Je suis Charlie: in this great gathering the people have reclaimed the streets | Suzanne Moore | Comment is free | The GuardianJe suis Charlie: in this great gathering the people have reclaimed the streets | Suzanne Moore | Comment is free | The Guardian










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Charlie Hebdo attack


First thoughts



Je suis Charlie: in this great gathering the people have reclaimed the streets





Suzanne Moore








Sunday’s marches in France reaffirmed that difference creates strength, and that our common enemy is the tyranny of dogma














‘Who are these people? Everyone and no one. ‘Je suis Charlie’, ‘Je suis Ahmed’, ‘Je suis Flic’, ‘Je suis Juif’.’ Photograph: Stephane Mahe/Reuters





Monday 12 January 2015 07.30 EST







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There is nothing better, in the end, than people. Masses of people. Together. It’s that simple. The fantastic pictures from France show the slow shuffle of millions, the tear-streaked faces. We heard the declarations, some defiant, some heavyhearted, some laughing, because after crying for three days solid, laughter is necessary.
Who are these people? Everyone and no one. “Je suis Charlie”, “Je suis Ahmed”, “Je suis Flic”, “Je suis Juif”. Children laid flowers. Politicians linked arms. The streets were taken over not by fear but by this surge of hope.
Hope may not be the answer; it may be way too simplistic for what lies ahead. But in this great gathering, something important happened. A reclamation of the street, of public space, an unusual mood of European solidarity and an explicit sidelining of the nasty rightwing racist parties. Marine Le Pen was not there. Nigel Farage’s pathetic comments have made him look the parochial small-time chancer he is.
Just as the mass gathering was cathartic, my own response to the dire news was to cook, gather friends, break bread, light candles, hold my loved ones close. Silly maybe, but I dismiss utterly the terrorist boast about them loving death more than we love life. And I reject their grim, rigid, semi-dead certainty.
For the more I read and am told about what happened in France and why, the more I feel suspicious of liberal certainties too: the arguments about whether the Hebdo cartoons are racist or not, whether free speech is conditional or not. The context in which antisemitism has risen and that 60% of the prison population in France is Muslim and how the murderers were themselves orphans … all of this is of course vitally important, but none of it excuses murder. There is no one explanation. Don’t force one.
Uncertainty is indeed gut-churning, but more and more it is intrinsic to our freedom. Rigidity, finite values, texts that can never be questioned? This is what we must fear. Those drawn to terror cling to an ideology that allows not a glimmer of uncertainty. To doubt is to be weak. Ambiguity is a threat.
When a man can kill another not because of a cartoon but because he or she is Jewish – the provocation argument falls away. As hard as it is though, we must insist on complexity. For the differences in the world today are not between those with differing cultures and religious beliefs, but between those who believe in absolute dogma and those for whom an element of uncertainty is permissible.
This capacity for doubt, questioning, ambiguity, is an embodiment of enlightenment values. I don’t imagine everyone out on the streets of France knows or agrees on exactly what there is to be done about “terror” or “radicalisation” or “Syria”.
What we saw though was all kinds of different people together, demonstrating some common humanity. We do not all have to look the same, be the same, think the same, in order to know, laugh, cry and argue. Together. Our uncertainty, our difference, is not a weakness but a great strength; freedom from dogma is liberation. Let vast crowds gather, let doubt flourish, let us be allowed not to know. I applaud the French reaction, and the one thing I feel but can not know for sure is this: the tyranny of deadly certainty is our common enemy.



Topics



Charlie Hebdo attack




Paris




France




Counter-terrorism policy




UK security and counter-terrorism








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