Posted on by astyrra_713s8o

dear US followers

rastagong:

67-tardis-street:

(and other non-french followers who either don’t understand the situation now in France, don’t want to understand it or give their opinion on the subject without grasping it)

On Wednesday morning in Paris, two armed men irrupted in the premises of the satirical journal Charlie Hebdo and killed 12 people, injuring 4 others. Among the victims were journalists, caricaturists, employees of the journal and policemen. Today the two culprit are still on the run, and they took employees of another firm hostages in the northern suburbs of Paris. 

That is for the facts. Now, and that’s probably the point you’ll stop reading, I would like to explain a few things, about charlie Hebdo and about how things work in my country. It might feel insulting, but unless you are fascinated with french culture, have especially studied it or lived some time in France, you don’t know us. You don’t know our history, our politics, even our geography. That’s fine, I myself have a pretty sketchy knowledge of all these stuffs for many countries in the world. 

Not knowing is fine. Spreading false informations, or giving your opinion about things you don’t know, is not. 

You have no idea how much the french community on tumblr is feeling betrayed. We stood by your side many times in the recent weeks, we educated ourselves about the situation in the US, we read, we learnt. Now, our country is suffering and I read everywhere that Charlie Hebdo was a racist journal, that they had it coming. 

1. It was not. NO ONE, I repeat literally NO ONE in France ever considered Charlie Hebdo as racist. We might have considered the drawings tasteless, but NOT racists. For the very simple reason that WE FUCKING KNOW OUR POLITICS. So, when you see the covers of the journal out of context and without understanding french, you’re seeing maybe 10% of what there’s to see. I’m not going to explain them one by one to you, because other posts on tumblr do that very well, but just for the sake of example : 

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You see a black woman’s head on a monkey body. RACISM ! Except that every french person will recognize our french justice minister, Christiane Taubira, and the blue-white-red flame on the left. This is the logo of the Front National, the far-right party in France. And every french person knows that the Front National was under attack for having compared Christiane Taubira to a monkey in this : 

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“At 18 months – Now”

And, if you still haven’t got it, the title of the comic by Charb is “Rassemblement Bleu Raciste” which literally means “Blue Racist Gathering” and is a pun on the slogan of the Front National “Rassemblement Bleu Marine” (Navy Blue Gathering, in French the name of the Front National leader is Marine Le Pen, and Marine means Navy). So, this comic is actually an attack mocking the Front National and their bullshit. Is it tasteless ? Maybe. Is it racist ? No.

Which takes me to my SECOND point, now that I have established that Charlie Hebdo was not a racist newspaper.

2. FRANCE DOES NOT WORK LIKE THE US. NO OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD DOES. Is it so hard to understand ? 

Which means that our view on religion are not the same. Atheism is deeply rooted in France, religion is separated from the state in every possible way. Because the French Revolution was not only about cutting heads of royals, it was a profound change in the way we think that still has consequences today. Secularity is a system of laws intended to prevent any religious organization to interfere with the political life of the country. It means that everyone is free to practise their religion, as long as it does not interfere with other people’s life (be they of a different faith, or atheists) and the country’s. Blasphemy is legal. Drawing the Prophet is legal.

Most people in France think that it is not only legal, but a positive thing, to be able to make fun of every religion, every authority figure (and do your google research, Charlie Hebdo made fun of everyone and the pope was not spared) :

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“Pedophile bishops – "Make movies, like Polanski !”“

But, as much as we do love make fun and ridicule everyone, including our very secular politicians, we do have laws, and very strict ones, against hate speech. The Front National elected representative who posted the two pictures of Taubira and a monkey was prosecuted. Charlie Hebdo wasn’t, because they were not attacking Taubira, but the racist bullshit of the FN.

To conclude, in France even the people who think these cartoons are vulgar and tasteless think that they have a right to be drawn and published. 

We prefer an equilibrium of mockery, rather than an equilibrium of terror and censorship. 

Wow. Just wow.

I hate debating online, but honestly, there are blatant inaccuracies in this post. I’m a French black man. The French Republic denies my identity on a daily basis. I have a hard time acknowledging my own blackness, and difficulties to disclose it online. And since the shooting on Thursday, it’s even worse. I’m now supposed to uncritically mourn Charlie Hebdo to appear French, even though this newspaper has never represented my identity. And on top of that, this post erasing my experience? Well, this is slightly too much.

