"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.... Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

~ DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Clockwise from top left: JEAN CABUT (Cabu) BERNARD VERLHAC (Tignous) GEORGES WOLINSKI STÉPHANE CHARBONNIER (Charb)	Bruce MacKinnon Chronicle Herald, Halifax

Philippe Honoré was the fifth Charlie Hebdo cartoonist killed in the attack. His cartoon of the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi — wishing his audience a happy new year and “above all, good health!” — was the last drawing to be posted on Twitter before the attack.

"Our job is not to amuse our readers. Our mission is to stir them, inform and inflame them. Our task is to continually hold up our government and our leaders to cleareyed analysis, unaffected by professional spin-meisters and agenda-pushers.

In these times, when those of us who are members of the ‘reality-based community’ are under relentless attack from both the right and the left, we must encourage, and our work must reflect, independent and nonideological thinking.”

~ TONY AUTH
1942 – 2014

"Today they are our heroes."
~ Francois Hollande

Elsa Cayat
Psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and columnist for Charlie Hebdo, she wrote a bimonthly column called Le Divan

Bernard Maris
Economist, author and columnist for France Inter radio ontributed to Charlie Hebdo

Ahmed Merabet *
Muslim police officer killed as he lay wounded on the sidewalk
M

"Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice."

~ HENRY LOUIS GATES

"Assassination is the extreme form of censorship."

~ GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

NEXT: 14 March issue

"The crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves. Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense."

~ ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL

We will not give in otherwise all this won't have meant anything.

Humour without self-deprecation isn't humour. We mock ourselves, politicians, religions, it's a state of mind you need to have.

The Charlie state of mind is the right to blaspheme. A Je Suis Charlie banner means you have the right to criticise my religion, because it's not serious.

We have never criticised a Jew because he's a Jew, a Muslim because he's a Muslim or a Christian because he's a Christian. But you can say anything you like, the worst horrors – and we do – about Christianity, Judaism and Islam, because behind the nice slogans, that's the reality of Charlie Hebdo.

We will not give in. The spirit of ‘I am Charlie’ means the right to blaspheme.

~ Richard Malka
Charlie Hebdo Attorney

CARTOONISTS IN SOLIDARITY ACROSS CANADA

MICHAEL deADDER HALIFAX CHRONICLE HERALD

LA PRESSE, MONTREAL

BRIAN GABLE, GLOBE AND MAIL

BRIAN GABLE, GLOBE AND MAIL

BRIAN GABLE, GLOBE AND MAIL

VANCOUVER SUN

CHRISTIAN DAIGLE, YAHOO, QUEBEC

GRAEME MacKAY, HAMILTON SPECTATOR,

SUE DEWAR, SUN MEDIA

WES TYRELL
President of the Association of Editorial Cartoonists

WES TYRELL

TERRY 'AISLIN' MOSHER MONTREAL GAZETTE

"Blasphemy is a victimless crime.”

~ RICHARD DAWKINS

...and ACROSS the GLOBE

JOHN F. KNOTT
(1878 – 1963)
Austrian born American cartoonist

STEVE BELL

ROY

RUBEN L. OPENHEIMER

JAN JULLIEN

BERNARDO ERLICH

BOULET: "The ‘ducks’ (magazines) fly much higher than the guns."

 

 

Sometimes I miss religion,

if only to believe in Hell.

"Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man."

~ THOMAS PAINE

"Therefore, if God existed, only in one way could he serve human liberty - by ceasing to exist."

~ MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

• • •

"The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind."

~ MARQUIS DE SADE

 

GUILTY of INCITEMENT
TO TERROR

ACCESSORIES to MURDER

"ant-people"
(HANGERS-ON, MINIONS, LACKEYS)

 

GUILTY	GUILTY	GUILTY	GUILTY
CAMERON LONDON - 22 May 2013	HARPER QUÉBEC - 20 October 2013 OTTAWA - 22 October 2013	ABBOTT SYDNEY - 15 December 2014 A	HOLLANDE PARIS - 7 January 2015 H

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism,how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder." ~ ALBERT EINSTEIN

 

"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it.
It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever."
~ NADINE GORDIMER

"Man at the Crossroads" Whitewashed before completion in 1934 on orders from John D. Rockefeller due to the inclusion of a portrait of Vladimir Lenin. "If its not political, its not Art." ~ DIEGO RIVERA

14 January 2015

FRONT PAGE

Editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo gather at the offices of Libération on Friday, 10 January.

"Where are the 70 virgins?" - "They're with Charlie's group, losers!"
BACK PAGE

Charlie Hebdo print run raised to 5m as copies in France sell out
People queued before dawn at kiosks across France for the first edition of the weekly to go on sale since last week’s attacks.

Despite an initial planned print run of up to 3m copies, including versions in six different languages, many people struggled to get hold of the first copies of a magazine that usually has a circulation of only 60,000.

SOLD OUT!

