Nous sommes une mauvaise imitation de Charlie Hebdo*

For the last 18 years, every time I visited France, I have made it a point to get myself a copy of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. 

Eighteen years ago the Charlie Hebdo I knew was exactly where it was last week. Ever irreverent, anti-establishment, and of course, very anti-clerical. And just full of courage! 

I got myself involved in satire for eight consecutive years with the newspaper Alternattiva, so I was in awe at the disrespectful style of Charlie. Compared to the tame Alternattiva, Charlie was hard core. At the time their main focus was the Church and the Pope and of course international politics. As far back as 1968, phallic symbols and human-like penises appeared in Charlie Hebdo in the form of politicians.

If Charlie Hebdo were published in Malta it would have been sued and taken to the cleaners. And I am sure we would even have been firebombed.

Charlie Hebdo was all about the news and the mood and it changed with 9/11 and then Charlie turned its guns on fundamentalism and the far right.

I laughed on Wednesday night at the tweets of those who would tremble at the caricature of the Pope being ridiculed in such a harsh manner, or seeing their icons turned into monsters.

Charlie Hebdo was not precisely a beacon of free speech. It was free speech and a temple for no censorship. But unlike the blogs of the bile queen, no one was sacred. And no political party or politician was sacred.

Charlie made you laugh, cringe and question the mediocrity of life in general but it did not uplift the debate. It simply provoked others into questioning things.

Charlie Hebdo was the victim of death threats and Charlie’s unlikely defenders were the far right. 

The editors at the time were uncomfortable with this but they did not stop there.

Charb, the nom-de-plume for the newspaper’s editor, said that he did not want to die on his knees but standing up. But before that he also said that he was not married, he had no loan, no car etc. (In fact, he married after this statement.)

Most journalists do not have that liberty.

Most journalists have limitations imposed on them.

Charlie, as most people in Malta do not know, is and was very left wing, and vulgar. Vulgar by Maltese standards – in other words ħamallu!  Here they would have been ostracised. 

When I heard of the shooting of Charlie Hebdo, I was personally struck by the tragedy. That evening and early in the morning I talked to some French friends. To them it was as if a family member had been taken away.

When the dust settled it was clear what had happened.

As I write this opinion a whirlwind of urban terrorism has apparently hit France. I feel that it is more of a copycat episode. Time will tell.

It comes at a time when the left and liberals are struggling to find a good enough reason not to box Moslems as one of a kind.

Analysts have come forward to insist that not all Moslems put their finger on a Kalashnikhov and shoot innocent people. That is very true.  Others talk about Islam being misinterpreted.

That Moslem people in their vast millions have the same aspirations as other people of the world, that is, to live in peace, is also very true. Perhaps also there is an uncomfortable truth about the history of how France has tackled and treated those countries which have lived under their authoritarian colonial administrations.

There is a lot of resentment towards France. Most especially in the last years when France has chosen to intervene in hotbeds of Islamist activity because of the US choice to withdraw from its role as the world’s policeman after having left such a mess in so many corners of the globe.  

The thing that seems to slip from everyone’s mind is that many Moslems are the victims of violence in far greater numbers than we can imagine. It sickens me to hear Benjamin Netanyahu composing lyrics of sympathy for the victims on CNN.

What is not being said now, is that the events of the last days will mean less freedom for us all and the media in general.

Fanatics and governments have a lot to gain here.

Nothing is said of the hundreds of Moslem journalists who have been murdered in their own country. They were moderate Moslems and they were murdered for suggesting that extremism was wrong.  In Moslem countries the number of journalists killed is horrific.  I looked at figures relating to some countries – the numbers refer to the years 1992 until 2014.

Algeria 52, Turkey 18, Somalia 39, Iraq 103, Syria 10 (all in 2014)

And this is not to mention the mass killings of Moslems.

Tolerance has limits, but our response to this episode should not be to fan the flames against Moslems or migrants.

Those who do are retards and dangerous. And this refers to the far right.

In Malta we may not choose to take up Kalashnikovs to fight our wars. We may firebomb homes but thank God we are still too small to get trigger-happy.

But apart from the people who profess hate, there is also the State.  We tend to forget that satire, far less potent and strong as Charlie Hebdo, is not taken lightly.

In 1973, it is important to remember, a young lawyer going by the name of Eddie Fenech Adami was defending the editor of the satirical newspaper published by the Nationalist Party, In-Niggieża.  His name was Joe Calleja and he was sentenced to three months imprisonment, of which he served two months and a half. 

He had written a very light piece referring rather humorously to the ‘mistress’ of a minister. Without even mentioning that she was a mistress.

Now anyone who knew the political class at the time, will know that mistresses were the order of the day!

But only recently even cartoonists have been taken to the law courts.  

Lino Farrugia, the CEO of the hunters’ lobby and defender of the right to gun down birds from the skies, has even sued Mark Scicluna, the cartoonist at MaltaToday, for drawing a caricature of him urinating against a wall as a drone flies overhead.

There is a lesson to be learnt, and it is that satire and the caricature of life is never packaged in silk gloves.

The Charlie Hebdo martyrs just reminded us how true that is.

* We are a poor imitation of Charlie Hebdo