Page 6
January 21, 2015
New Prices
Effective
May 1, 2010
O PINION
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Bullets and Bombs Can Never Silence Our Voices
Lessons from
Charlie Hebdo
massacre
BY K HALIL B ENDIB
As a political cartoonist who
happens to be both American and
Muslim, I often find myself at the
intersection of media curiosity:
Muslim, with all the stereotypical
notions attached to that, but also a
freedom-loving artist and a humor-
ist.
I’m not just the butt of jokes, but
a purveyor of them — a non-violent
wielder of the pen, which I maintain
is funnier than the sword.
I’m no stranger to controversy
and censorship, and I’ve received
my fair share of death threats over
the years. So I’ve had ample oppor-
tunity to mull the thorny question of
freedom of expression versus re-
sponsibility.
Was Charlie Hebdo, the satirical
publication whose staffers were
murdered by Islamic extremists in
Paris, always the fairest and most
responsible newspaper in the world?
Of course not. I confess to have
often cringed at its apparent double-
standard when it comes to
skewering Muslims and Jews.
But does anyone — ever — de-
serve to be harassed, hounded, or
murdered for expressing an opin-
ion, however egregious it may be
perceived by some?
Voltaire’s biographer Evelyn
Beatrice Hall eloquently and defini-
tively answered that question long
ago: “I disapprove of what you say,
but I will defend to the death your
right to say it.”
Personally, I will always remem-
ber Jan. 7, 2015 as a day of infamy,
a catastrophe delivering layer upon
layer of misery.
As a human being, I feel disgust
over the murder of 12 innocent
people.
As an artist, I feel a profound
sense of grief over the loss of four
fellow cartoonists — including the
great Cabu (also known as Jean
Cabut), who inspired me as a young
man to become a cartoonist.
And as a member of the world-
wide Muslim community, I’m
plagued with a nagging sense of
shame and fear of the inevitable
backlash that will follow in an al-
ready Islamophobic Europe, where
most of my family still resides.
I worry that the unspeakable acts
of a few will drown out the sincere
protestations of the many that this
kind of horror doesn’t speak in our
name.
Former French justice minister
Robert Badinter — no particular
friend of the Muslim community —
has warned his fellow citizens not to
fall into the extremist trap of letting
barbaric violence divide French
society, of which nearly 10 percent
is Muslim. But tensions are running
high.
Yet beyond the social polariza-
tion — manifested by both sense-
less Islamist violence and the cheap
Islamophobia of opportunistic poli-
ticians and media — lies a more
interesting and nuanced reality:
signs of hope and progress.
Long before this attack, French
people were showing what it means
to coexist in a multi-ethnic and plu-
ralistic society.
Among the many good works he
will be remembered for, cartoonist
Georges Wolinski — who was
among the cartoonists assassinated
in cold blood in the name of
wounded religious pride — once
came to the rescue of Menouar
Merabtene, the Algerian cartoonist
best known as Slim, a close friend of
mine who was fleeing from persecu-
tion in his native country.
Throughout the 1990s, a bloody
civil war raged between Islamist
militants and the autocratic Alge-
rian government. Many artists and
intellectuals opposed to the Islam-
ist agenda were systematically as-
sassinated in that conflict.
Out of simple human solidarity,
Wolinski — a Jewish cartoonist from
France — spontaneously inter-
vened to secure a job for the belea-
guered Muslim-Algerian Slim at the
Paris newspaper L’Humanité.
Similarly, thousands of French
people are mourning and praising
slain Muslim police officer Ahmed
Merabet. He died pursuing men
suspected of perpetrating the
Charlie Hebdo massacre.
Like the stories of North Afri-
can Muslims standing in solidar-
ity with their Jewish brethren
against the Vichy government’s
hunt for North African Jews dur-
ing World War II, these simple
stories tend to get lost in the din
of terrorist mayhem.
But in the end, bullets and bombs
can never silence the voices of
laughter and friendship.
Khalil Bendib is the editorial
cartoonist for OtherWords. His work
appears regularly in the Portland
Observer. He was born in Paris as
a refugee of Algeria’s war of inde-
pendence and grew up in Morocco
and Algeria. He lives in Berkeley,
Calif.