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reThe trial of the terrorists’ accomplices in the attack on Charlie Hebdo was under way when 90 major media outlets published a manifesto for freedom of expression. No newspaper illustrated the appeal with one of the Muhammad cartoons that the satirical magazine reprinted at the start of the trial. Again there were death threats, an employee had to leave her apartment in ten minutes; he has been under police protection since 2015. A knife attack in front of the old editorial building resulted in two seriously injured people. History teacher Samuel Paty, who was beheaded on Friday, had also shown the cartoons to students two weeks earlier in a lesson on freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
The newspapers reacted to the negotiations in the courts with their manifesto for press freedom. “Charlie Hebdo” attorney Richard Malka spoke of the “judgment of a defeat” and accused the newspapers of discouragement. Witnesses and survivors stressed in the courtroom how much the situation had worsened since the attack. Fear triumphs: there are, Malka said with resignation, there are no books, there are no exhibitions, there are no films or plays that critically address Islam.
“Charlie Hebdo” settled with politicians and intellectuals as intellectual accomplices of the terrorists. For fear of fomenting “Islamophobia”, they belittle the totalitarian threat. Nor is the media’s call to defend press freedom formulated as a courageous declaration of war. Avoid terms like “Islamism” and radical Islam. There is talk of fanatics, but without ideological classification.
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A long-ignored threat
The brutal murder hits a symbol of the republic. A ban on the veil in schools had been ordered, making France an enemy of the Muslim world. The death of Samuel Paty forces France to face a reality that it may know but that it represses. In all the media, the banlieue professors say that for a long time it has been impossible to deal with subjects like the biography of the Prophet, the Shoah, 9/11 or Darwin. And they frankly admit that they avoid conflict out of fear and because they don’t really have the support of school authorities. They practice self-censorship. The kneeling of culture denounced by “Charlie Hebdo” is common in school; In many places the minute of silence for the dead journalists was interrupted at that time.
“Teachers are objective”: In 2004, Jean-Pierre Obin, inspector of the Ministry of Education, prepared a report on the growing influence of Islam in schools. It disappeared in the drawer of the then Minister of Education François Fillon; Excerpts were made public, but there were no consequences.
A martyr for the republic, indeed
This fall, Obin published a book, How to Let Islam Invade School. Problems don’t just exist in history and biology classes. In the French course, the teacher encounters resistance with the immoral Emma Bovary and the religious critic Voltaire. More and more girls are staying away from gym and swimming classes. The blatant campaigns of outraged parents calling for the dismissal and punishment of teachers on the networks go on for a long time. However, for the first time, the bigotry of a father who was associated with a preacher of hate has led to murder after two weeks.
Part of the responsibility for the crime committed by the eighteen-year-old Chechen is the fury of the “culture of cancellation.” She heats the climate against the enlightenment and secretly admires terrorists as resistance fighters in the common campaign against the republic of discrimination.
Historical discrimination against homosexuals recently justified the demand for the transfer of Rimbaud and Verlaine to the Pantheon. Now there is talk of the transfer of Samuel Paty, who is actually a martyr of the republic. The school where he taught should also bear his name. France is repeatedly tempted to resolve its conflicts in a politics of memory. But after years of funeral marches for the victims of terrorism, the urgency of action seems to be recognized. In the commemorative ceremonies of the history teacher, the fatigue was stronger than the unanimity: “Enough with the candles and the crowns.”
