We’re All Charlie

They can’t stand laughter, satire, or the freedom of thought and criticism. The authoritarians, the tyrants, the bigots, are ferocious enemies of laughter, that small gesture that condenses the biggest human virtue – intelligence -, and the major yearning: freedom. Charb, Charlie Hebdo‘s director, and one of those killed for practicing journalism, humor and freedom, had said without pomp that he would rather “die standing than live on my knees.” But he also created, along with his colleagues, the best portrayal of the preferred media for those who want to impose their creeds and dogmas upon others: the blank page.

We refuse to be a blank page, just like journalists worldwide do on a daily basis, many of them in Latin America, in order to keep defending information, criticism and laughter. And to keep defying the so-called truths that the powers that be impose to makes us a little less free and much unhappier. The dead of Charlie Hebdo keep challenging us not to give up on the best antidote against authoritarian abuse and censorship: investigate, publish, think, laugh…

Piercing humor is as deadly as reports of corruption, as in the case of Moisés Sánchez Cerezo, director of the weekly La Unión of the municipality of Medellín de Bravo, Veracruz, Mexico, who was kidnapped from his home by an armed commando. The local police are to this day the main suspects of the disappearance of journalists reporting on local political corruption cases.

Charlie Hebdo and Sánchez Cerezo, each in their own way, upset the corrupt and the fanatics. The link between the intolerant fundamentalists seeking to impose their values, and the authorities enriched at the expense of the people, is the killing of the journalist. This represents the will to intimidate society so it won’t think, know, discover, or laugh.

There is little difference between the men dressed in black in France and those in uniform — and in suit and tie- in many Latin American countries.

The society and media’s response must be to think, communicate, be informed, discover, and laugh at the despots, corrupts and assassins. In the long run, this is a more effective weapon than bullets