‘Are We Next?’
I’m the editor of Germany’s Charlie Hebdo. This is why I’m publishing its cover.
By INES POHL
January 13, 2015
When the news broke that our French colleagues had been killed, a deep feeling of pain overwhelmed my newsroom—and an immediate feeling of fear. All of a sudden it seemed possible that we might be next, that something might happen to us here in the heart of Berlin, only a hundred yards or so away from Checkpoint Charlie.
If there is any paper in Europe that comes close to Charlie Hebdo, it is the one that I run, die tageszeitung, which means simply "The Daily," or taz for short. Both papers are an outcome of the student revolution founded in the spirit of the “68 Generation.” In my country it was clearly a reaction to Germany's authoritarian leaders, some of whom were holdovers and ex-Nazis from the past.
Like Charlie Hebdo, taz often uses satire to challenge the so-called mainstream. We, too, have run satirical images of the Prophet Muhammad. We decided to republish Charle Hebdo’s first post-massacre cover on Wednesday not only to express our solidarity but also as a proof that terrorists won't stop us from printing whatever we want to say—about Islam or any religion.
After the massacre in Paris last week, it didn’t take long before a police car was parked in front of our building. Since the morning of January 8 heavily armed police have stood in front of the entrance, their machine guns at the ready. The alert has risen since the attack on a German paper in Hamburg in the early Sunday morning hours where, fortunately, nobody was hurt.
There are some picture posts on Facebook making fun of this scene at taz, which itself sounds like a satire since we are known as some of the loudest critics of the police in Germany, and many of our editorials have urged police not to wear weapons in public.
And yet here we are ...
Do not misunderstand me: We are grateful for the help. Instead of throwing stones at the police—as the founding generation of this paper might have done—we offer hot tea and coffee in the icy winds of Germany's capital as a little gesture of thankfulness.
Still, passing this bristling display of weapons every time we enter our building does not give us a feeling of being well-protected. For the past week I have seen my colleagues constantly gathering together and asking each other questions like: “How do you feel? Do we have to worry? Are you also afraid?”
In every meeting we discuss what this fear does to us and if it influences our way of reporting or our editorial board.
Is the freedom of speech already hurt by the strongest weapon terrorists have: The weapon of fear? So far we resist. But the coming days and months will answer that question.
This terror act in France hits Europe in a crucial time. We are experiencing a huge shift in the political landscape that endangers the whole order of the last two decades. We see a strong increase of the right in many European countries, in France, but also in Great Britain and Italy. And even in Germany, which is doing financially so well, we have the new party Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD, with its very strong anti-European attitude.
All those parties have one political approach in common: They not only use the real problems of unemployment and poverty for their political goals, but they are the masters at blaming the European Union, with its open markets and borders, for everything bad that is happening. Their goal is to re-nationalize their countries at the cost of the EU, to strengthen the power of their own countries and parliaments, and to fight the liberalization of their societies. Many of them have strong resentments against gay people and are deeply racist. They dream of the old order, when white male Christians from the upper class ruled their countries.
The wall fell 25 years ago. And that means that there are many people old enough to vote who never experienced the Cold War, who never lived in a divided Europe and therefore easily forget the beauty of our Union.
That makes it easier for some right-wing politicians to exploit these acts of terrorism for their goals. The blood in Paris wasn´t even dry when the first German politician, Alexander Gauland, one of the top candidates from the Alternative für Deutschland party, claimed this killing as a proof that Germany has the right to fear the influence of Muslim culture and that Germans have the right, and the obligation, to defend their Christian heritage.
Whether they are Germans, French or Brits, Europe is afraid of more terror from Islamic terrorists. But the answer cannot be to add fuel to the so-called clash of civilizations.
The answer only can be to analyze the reasons and march toward solutions. The Paris terrorists were French. They were born in France, went to French schools. Europe has to learn that Muslims are not foreigners, not outsiders. That they are as French and German and British as Christians, Jews or atheists are.
The European Union, the house of one unified continent, is the main reason we have been living in peace for nearly 70 years. Our Union was the only possible way to heal the wounds of World War II and to build trust in each other. We must understand this and urgently fight together to overcome the big challenges of these days—especially the rise of violence perpetrated by terrorists and autocratic states like Russia closer to home.
Next week the CIA torture reports will be printed in German. This report is the proof of how a country can be misled when it becomes ruled by fear. We, as European journalists, must beat back this fear and stand up for our free democracies, for taz, and for the policemen outside our doors keeping us safe, for the freedom to choose your own religion, and for our Union here in Europe.
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-114232.html#ixzz3P55tt4rD
