My thoughts are with the families and friends of the fallen at Charlie Hebdo in Paris today.
I am French and it saddens me to learn that Cabu, who was part of my childhood with his caricatures on a children’s TV programme, lost his life with another 11 people.
What kind of world do we now live in that I am not really surprised by this attack by extremists against a satirical paper… What worries me most right now is that this event will probably accelerate the FN’s (far right party) access to many more places of political power. I left France because I felt that it was far too narrow-minded and unaccepting of other cultures and thoughts. Racism has grown exponentially since then – I cannot talk to my own family about any subject that approaches “foreigners” or differences in religion as it inevitably ends up in very bad arguments. And although there is no doubt that violence in the name of Islam is an act of extremists only, I fear that racism and rejection of differences will only grow in France following today’s attack. Which in turn will push more vulnerable people to follow extremist views. The only outlook I can imagine for the country that originally stood for liberty – yet in my opinion is partly responsible for the current situation – is civil war. Or concentration camps…
I realise that this event is a very sad one, yet I couldn’t help being quite sarcastic upon reading on the BBC headlines at some point that the US offered their help to France… Sure, we definitely want you to help France like you helped Irak or Afghanistan… And I cannot remember hearing this kind of comments when dozens of students are killed by another student because America gives the freedom to own firearms… How many times has this happened in the last 20 years? Has anything been done? Yet, when it comes to Islamists, they want to help straight away. And then people wonder why extremism grows…
I do not plan on making this blog political in any kind of way, I just needed to share some of my thoughts on the back of the terrible events of today.
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