Haruhisa Kato, an old Japanese friend, a former professor at Todai University, wrote this to me: “I saw the images of the whole of France in mourning. I am deeply upset by these events. Back in the day, I loved Wolinski’s comic books. I’ve had a subscription to the Canard enchaîné since forever. Every week I appreciate Cabu’s ‘Beauf’ cartoons. Next to my desk I’ve always kept his comic book Cabu et Paris; some of the drawings in there, of radiant young Japanese female tourists on the Champs Elysées, are outstanding.” But further on he expresses this reservation: “Le Monde‘s January 1st editorial opened with these words: ‘A Better World? This requires first and foremost an intensification of the fight against the Islamic State and its blind barbarism.’ I was shocked by this statement, somewhat contradictory in my opinion, that to reach peace you must go through war.”
Others also write to me from all around the world: Turkey, Argentina, United States… They all express their compassion and solidarity, but also their concern: for our security and for our democracy, our civilization – I was about to say “for our soul”. It is to them that I want to reply with this piece that Libération invited me to write. It is legitimate for intellectuals to express themselves, without privilege, especially not that of any particular clear-sightedness, but also without hesitation and without calculation. It is their professional duty, so that the word can spread in the city at a time of danger. Today, in an emergency, I only want to speak three or four words.
Community. Yes, we need community: we need community to mourn, for solidarity, for protection, for reflection. This community is not exclusive, in particular it does not exclude those among French citizens or immigrants who an increasingly vocal propaganda, reminiscent of the darkest times of our history, associates with invasion and terrorism to turn them into scapegoats on which to cast our fears, our impoverishment, or our fantasies. But this community also does not exclude those who believe in the Front National’s arguments, or those who are seduced by Houellebecq’s prose. It must therefore explain itself. And this community does not stop at national borders, as it is clear that feelings, responsibilities and initiatives called for by the current “global civil war” must be worked through at an international level, and if possible (Edgar Morin is quite right on this point) in a cosmopolitan setting.
That is why the community should not be confused with “national unity”. This concept has practically only ever been utilized to support unspeakable goals: to silence disturbing questions and to make credible the inevitability of emergency measures. The Résistance itself did not invoke this term for good reason. And we have just seen how, in calling for national mourning, which is his prerogative, the French president took the opportunity to slip in a justification of our military interventions, of which it is not certain that they did not contribute to dragging the world down the slope it’s currently on. After this come all those loaded debates about which party is or isn’t “national”, the names of the parties notwithstanding. Are we trying to compete with Ms. Le Pen here?
Recklessness. Were the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists reckless? Yes, but this word has two meanings, that are more or less easy to disentangle (and, of course, some subjectivity on my part enters the picture here). Contempt for danger, hunger for risk, some would say heroism. But also indifferent to the potentially disastrous consequences of a healthy provocation – in this case the humiliation of millions of people who are already stigmatized, making them vulnerable to the manipulation of organized fanatics. I think Charb and his comrades were reckless in both senses of the word. Today, now that this recklessness has cost them their lives, revealing at the same time the mortal danger incurred by freedom of expression, I want to think only of the first aspect. But for tomorrow and the days after tomorrow (because this will not be a one-day-affair), I want us to think of the most intelligent way to manage the second aspect, and its contradiction with the first. This will not necessarily be cowardly.
Jihad. I purposefully conclude by pronouncing this word that sparks fear, because it’s time to consider all of its implications. I have only the beginning of an idea about this subject, but I’m committed to it: our fate is in the hands of the Muslims, as vague as this denomination may be. Why? Because obviously it is important and right to avoid confusion and to take a stand against islamophobes who claim to read a call for murder in the Qur’an or hear one in the oral tradition. But this won’t be enough. Only a theological critique can counter Islam’s exploitation by jihadist networks – the main victims of which, lest we forget, are Muslims all over the world and even in Europe – as well as a reform of the religious “common sense”, one that would solidify the jihadism’s untruth in the eyes of believers. Otherwise we will all be caught up in the deadly grip both of terrorism, a terrorism that may attract all the humiliated and outraged people of our society in crisis, and of the draconian, freedom-killing security policies implemented by increasingly militarized states. There is thus a responsibility that lies with Muslims, or rather a task that falls to them. But it is also ours – not only because this “we” I’m talking about, here and now, includes by definition many Muslims, but also because such a critique and such a reform, a tenuous enough task as it is, would become downright impossible if we allow this discourse of exclusion, of which they, their religion and their cultures are usually the target of, to go on any longer.
Étienne Balibar
philosopher, author of Violence et Civilité (Galilée, 2010)
Original Article: Trois mots pour les morts et pour les vivants (Libération.fr, January 9, 2015)