Cartoonist Renald Luzier (Luz) press statement

Cartoonist Renald Luzier (Luz) with journalist colaborator Patrick Pelloux

“Yes, yes, I am Charlie. I am a cop. I am Jewish. I am Muslim. I am an Atheist.” ~ RENALD LUZIER (Luz)

 

"Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and when he dies only the five senses that we know perish with him,
and the other ninety-five remain alive."
~ ANTON CHEKHOV
(1860 – 1904)
Russian physician, dramaturge and short story author.

Bruce MacKinnon, Halifax Chronicle Herald--

Charlie Hebdo Editorial
by GÉRARD BIARD
Editor-in-Chief
14 January 2015

“In one week, Charlie, atheist journal, accomplished more miracles than all the saints and prophets together. The one we’re most proud of is that you have between your hands the newspaper we’ve always made, in company of those who have always made it. What made us laugh the most was the bells of Notre-Dame ringing in our honor…

For one week, Charlie has, across the world, done more than move mountains. In one week, as Willem has so magnificently drawn, Charlie has lots of new friends. Both anonymous and global celebrities, both the humble and the rich, both unbelievers and religious dignitaries, both the sincere and the hypocrites, both those we will keep for life and those who are very briefly passing through. Today, we’ll take them all: we don’t have the time or heart to pick and choose. Even so, we aren’t fools. We thank with all our hearts those who, by the millions, whether they are simple citizens or represent institutions, are truly by our sides. Who sincerely and profoundly ‘are Charlie’ and who identify with us. Fuck the others, who in any case, don’t give a damn.

One question, all the same, is gnawing at us: are we finally going to erase from the political and intellectual vocabulary the dirty word ‘laïcard intégriste' [die-hard secularist]? Are we finally going to stop inventing clever semantic convolutions to qualify the assassins and their victims in the same manner?

These last years, we have felt a bit alone in trying to repel with a stroke of the pencil the candid smut and the pseudo-intellectual ruses thrown in our face and in the face of our friends who firmly defended secularism: [we've been called] Islamophobes, anti-Christian, provocateurs, irresponsible, throwing oil on the fire, racists, you were asking for it…Yes, we condemn terrorism, but… Yes, sending death threats to cartoonists is bad, but… Yes, burning down a newspaper is bad, but… We have heard it all, and our friends as well. We have often tried to laugh at it, because that’s what we do best. But now we would really like to laugh about something else. Because it’s already starting again. The blood of Cabu, Charb, Honoré, Tignous, Wolinski, Elsa Cayat, Bernard Maris, Mustapha Ourrad, Michel Renaud, Franck Brinsolaro, Frédéric Boisseau, Ahmed Merabet, Clarissa Jean-Philippe, Philippe Braham, Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, François-Michel Saada, was not even dry when Thierry Meyssan explained to his Facebook fans that it was obviously had to do with a Judéo-American-Western plot. We already heard, here and there, the finicky pouting at last Sunday’s rally, drooling from the edges of their lips the eternal quibbles aiming to justify, openly or quietly, terrorism and religious fascism, and being outraged, among other things that honoring the policeman = SS. No, in this massacre no deaths were less unjust than others. Franck, who died in Charlie’s office, and all his colleagues slaughtered during this week of inhumanity died defending ideas that, perhaps, were not even theirs.

Even so, we will try to be optimists, even though it isn’t the season. We are going to hope that starting on this 7th of January 2015 the solid defense of secularism will be self-evident for everyone, that we will finally cease, by position, by electoral calculation or by cowardice, to legitimize or even to tolerate cultural communitarianism, and cultural relativism, which will only open the path to one thing: religious totalitarianism. Yes, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a reality, yes, international geopolitics is a succession of manoeuvrings and dirty tricks, yes, the social situation of, as we say, ‘populations of Muslim origin’ in France is profoundly unjust, yes, racism and discrimination must be fought unceasingly. Several tools exist to try to resolve these grave problems, but they are all useless if one of them is missing: secularism. Not positive secularism, not inclusive secularism, not whatever-the-hell-else secularism, secularism full stop. Only it will permit, because it advocates the universalism of rights, the exercise of equality, liberty, fraternity and sorority. Only it will permit the full freedom of conscience, freedom that is denied, more or less openly according to their marketing position, by all religions as soon as they leave the arena of strict privacy to descend into the political arena. Only it [secularism] permits, ironically, believers and others to live in peace. All who claim to defend Muslims by accepting totalitarian religious speech defend in fact their executioners. The first victims of Islamic fascism are the Muslims.

The millions of anonymous people, all of the institutions, all of the heads of state and of government, all the political, intellectual and media personalities, all the religious dignitaries who, this week, proclaimed ‘I am Charlie’ need to know that also means ‘I am secularism.’ We are convinced that, for the majority of our supporters, that goes without saying. We’ll let the rest sort that out themselves.

One last important thing. We would like to send a message to Pope Francis who, himself, ‘is Charlie’ this week: we will only accept the bells of Notre-Dame ringing in our honor when it is Femen who ring them.”

Translated from the French by Amy Plum

 

 

LOÏC SÉCHERESSE

ART IS MY NATION – FREE EXPRESSION, MY FAITH.

"If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you:
I am here to live out loud!”
~ ÉMILE ZOLA

THE HEROES

Je suis Charlie!