posted on Jan, 13 2015 @ 12:41 AM
I didn't know that was being done outside France.
I think it is just a way of getting people to identify with the victims, but I don't feel it that much, I never really feel that close to the french
tradition of mockery. It's a constant thing, and I make efforts to be part of it once in a while, but don't have the right rythm. I always feel
slightly bad about mocking others, even if they take it well.
For me, that was what Charlie Hebdo was about.
When I try to do it, it falls flat because I don't choose the right things to mock, it's always something that is too true, too sensitive- for they
don't acknowledge that amongst themselves, they have a subtle understanding of what is okay to mock and what isn't. So they don't recognize that
other people, also, have points that are off limits from mockery.
Like just try making a joke about the Holocaust to a french person- their grin will melt immediately. That's not funny, and they will call the cops,
and you will go to jail. Oh the outrage when Prince Harry dressed as a Nazi at a costume party!
I don't condone the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, I do not wish to excuse them. On the other hand, I don't wish to condone purposely provoking people to
get upset by mocking their most sensitive issues either. I am always a bit uncomfortable with hypocrisy, and this smacks of hypocrisy to me.
I identified more with the small children and parents who were gunned down in front of their school by Mohamed Merah, because I am a parent, and it
was in front of my children's school that my son was beat up by a gang of arabs, and my husband and I had rocks thrown at us, because they knew I was
american. But that didn't get the same press, because the press is more concerned with the press.
There were kids in junior high that refused to do the minute of silence everyone else did the next day, because they could not understand how these
deaths were more important than the thousands that die daily in the world unjustly. These guys provoked it and knew the risk- so many other innocent
people who made no choices to provoke are killed, and no one cares. The teachers tried to explain to them the importance of the symbology here, and
they argued that humans might be more important than symbols.
When I heard of this, I just though, wow, if I was a teacher, I would be so proud of these students- thinking for themselves, and thinking quite well!