J'accuse: The "Charlie Hebdo" Outrage, Ten Years Later [by Walter Carey]

J'accuse

On January 7, 2015, thugs emboldened by appeasers murdered the editors of "Charlie Hebdo," the Paris-based satirical magazine. They also killed Jews at a nearby kosher grocery store.  From the BBC report: << The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has been attacked by gunmen, who have killed 12 people at its Paris offices. It is the worst attack on a magazine which has been hit by violence before. >>

Sometimes ideology gets in the way of common cause.  After the murders, PEN, an organization whose mission is to defend the rights of writers, editors, and publishers, decided to honor the fallen editors, and the surviving staff, with its "courage award." Not a truly controversial choice, you would think. Nevertheless, 224 writers signed their names to a petition protesting the award. Francine Prose and Teju Cole  circulated the petition, which argues that << Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons of the Prophet must be seen as being intended to cause further humiliation and suffering. Our concern is that, by bestowing the Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award on Charlie Hebdo, PEN is not simply conveying support for freedom of expression, but also valorizing selectively offensive material: material that intensifies the anti-Islamic, anti-Maghreb, anti-Arab sentiments already prevalent in the Western world.  >>

244 writers affilliated with the organization concurred with the statement that << What is neither clear nor inarguable is the decision to confer an award for courageous freedom of expression on Charlie Hebdo, or what criteria, exactly, were used to make that decision. >>

All they did, the murdered editors, was die for freedom of the press.
All they did was die.

What has changed? On April 22, 2024, the Washington Post reported that PEN America has canceled its annual awards ceremony, because a number of nominees said they would decline the prize. Why? Because, by failing to censure Israel harshly enough, PEN stands accused of “complicity in normalizing genocide.” What offends me most, I ask myself: the use of “genocide,” the hideous barbarism “normalizing,” the blatant virtue signaling, the presumption of foreign-policy expertise on the part of storytellers and bards, or the irrelevance of wars and disputes in assessing the quality of novels and poems?

See Lionel Shriver on this subject:
https://www.thefp.com/p/lionel-shriver-pen-america-rewards

and The Free Press
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/#inbox/FMfcgzQZSZCCbrpVqzGMNlHSrqqGvqbh

The signatories thought they were on the right side of history. Eleven months and six days after the attack on Charlie Hebdo came Vendredi 13, Friday the 13th of November 2015, when terrorists killed 130 people in Paris, at the Bataclan theater, the Stade de Paris, and six cafes, including Le Comptoire Voltaire and Le Carillon.

Here is a partial list of the writers who signed the 2015 petition protesting the award given to Charlie Hebdo for fear of antagonizing terrorists.

Russell Banks
Helen Benedict
Christopher Benfey
Cara Benson
John Berger
Eric Bogosian
Peter Carey
Jane Ciabattari
Carmela Ciuraru
Ted Conover
John D’Agata
Katherine Dalsimer
Emily M. Danforth
Tod Davies
Annabel Davis-Goff
Siddhartha Deb
Sonali Deraniyagala
Jason Diamond
Junot Díaz
Stephen Dobyns
Geoff Dyer
Deborah Eisenberg
Hedi El Kholti|
Trey Ellis
Eve Ensler
Elizabeth Enslin
Barbara Epler
Ali Eteraz
Percival Everett
Monica Ferrell
Frances FitzGerald
Edwin Frank
John Freeman
Ru Freeman
Nell Freudenberger
Molly Friedrich
Forrest Gander
Suzanne Gardinier
Johanna Garfield
Gretchen Gerzina
Keith Gessen
Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Francisco Goldman
Jorie Graham
John Guare
Jessica Hagedorn
Brian Hall
Theodore Hamm
Lis Harris
Edward Hoagland
Paul Kan
John Keahey
Daniel J. Kevles
Uzma Aslam Khan
Eugenia Kim
Dave King
Gilbert King
Amitava Kumar
Rachel Kushner
Joy Ladin
Zachary Lazar
David Leavitt
Jonathan Lee
Katherine Leiner
Ben Lerner
Ted Lewin
Craig Lucas
Janet Malcolm
Charlotte Mandell
Patrick McGrath
Clarissa McNair
Deena Metzger
Thais Miller
Vica Miller
Kyle Minor
Rick Moody
Lorrie Moore
Bradford Morrow
Judith Nies
Joyce Carol Oates
Michael Ondaatje
Peter Orner
Raj Patel
Chris Pavone
William Pierce
Francine Prose
Marcus Rediker
David Roediger
Luc [sic] Sante
Steven Schroeder
Sarah Schulman
Elissa Schappell
Vijay Seshadri
Wallace Shawn
Elisabeth Sifton
Tom Sleigh
Holly Goldberg Sloan
Betsy Sussler
Emily Gray Tedrowe
Ted Thompson
Kathleen Tolan
Pauls Toutonghi
Joanne Turnbull
Chase Twichell
Eliot Weinberger
Jon Wiener

Comments

[Marissa Despain]

Thank you for marking this anniversary. Shame on those who signed the statement.

[Rivkah Rubinstein]

Never forget!