Published by Rare Book Hub / February 2015
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| All is forgiven... |
In 1834, the
newspaper La Caricature published the
portrait of Louis-Philippe slowly transforming into... a pear. It created a
national scandal. But nowadays, the press is agonizing; what is left of its
past glory? Well, the terrorists who murdered 12 people in Charlie Hebdo’s headquarters last month proved at least one thing: newspapers
still hold a huge power!
Read the ARTICLE at Rare Book Hub or Right HERE.
The Caricatures
Voltaire and Charlie
In
1834, while the Government had just passed some new laws to restrict freedom of
speech in France, the newspaper La
Caricature published the portrait of Louis-Philippe slowly transforming
into... a pear. It created a national scandal. But nowadays, the press is
agonizing; what is left of its past glory? Well, the terrorists who murdered 12
people in Charlie Hebdo’s headquarters
last month proved at least one thing: newspapers still hold a huge power!
Voltaire’s
Offsprings
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| Voltaire, a God-fearing philosopher? |
The terrorist attack, apparently motivated
by the wish to revenge Prophet Muhammad mocked in the pages of the satirical
magazine Charlie Hebdo (CH), raises many
questions. Freedom of speech is one of them; but it goes deeper, as it
questions the philosophical position of France on religion at large. Our
country has a long tradition of lampooning. After all, the famous placards, or signs, posted all over
Paris against Catholicism in 1534 were nothing but pamphlets—and they led many
people to the stake. In the 17th century, Cardinal Mazarin suffered
many satirical writings that drove the kingdom on the brink of a civil war.
Louis XIV, who was less tolerant, had some satirists executed too—they had
written against his wife. Yet, forbidden books, pamphlets and lampoons throve continually.
During the following century, the Philosophes
des Lumières led by Voltaire, used words to fight the establishment,
including the mighty Church. And Lord knows their “bullets” of paper hit hard! Then
came the Revolution of 1789, and the “bouffeurs
de curés”, or priests haters, in
the early 20th century, who fought the last battle of the
secularization—a newspaper of the time even published, on its front cover, the
drawing of a man kicking the ass of a naked Jesus! Nothing new. Thus the French
have developed a sort of animosity towards religion—they see it as a way to
oppress, and to indoctrinate. Voltaire is not really thoroughly read anymore,
but he’s seen as a national hero, and wrongfully identified as a “priest hater”; as far as the famous
satire of the “pear” mentioned above is concerned, it is still shown in
school—and our kids laugh at it. The
Republic has become our idol; as well as secularism. Thus, atheism is quite
common around here. And we tend to believe that it is the case in the rest of
the world; but it’s not. Slaughtered over satirical drawings mocking the
prophet of Islam, the cartoonists of CH are now considered as the true heirs of
Voltaire. As a matter of fact, the sales of Treatise On Toleration by Voltaire have suddenly risen after the attack. But is it really the case?
The
Holy Link of Society
Voltaire fought against the wrongs done in
the name of God, just like in the aforementioned treatise, written to defend a
Protestant wrongfully accused of the murder of his on because of his religion; but
he didn’t fight against God—or the idea
of God. “The misdeeds of the priests can
not be blamed on God,” he wrote in one of his poems, Epistle to the author of The Three Impostors. The title is a
reference to an anonymous book mocking Moses, Jesus and Muhammad—when it was anonymously
reprinted in the 18th century, the priests attributed it at once to
Voltaire; but the Philosopher was the
first one to condemn this work, and called its author the fourth impostor. “This
sublime system to Man is necessary,” he wrote about religion. “It’s the holy link of society / The first
stone of the holy equity / The fear of the villain, the hope of the righteous.”