What you see here is a French white person thinking that her white experience of French politics is representative of everyone’s experiences of it in France. But here’s the thing: being white in France does not not make her an expert on the experience of racism in France. When she says “we”, what it really means is “us French white people”. Her views do not represent in any way those of French people of colour. Likewise, being a French black man does not make me an expert on sexism in France. I’m still a man, and I still benefit from male privilege and from the blindness that comes with it.

Yes, it’s true that there are cultural differences between France and the US. No one will deny it. But there’s something this person has omitted to say. In our right wing, there’s a tendency to view France as the underdog of the United States. We have many political leaders who despise globalisation and US supremacy, and who almost view France as part of an entirely different cultural group. But here’s the thing: just like the US, France is still part of this cultural area called the West. The idea of racism in the US? It originated in Europe. The very idea of whiteness? Ditto. We share the same alphabet, the same dominant religions, the same cultural references. Therefore, we also share the same structures of systemic oppression, including racism.

What is true, however, is that the idea of racism has not the same place in the public discourse. There are many reasons, one of them being that people of colour in France don’t share as much of a collective consciousness like African-Americans do: we’re still a patchwork of immigrants from very different nationalities.The debate has not, I think, reached the same stage. The notion of privilege is still very new. Colorblind racism here is particularly fierce, and no one acknowledges the existence of races in the social structure. But it doesn’t mean that racism doesn’t exist. Merely that it’s still invisible.

Back to Charlie Hebdo:

NO ONE, I repeat literally NO ONE in France ever considered Charlie Hebdo as racist. We might have considered the drawings tasteless, but NOT racists
Not everyone in France has the privilege to declare these cartoons simply “tasteless”. They make fun of entire minorities which are already targeted in real life.

Secularity is a system of laws intended to prevent any religious organization to interfere with the political life of the country. It means that everyone is free to practise their religion, as long as it does not interfere with other people’s life (be they of a different faith, or atheists) and the country’s.
It’s very malicious of you to present secularism as an uncontroversial principle. Yes, French people have a different relationship with religion and politics, and use the principle of “laïcité”. Doesn’t mean it isn’t used for racist purposes in its own way. It’s still instrumentalised to target Islam, and it is a highly debated concept these days. There are plenty of feminists and anti-racism activists who have denounced the awful policies it has led to in recent years (hijab ban in schools, niqab ban in the streets, stigmatisation).

So, this comic is actually an attack mocking the Front National and their bullshit.
Representing Christiane Taubira as a monkey to denounce racism… is stil racist. If you need to resort to racist tropes to denounce racism, then you’re not doing any better, period.

Atheism is deeply rooted in France, religion is separated from the state in every possible way.  […]
Most people in France think that it is not only legal, but a positive thing, to be able to make fun of every religion, every authority figure (and do your google research, Charlie Hebdo made fun of everyone and the pope was not spared)
Tired of the argument that it’s ok because they make fun of everyone.
First, it does not change anything. Their drawings are still awfully racist. The only difference is that since Islam is not welcome in France, it perpetuates its exclusion, while Catholicism remains ok.
Worth noting is also the fact that when their drawings dealt with Catholicism, they criticised institutions like the Pope, but with Islam, they targeted Muslims in general, especially women. It’s not equivalent in any way to make fun of a religious leader for his personal actions and to make fun of an archetype of the believer, for his very faith. The former has limited implications for the whole of Christianity. After all, you may or may not appreciate this Pope. The latter is insulting to 1.57 billion people.
Besides, I’ll be honest, the faux-moral superiority of this specific form of atheism is not especially clever, whatever religion is targeted. It’s ok not to believe in God. But it’s problematic if you believe that every believer is an idiot which hasn’t been “enlightened” yet. There’s a whole lot of post-colonial Western privilege in these declarations. It’s extremely patronising and dehumanising, and it’s the exactly the kind of thinking which allows Western powers to behave as they want in other areas of the world.

Blasphemy is legal. Drawing the Prophet is legal.
No one denies this right. What people are saying is: is that clever or useful in any way to mock Muslim principles in a country where Islam is already a source of discrimination? You and all the people defending Charlie, proudly declaring “je suis Charlie”, what you really say “I want to be able to express racist views without ever being held accountable”. It is not about free speech.

I won’t detail further why these drawings are specifically racist. There are so many articles written on the subject already. But here are a few sources on the subject for those who are interested so you can see this person’s voice is not representative of all of France. Some date back to before the shooting: