As the anniversary approaches: remembering the Martyrs of the Hyper Cacher and Charlie Hebdo.
7 January 2015.
A date that we will recall and it is coming close.
Our left wing comrades were murdered by the forces of genocidal Islamist reaction.
Killed
- Frédéric Boisseau, 42, building maintenance worker for Sodexo, killed in the lobby, first victim of the shooting
- Franck Brinsolaro, 49, Protection Service police officer assigned as a bodyguard for Charb
- Cabu (Jean Cabut), 76, cartoonist
- Elsa Cayat, 54, psychoanalyst and columnist.The only woman killed in the shooting.
- Charb (Stéphane Charbonnier), 47, cartoonist, columnist, and editor-in-chief of Charlie Hebdo
- Philippe Honoré, 73, cartoonist
- Bernard Maris, 68, economist, editor, and columnist
- Ahmed Merabet, 42, police officer, shot in the head as he lay wounded on the ground outside.
- Mustapha Ourrad, 60, copy editor
- Michel Renaud, 69, a travel writing festival organiser visiting Cabu
- Tignous (Bernard Verlhac), 57, cartoonist
- Georges Wolinski, 80, cartoonist
Some photos of our fallen comrades.
A wonderful feminist, full of joy.
Cabu: one of the Best People Ever to Walk the Planet.
Charb: Supporter of the Front de Gauche, he fought the Front National with every fibre of his being.
Philippe Honoré: greatly respected contributor to trade union and leftist publications
Bernard Verlhac (21 August 1957 – 7 January 2015), known by the pseudonym Tignous (Occitan for La teigne, which in slang means a gadfly).
Georges Wolinski: Communist and one of the funniest cartoonists ever.
It will have been noted that the genociders took the lives of two Muslims, and that, of the above photos, two of the people are of Jewish origin.
Then this:
The Porte de Vincennes siege occurred at a Hypercacher kosher superette in Porte de Vincennes (20th arrondissement of Paris) in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting two days earlier, and concurrently with the Dammartin-en-Goële hostage crisis in which the two Charlie Hebdo gunmen were cornered.
Victims
Funeral in Jerusalem, Israel, of the four Jewish murder victims
- Philippe Braham, 45, IT sales executive
- Yohan Cohen, 22, college student
- Yoav Hattab, 21, college student
- François-Michel Saada, 64, retiree.
We shall not forget our martyred dead.
Tendance Coatesy 
Good that today’s Observer has published this, by Robert McLiam Wilson: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/03/charlie-hebdo-scurrilous-reports-by-non-french-speakers
Jim Denham
January 3, 2016 at 4:50 pm
A good article by Robert McLiam, but far too little, far too late from the Guardian/Observer. At the time, they abased themselves even further than usual, with a torrent of cowardly, unprincipled and plain dishonest articles that vilified the victims as racists and made excuses for their murderers.
With a handful of very honourable exceptions (including present company), Britain’s media left disgraced itself (yet again) over Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cacher.
Lamia
January 3, 2016 at 6:51 pm
I like Robert McLiam Wilson’s suggestion that people who don’t speak the language should not be holding forth about publications, events, institutions or whatever in other countries. It is a really excellent idea. If everyone took his line on that, the blogosphere would be a much quieter, but much better informed space. We should all resolve to refrain from pronouncing on places where we could not even order a coffee and a sandwich in a cafe in the local language.
Francis
January 3, 2016 at 11:29 pm
“I like Robert McLiam Wilson’s suggestion that people who don’t speak the language should not be holding forth about publications, events, institutions or whatever in other countries.”
He didn’t make any such suggestion. You just made it up, i.e. lied about what he said.
Lamia
January 4, 2016 at 1:03 am
Apology, Francis. I withdraw the assumption that you were lying. But what you have read into his words is not supported by what he actually said.
Glenn Greenwald and a host of other experts’ who can’t speak a word of French made pronouncements on whether Charlie Hebdo was satirical or, as many of them asserted, ‘racist’. It is quite reasonable to state that people whose grasp of a language is poor-to-zero are indeed not well qualified to comment about literature, and indeed literary satire, in that language. On no evidence but a kind of whipped-up imaginary hearsay, they delivered a verdict on something that quite obviously they could not understand due to their linguistic inadequacy. It was ignorant, prejudiced bullshit on their part.
Nowhere did McLiam say that people who can’t speak a language are not qualified to comment on ‘events’ or ‘institutions’ or ‘places’ in such countries. You dreamt that bit.
Lamia
January 4, 2016 at 1:18 am
True enough, Lamia, RMW did not extend the suggestion beyond publications and, more generally, linguistic culture. The extension was indeed my dream – of a blogosphere cleansed of ignorant spoutings by people unfamiliar with the things they are spouting about. It’s a beautiful dream, no?
Francis
January 4, 2016 at 1:30 am
Thank you for your courteous response, Francis. I would like our exchanges to be more civil this year and I know the adjustment needed is on my side. Thanks for allowing that here.
We would indeed do well not to spout off on subjects we don’t know about, although I don’t think means we should not comment at all about countries whose language we can’t speak, it just means we ought to be aware of our limitations in commenting on those aspects dependent on greater/deeper knowledge.
In the case of CH, many people were taking a confident but blind leap when they condemned it. I read and speak French pretty well and have studied a fair bit of (older) French literature, but I would be wary of pronouncing on contemporary French cartoon satire, because I am sure I would miss most of the references and quite possibly misjudge the tone.
I don’t know CH well enough to judge with certainty one way or the other, but if I had to believe either a French organisation SOS Racisme, or Glenn Greenwald, who can’t even understand, let alone speak, French, on whether CH’s cartoons are racist, I would be very inclined to side with SOS Racisme. In any case that ought to have also given non Francophones pause for thought. I suspect that Greenwald and co have read about as much of CH as I have (i.e. they’ve seen a few covers).
I also tend towards trusting Andrew on French matters. He seems to me both fundamentally honest and also well above the UK average for his knowledge of French language and culture (far better than mine).
Lamia
January 4, 2016 at 12:10 pm
I don’t think that French culture, which is fundamentally part of English culture, is that different.
Charlie is from a minority dissident part of the culture.
A kind of leftism we saw in our own land in Oz Magazine.
I happen to be part of both that British alternative culture and the French one.
What distressed me about the reactions of toffs like Tariq Ali is that he and the others spat on the graves of our comrades from that tradition.
But he and the other renegades were answered, and when the response came it was cinglante.
Charlie Hebdo – And now what? The events, their impact and the issues at play.
After the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cacher Jewish supermarket: thinking through the new and rethinking the old.
ROUSSET Pierre
“The British SWP pushed things particularly far in this area. The Central Committee statement released following the Charlie Hebdo massacre is written from start to finish in such a way as to minimize the responsibility of the assassins, even if the attack is described as “wrong and completely unacceptable” and the killings as “horrific”. Alongside imperialism, Charlie Hebdo comes off as a major guilty party due to its “provocative and racist attacks on Islam,” adding for good measure that while “that does not justify the killings, but it is essential background.” The only task of the hour is therefore to “unite against racism and Islamophobia”. [12] It’s easy to understand why the SWP would react in this way, given that it has to erase its tracks and blind readers to its own responsibilities. It was one of the main organizations of the radical Left to describe the rise of Islamic fundamentalism as the expression of a new anti-imperialism. And when women in Britain itself called on progressive forces to support them against the fundamentalist threat, the SWP made it nearly impossible for them to get a hearing on the Left.
http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article34512
Andrew Coates
January 4, 2016 at 2:03 pm
I always prefer to be courteous Lamia, especially when discussing with people with whom I disagree. It’s more pleasant and interesting that way. Particularly since much of the time I’m only being half-serious… Blogs are places for playing with ideas. Real politics takes place elsewhere.
Francis
January 4, 2016 at 11:49 pm
Osservatore Romano (Pope Frankie’s personal dunny paper) had already denounced the cover of the anniversary issue.
redkorat☭ (@red_korat)
January 6, 2016 at 5:37 am