Holy Wars: not on our skin

The attack on Charlie Hebdo, French “journal irresponsable” is a terrible tragedy, a direct attack on freedom of expression and of the press, as well as a tragedy that has already cost the lives of 12 people.

Do those who opened fire with Kalashnikovs inside the newspaper’s headquarters and then in the street belong to the fringes of radical and armed Islamism? Are they returning Jihadis? Homegrown or imported? We do not know yet, but we have other certainties.

CH is a satirical newspaper, the expression of a libertarian culture that has always rejected the idea that there can be a subject too taboo on which to exercise satire. We can already imagine the reaction to what happened, to the death of journalists who fought so often for freedom of expression. They will be exploited by those who say “we are under attack” “we are at war”, ” its the return of the crusades”. We should use every breath in our bodies to yell: no, we are not at war, or at least we “white Europeans” are not at war with the migrant communities that live with us in the metropolises of Europe. We must scream that we are at war against fascism of any origin, and for this we are on the side of the partisans of Rojava in their fight against Isis, as we were alongside the youth in revolt of the squares of the Arab spring.

We scream that the only war being fought in our cities is that of those who impose poverty and misery on all, migrants and native born people, in the impoverished peripheries of cities and in the provinces of Europe. We’ll see jackals like Salvini and Le Pen launch their violent slogans, as their minions act both in the shadows and in the light of day to launch new Crusades. We will have to fight to prevent the young proletarians of the banlieues of our cities from being enlisted in any holy war, be it that of some caliph or imam or that of the fascists, the populists and the Islamophobes.