The Spirit of “Charlie”

On the morning of January 7, 2015, two terrorists attacked the headquarters of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris and killed over 10 cartoonists, staff, and police.  It was a terrible moment and people were left in shock and anger. A week later, over 3.7 million people participated in  a demonstration to show their support for freedom of speech. I was one of the 3.7 million.

That Sunday—with the typical Parisian grey clouds in the sky—everything seemed special. Eleven metro stations were closed for the sake of the demonstration, and there were so many people that I couldn’t get onto the metro until the third one came. On that particular afternoon, people in Paris seemed to have just  one destination: the République Square, where the demonstration took place. When I finally arrived, I was moved by the demonstrators. Some were carrying “Je suis Charlie” signs, some were wearing pencil-like decorations, some were holding national flags, but they all shared the same look of compassion, firmness, and solidarity. What really touched me, however, was not the fact that millions of people came, but that the horrible attack made people braver. Yes, the attack frightened people, but it at the same time it united people from France and all over the world, encouraging them to put aside fear and speak up on behalf of humanity. The precariousness of existence, the bareness of life, and the longing for equality summoned millions of “Charlie” to go onto the street and support their fellow human beings, especially when those fellows had died in defense of liberty, so precious an objective that it wasn’t achieved without a price.

Almost miraculously, after hiding behind the clouds for the whole afternoon, the sun came out shortly before it sank into the darkness, rendering the sky red. The fire-colored sun gave me hope for the next day. That evening, I changed the photo I took into black and white, as I saw this tragedy as something in the past tense, something that ought to be carefully sealed in my memory. However, only ten months had passed when another attack, much more terrible, happened in Paris and resulted in 130 deaths. By that time I was already back in the U.S., but I felt closely connected to the people in Paris. I remember hitting the “like” button under every friend’s “I’m safe” status on Facebook. I remember sending emails to my host family and following every piece of news online. I remember attending the vigil at Smith, where a French student said that the French people loved their life, and that they would continue loving and singing. At that moment, as both an outsider and an insider of the attack, I felt humans’ braveness and optimism in front of tragedy and disaster.

Seamus Heaney, the 1995 Nobel Literature winner, told a story in his acceptance speech about a group of armed and masked men who attacked a minibus on a mountain road in Ireland, forced the hostages to line up, and asked all the Catholics to step out. A Protestant squeezed the only Catholic’s hand, as a signal of saying, “Don’t move, we won’t betray you.” That Catholic, however, chose to be loyal to his faith and take a step out, only to find out that instead of himself, all his Protestant fellows were shot. It’s been two years since I first heard this story. I still have this mixed feeling of sadness and hope each time I think of it. The story reflects the Paris attacks in the way that we see not only the ways people are deprived of their lives in a world of ideological clashes, but also the humanity that binds people. Yes, it takes time and effort to change our world toward a more equal and just place, but goodness is there – it has always been and always will be.

 

zhang_2016-02-11-author-imageCoco Zhang is a Government and Film Studies double major in the Class of 2016. Having lived, studied, and worked in China, the United States, France, and Switzerland, she sees photography as her lens into the world, and documentary as a tool to raise public awareness of global issues. After she graduates, she hopes to promote equality and social development by working at international organizations.

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