I am sad about the recent terrosit attack that ended the life of 12 people and injured 11. I think about their family and I shiver at their sorrow just as I shiver everytime I hear, read or see videos of murder taking place all over the world. My heart is heavy and I mourn with the family of the victims just as I do everytime Boko Haram attacks people in schools, villages, police stations, army barracks etc. When will it all stop? Should I cut off from televisions, radio, Internet and pretend that there is peace in the world because I dont see no evil or hear no evil? Do I continue to watch and be more dpressed that peace is far from the world? How do I detach myself from all this, be numb, feel no pain, no hurt, no bleeding in my heart, no silent mournings, and just act like its life!? Gunmen attacked French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo this wednesday morning leaving 12 people dead and 7 injured. Three hooded gunmen, armed with Kalashnikovs and a rocket launcher, arrived at 10:40am at the headquarters of the weekly magazine in the 11th arrondissement in Paris. According witnesses, they first stalked the building for a few minutes, and reportedly said to a man in the street: Tell the media this is from al-Qaeda in Yemen. They got access into building by threatening a Charlie Hebdo female cartoonist who had gone tothe nursery to get the her daughter to press in the code. The attack took place during the magazines wednesday editorial meeting when all its journalists and cartoonists are present. They asked for their names each before opening fire on them. Charb, who had a price put on his head by al-Qaeda in 2013, was shot dead, along with cartoonists Jean Cabut (aka Cabu) and Georges Wolinski, who were shot at during 5 minutes, and also Tignous.They killed a total of 12 people, 10 journalists and two police guards. Witenesses say they shouted : “We have killed Charlie Hebdo! We have avenged the Prophet Mohammed!” The three gunmen fled in a a black Citroen DS driven by a fourth. They drove to Porte de Pantin in north-east Paris, where they abandoned their vehicle and hijacked another one, keeping the driver as an hostage, knocked-over a pedestrian and wounded several others. The criminals are still on the run. Charlie Hebdo is a French satirical weekly which publishes cartoons, jokes and News reports. Hebdo is short for hebdomadaire which means “weekly” in French. Their headquarters is based in the 11th arrondissement in Paris, France. The French magazine is known for its extreme provocations, poking fun at the extreme right, mocking religious faiths of all kinds and their founders, satirising public figures such as politicians, bankers, judges, celebrities etc.. It is published every Wednesday with a circulation of about 45,000 copies. Their last tweet was a cartoon mocking the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, with the caption Meilleurs vœux, au fait in English Best wishes, by the way. Charlie Hebdos website, went offline during the attack, is showing the single image of Je suis Charlie (I am Charlie) on a black banner, referring to a hashtag that is trending on Twitter in solidarity with the victims. These past few year, Charlie Hebdo attacked without cease different religions, and especially the most important. The French embassies, consulates, schools, cultural centers and Alliances in muslims countries have had to close several times because the French controversial magazine would not stop taking a poke at the prophet of the muslims by making Mohammed cartoons. “The aim is to laugh. We want to laugh at the extremists, every extremist. They can be Muslim, Jewish, Catholic. Everyone can be religious, but extremist thoughts and acts we cannot accept.” - ” Laurent Léger Charlie Hebdos journalist. The make a big buzz and also big success in sales therefore did not care for the lives of thousands of French people who live in countries where their lives are at risk because of their “liberté d’expression”. Although the magazine received death threats that even the editor was living under police protection, it didnt scare them to silence but instead watered their bravery. Stand for something or you fall for every thing they say... I guess this is why the editor didnt budge to threats by Intergrists as he called them. He was said that there were more chances for him to be ran down and killed by a car than to be killed by extremist because in France, they were very few of them. He believed he was safe in France. In 2012, Charb said to Le Monde : I don’t feel as though I’m killing someone with a pen. I’m not putting lives at risk. When activists need a pretext to justify their violence, they always find it. Despite numerous threats and condemnations from French political leaders as well as Muslim clerics, the rebellious and anti-religious magazine continued to stand by its belief that nothing should be off limits, and that their provocations were actually nothing of the sort. Charb relentlessly defend his right to free speech and scoffed at threats to silence him, saying that since he had no family, he feared no reprisals. In 2012, he told ABC News, I prefer to die than live like a rat. He actually said