These are not the words of a heretic, though Voltaire obviously didn’t believe
in a white giant sitting in a chair on the top of a cloud, looking down at us
in discontent. He was too bright and too learnt a man to believe in what he
called the fairy tales of the Old
Testament either (including the story of Moses or the myth of Adam and Eve); he
denounced them to prevent oppression in the name of religion; but he knew about
the crucial role played by spirituality: “If
God wasn’t existing, we would have to create Him.” To deny God would mean denying
“fear and hope” to Man, two essential
inner workings
of any society. Voltaire longed for the day when « philosophy leading the way, shall bring people to the feet of their
common master; when the terrible fanaticism shall be afraid to show itself;
when we shall have less dogmas, and more virtues. » But he knew that the
vast majority of people weren’t able to understand his a subtle view; the world
was populated by a majority of simple men who needed simple solutions to
complex problems—and it still is. Recently, an angry mob in a country of the
Middle East sent a warlike message to France by burning... an Italian flag!
They probably don’t even know where to locate France on a world map—and Fox
News knows no better. Voltaire took this
into consideration. Charlie Hebdo didn’t.
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| I'm "pearibly" sorry... |
When La Caricature, that had published the
“pear” in 1835, was condemned, they were ordered to publish the judgement on
their front page; they complied, putting the words together so to make the
unmistakable shape of... a pear. Charlie Hebdo also refused to yield to the
pressures of the extremists of Islam after they received some threats for publishing
the caricatures of Muhammad for the first time, some ten years ago—but who was
CH talking to exactly? It was born out of Hara-Kiri,
a satirical magazine published in the 1960s, when the social pressure was
almost unbearable until it exploded during the spring of 1968. A wind of
freedom was blowing all over France; free speech, free thinking, and free sex.
To draw a naked woman in a magazine was a sort of jubilation for most of the
people who had experienced the dark previous decade. CH was a far-left
newspaper but it mainly consisted in a bunch of clowns, who enjoyed themselves. Yet, in 2015, printing around 50,000 copies a week, they
belonged to the past—the chief editor, who was the primary target of the raid,
was in his forties; but Cabu, one of the victims, was over 80; and the
cartoonist Wolinski, 76—not the prime youth of the French rebellious
avant-garde. Before the terrorists turned them into martyrs, they were poor
heirs to Voltaire, in the sense that sometimes appeared to preach another
religion, atheism... Worst, they sometimes bordered on nihilism. And this was
clearly not the message of Voltaire. “I
made mistakes sometimes,” he wrote about God. “But my heart was always full of You.”
A Christian secularism
The French are
proud of their history, and there’s no reason they shouldn’t—but our secularism
we sometimes brandish like Liberty holds the French flag over the barricade in
Delacroix’s painting. Can we sweep under the carpet thousands of years, during
which the religious only cared about spirituality, arts and books? They’ve been
the guardians of our sacred heritage when no one else was around—France might have
become a secular Republic, it remains a Christian country in its culture and in
its values. We celebrate Christmas, our kids eat fish every Friday at school, our
language is full of Biblical idioms, and our magnificent churches attract
dozens of thousands of visitors every summer. Many people idolize secularism
nowadays, but this is just another dogma. Furthermore, to be an atheist means
you do not believe in God; it doesn’t that you are right.
Seven million copies
of the post-attack issue of CH were printed—an all-time record. It features a
caricature of Muhammad on the cover, holding a “I am Charlie” sign, weeping; the caption reads: all is forgiven. This was perceived as a
new slice of “pear” by some so-called moderate Muslim countries such as Turkey,
where many demonstrated against CH; then Kadirov’s plastic kingdom started to
roar, as simple people obeyed their dreadful master. Now, this is what Voltaire was fighting against: the manipulation of the
masses by tyrants, through religion—and to belittle fanaticism in religion is
the surest way to curb the power of the oppressors who use it as a political
tool.
There are many
things to say about our Western society, its history, its brutality; and some
journalists draw cartoons to keep us on our guard—the overwhelming majority of
the last 52 front covers of CH were dedicated to domestic policies, and only
one dealt with Islam; because the threats are here, indeed. Their names are
ignorance, fanaticism and tyranny—they are the real three impostors! And books are the only way to fight them; some
will pervert, or misuse, this weapon by going too far, or in the wrong
direction. But only in a society full of books can we imagine such excess. And
only in a society full of books, good and bad, can men of good will from all
sides feel comfortable. Printed paper is the heart of our civilization. And
this is a good starting point—in fact, this is the only one. Because, in the beginning, was the Word
Thibault Ehrengardt
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