illustration by Hanna Abi-Hanna

As it happens, a left-wing political cartoon magazine of sixty-thousand circulation in France is to become the straw that broke the camel’s back!  Pun fully intended.  Now more than ever, modern society finds itself on a dangerous tightrope of liberty, fraternity and equality.  There is no safety net and we must tread this tightrope ever so dilligently.

On the one hand, there are the looming dragons of racism, nationalism, neocolonialism immigrant-phobia… .  A slight tip to the other side of the tightrope and we find the agape rabid jaws of religious bigotry, anti-semitism, intolerance, prejudism and superstition-based ignorance.

The rights to liberty, freedom to travel, individual respect and dignity, and the enjoyment of life as a human being are neither Western nor Eastern inventions.  These are our collective achievements through a struggle for survival that lasted millions of years.  It took far more than 6 thousand years for us to earn our right to liberty, dignity and respect.  We earned these not by sheepishly flocking into a fantastical ark or dumbfounded and awestruck by the burning bush.  Holding a blade to a child’s throat did nothing to pull us out of the dark ages.  Humanity did not learn the golden rule from some tablets that came blazing from the skies, just as much as we did not learn morality by watching one of our own kind be tortured and crucified for our weaknesses.  We did not learn to read because we were commanded thrice in a cave just as much as humanity did not become civilized by outright submission to fantastical, bizzare bronze-age prescriptions to righteousness.  These early myths were our “first and worst attempts*” to come to terms with our existence.

We have paid a high price for the temporary space we occupy on this tiny blue spec in the universe.  It took us millions of years to learn to stand upright or to use tools or to tame fire and to plant, domesticate and separate ourselves ever so marginally, from our primate cousins.  We have paid a high price for the privilege of living in a world that doesn’t follow Darwin’s laws of survival.  Today humanity survives despite the rule of the jungle.  We thrived despite disease, ignorance, despotism and barbarism.  Our chances of survival are higher now more than ever because of those who were not intimidated by the ignorance of supernatural doctrines that opposed knowledge.   The best of our kind were tormented by inquisition, burned at the stake, beheaded, exiled and assassinated so we could learn the truth that we are not the centre of the universe.  We have indeed paid a very high price for the privilege of standing on this tightrope of civilization that is held high beyond the reach of dragons and monsters, by the pillars of liberty, fraternity and equality .

Fraternity is only achieved by acknowledging diversity. Equality is only possible among diverse people by recognizing that there are differences and these differences may offend others. Liberty is meaningless without the right to offend. Our civilization hangs in a fragile balance that is constantly in danger of collapse over this threat or concern of offending someone or some group. We remain on a tightrope without a safety net under constant threat by daemons of our own past.

Charlie Hebdo is a symbol of many things our civilization has fought long and hard for.  These small pockets of absurdity are signs that there is hope for freedom, liberty and fraternity.  The Charlie Hebdo’s of our time are indicators of our continued ability to break away from stagnation, hegemony and dictatorship.  It is not what is said, but how it is said and why it is said that makes Charlie Hebdo essential.  The ultimate value is in the fact that it is said, whatever it is, by voices like Charbonnier, Cayat, Wolinski, Maris, Tignous, Honoré, Cabut…

Those who despise Charlie Hebdo are the first to lose their freedom to exist, express and believe if the Charlie’s of our world are silenced.  Without the loud, absurd, courageous, offensive rambunctiousness of Charlie Hebdo, we shall fall to the dragons and rabid monsters below.

babak payami, toronto jan. 11, 2015

* C.Hitchens