it gets on his nerves that the magazine is accused of fueling future violence without caring about whose nerves he gets on. He continued to insiste that art should not be constrained. The accusation that we are pouring oil on the flames in the current situation really gets on my nerves. After the publication of this absurd and grotesque film about Mohammed in the U.S., other newspapers have responded to the protests with cover stories. We are doing the same thing, but with drawings. And a drawing has never killed anyone ... We publish caricatures every week, but people only describe them as declarations of war when its about the person of the prophet or radical Islam. When you start saying that you cant create such drawings, then the same thing will soon apply to other, more harmless representations. “Anything that can hurt the convictions of someone else, in particular religious convictions, should be avoided. Freedom of expression should be exercised in a spirit of responsibility.” Charbs final cartoon, published in the last issue released the same day he was killed read : No attacks in France yet; No attacks in France yet; wait! Theres until end of January to wish Happy New Year. Hara-Kiri, which was banned for “offending public taste” after it published a front page appearing to mock the death of French President Charles de Gaulle. Charlie Hebdo, in reference to Charlie Brown comics, was established in 1969. The staff of Hara-Kiri migrated to the new publication which was edited by Francois Cavanna. The magazine folded in 1981 due to a lack of funds and was resurrected in 1992 with Philippe Val as editor until 2009. Stephanie Carbonnier then took over the editorship in 2012. In 2005, a Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a page of 12 cartoons, drawn by various artists, caricaturing the Prophet Mohammed. Many Muslims all over the world angrily objected, accusing the paper of blasphemy. In 2006, Charlie Hebdo ran a front page with the headline: “Mohammed overwhelmed by the fundamentalists”, and republished the controversial cartoons of Prophet Mohammed by the Danish newspaper with the addition of their own work by Cabu thereby prompting fresh protests which led to violent protests. But the magazine was bothered because the violence didnt happen in France and it gained as much notoriety as the Danish newspaper. It finally made a name for itself and automatically found wider circulation. According to BBC News : Sixteen people have been killed in northern Nigeria during protests by Muslims over the cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad. Most of the deaths occurred in rioting in Maiduguri, capital of north-eastern Borno state. One person died in similar riots in north-central Katsina state. Witnesses said most of the dead were from Maiduguris minority Christians. The Danish cartoonist (Kurt Westergaar) whose cartoons sparked off the worldwide riots told a Scottish newspaper he had no regrets. The riots in Nigeria are the first violent protests in the country over the cartoons. Eleven churches were torched during the protests and Christian businesses targeted. According to IRIN Africa : At least 123 people were been killed in four days of sectarian violence across Nigeria, after protests over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad fuelled underlying religious and ethnic tensions. Two-thirds of the deaths occurred in the mainly Christian southeast city of Onitsha, where groups of armed youths took to the streets to seek revenge against Muslims in reprisal for deadly attacks on Christians last weekend in the predominantly Muslim north. Although five Muslim organisations to ban the magazine from prinitng the pictures but a French court threw out the case while Charlie Hebdo went ahead with its publication. One would wonder why the magazine who was banned for mocking the death of Charles de Gaulle when it was still Hara-Kiri, should be allowed to mock the religious leader of French muslims and muslims all over the world, thereby putting every non-muslim French citizens at risk. The issue saw unusually high sales, but drew criticism from many Muslim groups. The French President at that time was Jacques Chirac, unable to do anything about the publication according to the law, released a statement saying : The French officials announced they would temporarily close French embassies, consulates, cultural centers and schools in more than a dozen Muslim countries for safety. Despite several condemnation, the magazine continued to make Muslim extremism a frequent target because Christian and Jewish leaders who were also subject to mockery prefered to ignore them or better still were more tolerant. In one of its edition, Charlie Hebdo featured a cartoon of the Virgin Mary, spread-eagled, giving birth to Jesus. In November 2011, Charlie Hebdo ran a special edition where it was temporarily renamed Charia Hebdo. Charia means Sharia in English. They also announced the Prophet Mohammed as its “editor-in-chief”. The cover featured an absurd caricature of the prophet, and the caption 100 lashes if you dont die laughing. The very week that it was released, the Paris two-storey offices of the magazine were