Many smart people are getting a flawed picture of Charlie Hebdo. They are concluding, based on simplistic and misleading analysis, that many of the magazine covers and cartoons promoted racist views. In fact, as I will show, some of the covers elaborately lampooned racist views of right wing parties, like Front National, by imitating some of their imagery, inserting snarky comments, and even posting mock party logos next to the images. Therefore, it would be clear to pretty much any French readers that they were making fun of these things. However, people unfamiliar with the details of this rather elaborate satirical humor are now pulling these images off the internet and claiming them as evidence that Charlie Hebdo promoted the very racist views that they were in fact lampooning. So, I think it is important that we set the record straight.
To be clear, I am not giving Charlie Hebdo unqualified support for everything that have ever said (though I would defend their right to say it), but it does look like many of the cartoons are actually saying the exact opposite of the racist, sexist, and/or Islamophobic messages that people unfamiliar with the magazine are claiming.
Here are a few things you may not know. I will start with a little bit of background information. Some people may think that information about people's personal lives is irrelevant to this issue. I happen to disagree. I think knowing a little about the people involved does matter. If you disagree, fine. You can take this for whatever it's worth. First,
the deceased editor, Charb, "was a Communist and his girlfriend's parents were North African." She is also chair of the French Equal Opportunities and Anti-Discrimination Commission.His partner's name is Jeannette Bougrab. While this information by itself doesn't prove anything, these facts might at least lead you to question the narrative that Charb is a right wing racist, Islamophobe, and/or misogynist.
However, some people have been pointing to certain images or text on the magazine covers that do look provocative or offensive. Unfortunately, they are often just using google translate to interpret them, because most of the critics don't appear to be very familiar with French language or culture, much less French political humor or day-to-day controversies. Therefore, I have seen many people proclaiming that the magazine is right wing and racist, when even a simple wikipedia search quickly finds that the magazine's stated goals were actually to
"[reflect] all components of left wing pluralism."So, what is happening here? This takes a bit of analysis and discussion, so let's take a look below the La grande fleur de Kos et liberté.