The New Year has started with a strange turn of events, where moral and pseudo-religious outrage has turned into a horrific and tragic attack on not only the press, but free thinking and the right to believe differently.
Wednesday the 7th January saw an attack on the offices of the publishers of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine that has a track record of poking fun at authority, politics and religions. Much has been written by people far more eloquent than I am in regards to the rights and wrongs, the justifications and unjustifiable following the attack (and subsequent incidents in France).
My position on the writers, cartoonists and editorial team is simple, I believe that they were right to challenge, to fuel debate and to publish what they did. My stance on the attacks is that they are wrong.
What I would like to do, is draw attention to the manner in which the world reacted to the attack, in a collection of defiant and beautiful powerful messages. As someone who works in a creative industry, one where people differ frequently, where passion and commitment cross paths with opinions and counter opinions, I saw a unified movement, where once again, the adage that the pen is mightier than the sword was proved correct.
The powerful imagery that has emerged has been incredible, moving, supportive and full of emotion and empathy once again capturing our attention about these issues visually.
Reaction to the initial attack quickly moved from an informative/news based set to messages of support, loss, horror and disgust, and the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie began to emerge. Within three days it had been used over 5 million times, peaking at approximately 6,500 times a minute. But in my opinion, the most poetic and the strongest reaction happened by artists and cartoonists, the very people who the attempt to silence was aimed at.
Their dignity and solidarity was incredible, and it made the power of their message stronger through its absolute rejection of intimidation. The acts of violence are a stark contrast to the peaceful counter demonstrations, but I would argue that they are a more powerful and (hopefully) successful act, using nothing more than ink and paper to deliver a wholly defiant two fingers in retaliation.
Some of the images below are the ones that I feel best show the levels of emotion and defiance. It’s just a shame that such work has to be created in the first place.
Thank you for reading ..
#JeSuisCharlie
Jonathan
