh at and in the face of religious fanaticism and hatred, I will say it again,

"JE SUIS CHARLIE!"