This was a gloomy January. Farewell Christmas spirit, peace and understanding, it all stopped on January 7 with the attack on the offices of satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. The world is puzzled by the violence, and I am no different – no time, or indeed appetite, for a light and joyful column about investment or leadership or any exotic places I might wander to.
Today is about something deeper, more raw, primal – anger and hope. Anger towards the cruelty of what happened, the death of the “Charlie heroes” and the resurrection of all extremism – from anti-semitism to anti-muslim movements – to shake a population, a country and the world.
France, a symbol of asylum and protection, has fallen down, so hard. It took terrorist attacks against the most precious, the most sacred idea of freedom – of expression for some, of being for me – for everyone to react.
There is a blatant realisation that so many issues in the fields of education and integration have been left unresolved for so long, which finally led to mayhem and violence.
Thank you politicians for your inability to tackle – head on – what you knew was rotten at the core of the country. Thank you for your half measures, your lack of courage and your complacency in securing not a future for your country, but more a future for yourselves, next terms, next election. This was too little, too late. You managed, collectively, only to jeopardise two pillars of French society – liberté and egalité. How can we ever trust you to do what it takes to change and build a new paradigm?
But there is also hope.
Most of us are way too young to have experienced such violence, immediately followed by such fervour. Over the short span of five days we all lived through war and liberation. Five exceptionally intense days have for the first time in months, or even years, put France under different lenses – a country hopefully done with moaning, fears and strikes.
There is hope that this country – which is, at least for some of us, the shadow of what it used to be – finally awakens and gets ready to set a different course, take a different path. Let us stop fear, hatred, lies and complacency. Let us embrace change.
Let us rekindle what it means to be French and united over something bigger, larger than our petty interests. We could be on our way – for the first time in forever – to overcome what divides us and magnify what unites us, a great country, a strong country where freedom, respect and progress prevail.
This is what fraternity is about, belonging to the same nation, yes, but more importantly believing in the same ideal of a different France for tomorrow.
So what is left to say and do?
Praise Charlie Hebdo’s journalists. They have always tried to get us there – though at times awkwardly, at times by pushing limits and, yes, it has to be acknowledged, at times with a blatant lack of respect. A thorn in our side.
And pray as a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a policeman, a woman, a citizen, a cartoonist, that the course of history has indeed changed, and tomorrow will be better.
I am Charlie. No, actually, as my good friend François would say, I am la France.