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#QuiSommesNous? A Socratic dialogue on “L’Affaire Charlie Hebdo”

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UMUT OZKIRIMLI  and  SPYROS A. SOFOS   Appeared in openDemocracy.com on 13 January 2015 Freedoms are not unlimited but who, when and how can we limit them? Two colleagues agree to disagree. Content warning: graphic and potentially offensive imagery, including torture. Umut – This time it was different. I could not put a finger on how I felt on the morning of January 7, as I was refreshing my Twitter feed every ten seconds, hypnotized by the cold-blooded execution of Ahmed Merabet at the scene of the massacre. I was horrified of course, and angry like everybody else, at the perpetrators, at the structural conditions that have produced them, at the way in which religion had become a cloak for what was essentially a politically motivated act of barbarism. But there was more to it. I was also numbed by disbelief, a profound sense of desperation, even defeatism. In a way, I felt like the Knight in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, seeking answers to existential questions about life

Charlie Hebdo or the loss of our innocence

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This is still a draft text, a repository of some thoughts to which I will return soon ... Last night Channel 4 news reported from La Place de la République where thousands of people stayed up late to protest against the brutal murders of the Charlie Hebdo staff and the policemen who got on the way of the perpetrators. The square was packed, with some people in shock, many angry at what had happened, most determined to send a message of defiance. Banners and posters featuring  #jesuisCharlie , the hashtag devised to express solidarity to the satirical magazine staff were everywhere and, later on, the same hashtag was projected on the statue of the Republic in the centre of the square, superimposed over the crowd that had gathered. Matthieu Ecoiffier, journalist with the French newspaper  Libération , talking to the Channel 4 reporter, was shocked, surprised that Charlie Hebdo could have caused offence. He mentioned the 'innocent' cover of the magazine issue with the title