Ten years after the Islamist terrorist attack of January 7, 2015 against Charlie Hebdowe wonder: who is Charlie still in 2025?
Do you want my answer?
Our time is full of cowards, who are afraid of being afraid, who self-censor and walk in minefields by closing their eyes to reality.
• Also read: “Charlie Hebdo” #RireDeDieu competition: here are the winning caricatures of two Quebec cartoonists
• Also read: “We work in a bunker”: extreme security measures still in place 10 years after the “Charlie Hebdo” attack
In short, there are a lot more “Je suis pissou” than “Je suis Charlie”.
Fear of the “i-word”
On my radio show at QUB, at 99.5 FM, on Monday, I asked comedian Martin Petit what thoughts he had on Charlie’s ten years. He told me a very revealing anecdote.
At the time he was writing the series The fishermenhe had written an episode in which a comedian who had made a joke about Mohammed had to be followed by bodyguards to protect him from threats, and he found refuge at Martin’s chalet.
When he presented the script to the producers and the production team before the 2014 holidays, Petit was told: “This story is not very realistic.”
Martin Petit replied to them that, on the contrary, the people of Charlie Hebdo were under close surveillance. “The next thing that might happen is that someone comes in there with AK 47s and shoots everyone,” Martin Petit predicted at the time.
It was three weeks to the day before the attacks in Charlie Hebdo. “It’s very disturbing to have seen this in your head, to have imagined that it was going to happen because we didn’t take it seriously,” Martin Petit told me on the air.
Ten years later, many of them are burying their heads in the sand and “not taking it seriously”.
Self-censorship is everywhere. The real word that no one says in 2025 is not the “n-word” it’s the “i-word”.
There are even columnists who write about the attacks on the Bataclan and the terraces of November 2015, or on the situation of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime, without ever mentioning the word “Islam”.
Fortunately there are still brave people. Charlie Hebdo launched an international caricature competition entitled #RireDeDieu.
Two Quebecers had their caricatures selected, and they are splendid!
Christian Daigle drew a God who devours the brains of human beings.
Hubert Neault drew a gun, with images of the three monotheistic religions, pointed at the Earth.
Yes, religion is dangerous, I have the right to say that.
Religion is an ideology. And as we have the right to criticize all ideologies, we have the right to laugh at religions. All religions.
But if we start creating “untouchable” religions, we’re just no longer Charlie.
Bye bye, Charlie
At the last Bye Byein the sketch about the Bedford school, the only religion that is named is the Christian religion! We were of course treated to a bearded teacher who threw shoes at his students while saying “God is great”, but his religion was never named. Strange, right?
Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse says that in her mathematics class, she was taught that “two bagels minus a Taliban equal Jesus”. Why not name Mohammed instead? To ask the question is to answer it.