firebombed during the early morning hours. The editor Charb in front of the firebombed Charlie Hebdo offices The building was completely destroyed but no one was injured. The magazine’s website was also hacked and replaced with an image of Mecca, and the words: “There is no god but Allah”. And was staff subjected to death threats. A week later Charlie Hebdo’s front cover showed a cartoonist and a bearded man stood in front of the bombed-out offices, kissing, with the words “Love is stronger than hate”. The magazine published more images of the Prophet Mohammed, playing off the demonstrations surrounding a US-produced anti-Islamic film released at the time called ‘Innocence of Muslims’, which portrayed the Prophet as a fraud, a womaniser and a child molester. Less than a year later, Charlie Hebdo ran a cover featuring the Prophet Mohammed in a wheelchair, being pushed by an Orthodox Jew, with both of them saying You must not mock us. Another cartoon on the back page, the Prophet was carricatured naked. The French Government once again had to shut down embassies and schools in preparation for any retaliation over the cartoons. Despite many Muslims regarding the depiction of the Prophet Mohammed as blasphemous, Charlie Hebdo responded by publishing a letter, signed by 12 writers and intellectuals including Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which read, in part, “We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.” The following year, Charlie Hebdo was sued by two French Muslim associations, the Great Mosque of Paris and the Union of Islamic Organisations of France, for reprinting the Danish cartoons. A French court rejected the case, saying the publication’s decision to publish the images did not incite religious hatred. After receiving death threats two years ago : I am not afraid of retaliation. I have no children, no wife, no car, no credit. It perhaps sounds a bit pompous, but I’d rather die standing than live on my knees.’ It should be as normal to criticise Islam as it is to criticise Jews or Catholics. In 2013, Charb was placed on a list of al-Qaedas Most Wanted, along with the original editors at Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Now, I ask myself, am I Charlie ? Should I be Charlie because thats what is trending now? Should I be Charlie if I stand for liberty of expression ? Hosea 8:7 says, he who sowing the wind reaps the whirlwind in French, qui sème le vent récolte la tempête. The French are known as fighters for liberty and founders of democracy. Me, I grew up learning that the tongue is a very dangerous member of the body and that my mouth can get me into huge problem. I learnt that I shouldnt hurt people with my words. Because words are like eggs when broken, you can put it together again. I learnt to apologise to people when I hurt them and if I think they deserve it, I do not apologise but I avoid doing the same thing again. I leant that it is sometimes better to say things directly to people rather than write them out because that way they dont have evidence you said what you said... thats was before we started using hand phones because today, with our smart phones we can do voice and video recordings. I was born in a country when liberty of expression was a very dangerous weapon that you have to use wisely, we all known what happened to those who spoke ill of Sanni Abacha. I went to churches were they tell us God is not pleased when we hurt others. I leanr that that when people hurt me, I should not retaliate but take the matter to God because He is God of vengers. I learnt so many things and it is for this reason that you might think I am coward if I refuse to work for a troublemaker Newspaper like Charlie Hebdo. Looing back from 2006, I see Charlie Hebdo starting a kind of war with crazy intergrists in the name of liberty of expression. Hitting harder with a mocking cartoon everytime this extremists protests. This invisible war like game, the French people always knew that it would end badly, the writers knew it also because they didnt stop getting threats calls and mails. They are heros in their own way, they didnt give up, they died standing and not on their knees as they always wanted. Jihadists killing people as sucide bombers, to them they adied as matryrs. Hostages had their heads cut off while they were on their knees, it doesnt make them any less heros. I pray these crazy people are arrested quickly before they attack more people. I hate to think they will get life imprisonnement which in France means 30 years at worse. The often get out long before the 30 years. When I remember the way they shot a police officer who was injured and lying on the road outside in the head. When policeman saw two of the gunmen jogging towards him, he held up his right hand and said Ah, cest bon chef but he received a bullet in the head at close range. When the freedom of speech becomes the freedom to hurt others, when the respect of religion becomes the fear of religion, the world will not find the peace it so much desires. franconaija.blogspot.fr/2015/01/am-i-charlie.html
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 15:18:25 +0000
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