As a kid, I Was bullied in school. A lot. I was given two sets of conflicting advice on how to handle the bullies;
1 – Stand up to them.
2 – ignore them.
Initially I opted for choice 2, I tried my hardest to ignore them, to let their hurtful words, actions, and images flow off me like water off a duck’s back. The problem was I couldn’t, and I was just taking my anger and frustration as these bullies, and locking it away.
Then, one day, the bullies got what they wanted, a reaction; I lashed out and hit one, and threw a desk at another. As you might guess this action got us both pulled up in front of a teacher and we both got detentions.
This didn’t stop the bullying, in fact it escalated, they knew they’d get a reaction out of me, so they stepped up their actions; name calling, slanderous accusations, hurtful cartoons around the school (and on my books), it was relentless. Again I tried to not let it bother me, and again it wound up just locked away until I snapped.
This time when I snapped and retaliated, I picked the biggest guy, and proceeded to unleash all my rage on him; I broke his arm, broke his nose, and left him bloody and bruised – i short I kicked 7 bags of sand out him.
This time we were pulled up in front of the headmaster.
The guy I beat up was suspended for a time, I had to serve a detention, and on his return we were forced to work together to put on a short play for the whole school on why bullying is a bad thing.
After during my detention I had a number of teachers walk in and tell me, off the record of course, that I’d done the right thing.
As I look back, I’m still not sure I did.
Why is that relevant? Well…
On January 7th this year, 2015, 14 people were shot and killed by two terrorists; two of those people were police officers, 12 were staff at a weekly satirical publication, Charlie Hebdo. The attack was in retaliation to cartoons that insulted the religion of the gunmen. The world was outraged at this terror attack, as was I until I saw one of the Charlie staff interviewed on TV afterwards; “we intended to cause offence” they said. At that point I lost a lot empathy for the publication, and I started looking deeper into who they are and what they do.
Charlie Hebdo was founded in 1992 by the people who were behind an earlier weekly satirical publication “Hara-kiri”. Hara-Kiri was banned from further publication in 1970 after it insulted former French leader Charles deGaulle over his death, in order to get around the ban, they changed the name to ‘Charlie Hebdo’, dually taking the name from Charlie Brown, and the opportunity to poke another stick at Charles deGaulle. They ceased publication in 1981, but resurrected Charlie Hebdo in 1992.
Since 1992 Charlie Hebdo has had several brushes with a backlash; in 2006 the French President, Jaques Chirac condemned the magazine saying that anything that hurt people religious convictions should be avoided, and French Muslims sued claiming the publication contained racist matter, claiming that the cartoons made a link between Muslims and Muslim terrorists.
The case continued through 2006 into 2007 where Charlie Hebdo were acquitted.
In 2011 an issue came out named ‘Charia’ (sharia) Hebdo, which was guest edited by Muhammad. On November 6th that year their offices were firebombed. French Muslims condemned Charlie Hebdo’s mocking of Islam and it’s prophet, but also condemned the attack.
In 2012, timed soon after a number of attacks on US embassies that were apparently in retaliation for ‘The Innocence of Muslims’ film, the publication put out a number of caricatures of Muhammad in the nude, an act which even the French foreign minister condemned as pouring oil on the fires.
So now we come to 2015, and yet another ‘satirical’ poke at Muslims, this time lives were lost, one of them a Muslim policemen, Ahmed Marabet. Charlie Hebdo ridiculed his faith, and he died defending their right to do so.
Those of you not familiar with French as a language probably won’t get the dual meaning of the Je Suis Charlie comment. It has a dual meaning, probably both meant simultaneously in this sense.
‘Suis’ is the singlar of both the verb to follow and the comment of being. So Je Suis Charlie could mean “I am Charlie” in the “I’m Spartacus” sense, or it could mean “I follow Charlie”. It loses the duality once stated in plural (it becomes simply “We Are Charlie”). So the Anglicization of of the French phrase loses something in translation.
Charlie Hebdo and the staff therein aren’t just a satirical publication out for a few dark laughs, they bully and they goad and they cry victim when their victim strikes out at them. They are no better than the playground bullies I had to deal with as a kid, but their victims have more rage and weapons at their disposal than fists and a table. They’re crazy to keep provoking these people. Another hashtag is gaining movement through Ahmed, one I fully back … or follow.
You won’t catch me crying ‘Je Suis Charlie’, I don’t follow Charlie Hebdo, I don’t back what they do. I do feel sorrow for the loss of life, and the subsequent violence that has happened on the back of their animosity.
#jesuisahmed
from WordPress http://ift.tt/1tZ7TTa
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment