10 years since the Charlie Hebdo attack: a message from the Freethinker

A decade ago, on 7 January 2015, twelve people were slaughtered in Paris. Why? Because they were contributors to or workers or friends or protectors of Charlie Hebdo, a magazine which had dared to publish sacrilegious cartoons of the (supposed) prophet Muhammad.

Such cartoons have always invited the ire of the religious. As the current editor of one of the world’s oldest secularist magazines, the Freethinker, I know this very well. Our founder and first editor, George William Foote, was imprisoned for nearly a year in the early 1880s for publishing blasphemous cartoons, one of which—‘Moses Getting a Back View’—is a particular favourite of mine. These cartoons may seem quite tame by our current standards, but the eagerness of the bigoted to persecute satirists is as evident now as it was then.

Fanatics are almost by definition thin-skinned. The power of blasphemy is never to be underestimated. It certainly isn’t, nor has it ever been, by those who believe in god and claim to know his mind. It is the same old conflict between those who dare and those who dare not. From Brihaspati and Socrates and Epicurus and Ibn Rushd and Voltaire and Hume and Paine and Young and Eliot and Foote and Besant to Rushdie and Namazie and Charlie Hebdo, the power of reason and infidelity and satire has endured against the threats of the faithful. May it never diminish.

One of the men killed ten years ago by the Islamic fascists was a Muslim police officer named Ahmed Merabet. Alongside #JeSuisCharlie, the hashtag #JeSuisAhmed trended at that time, alongside these Voltairean words: ‘I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so.’ I might disagree with your faith, Ahmed, and your supporters (especially the emphasis they seem to be making), but thank you for your heroism.  

When George William Foote was sentenced to imprisonment by the Catholic Lord Justice Sir Ford North for his blasphemous cartoons, his response was: ‘My Lord, I thank you, it is worthy of your creed.’ Thank you, killers of a decade ago: your actions were worthy of your creed, and the resilience of Charlie Hebdo and the enduring legacy of those you murdered is the perfect antidote to it. Charlie Hebdo has outlived you to produce a magnificent tenth-anniversary edition. Increvable, indeed. And it will outlive all those who think like you, so long as there are those of us who reject you. And there are many of us, even if the betrayals and disappointments of the past ten years and more (particularly from the left) sometimes feel overwhelmingly dispiriting.

Most of all, thank you, Charlie, for your bravery and resilience. From 1776 to 1882 to 1989 to 2015 to the stabbing of Salman Rushdie in 2022 and beyond, free speech, democracy, and secularism remain our first, last, and best hopes. Long live the defiance of G.W. Foote and Rushdie and Charlie Hebdo—and all those countless others, named and unnamed, who dare and have dared to stand up to god and to the mentally impoverished theocrats who claim power over us in his name.

Charlie Hebdo: my kind of left. Perhaps even the only left worth having. Long live Charlie, great champion and inspirer of the world’s most persecuted and neglected dissidents. Long may your pen continue to trigger the fanatics. Here in Britain, as talk of our government adopting a new Islamic blasphemy code rears up once again, your example is needed more than ever.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité! 

Allez!

In memoriam Jean Cabut, Elsa Cayat, Stéphane Charbonnier, Philippe Honoré, Bernard Maris, Mustapha Ourrad, Bernard Verlhac, Georges Wolinski, Frédéric Boisseau, Franck Brinsolaro, Ahmed Merabet, and Michel Renaud.