Je suis Charlie...

We don't all have the same weapons to express our convictions ... but only true braves, those who don't have to be ashamed of their ideas, are expressed uncovered faces !

Que la plume batte le fer et les balles

Qu'aucune enclume ne forge la morale

Nous sommes libres

Idées immortelles

En nous, l'on porte la fibre

D'un amour universel.  

(This Poem is from my friend Serena Leitner. 

Thanks to her for allow me to publish it and next is a translation, sorry for the rhyme...)

May the feather wins against the iron and bullets

May no anvil forge the morals

We are free 

Immortal ideas

Inside us, we keep the fiber

Of an universal love.

  
Je suis Charlie, I'm Charlie, I am sad ... but I stand, we stand and I'm not afraid, we are not afraid...

They wanted to kill freedom, kill our freedom of speech, freedom for which so many men fought, both men are dead ... They wanted to silence a handful of men who used their pens to caricature and say, for drawing and tell truths...

 

 

They wanted to silence a few cartoonists, but, today, after this horrible tragedy there are thousands, people who just say "Je suis Charlie", we are thousands deny terrorism, obscurantism, fanaticism..., in France, but also in several european towns and capitals but also elsewhere in the world...

Let us remember what Voltaire said in the 18th century :

« Je ne suis pas d’accord avec ce que vous dites, mais je me battrai jusqu'à ma mort pour que vous ayez le droit de le dire. »

« I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it »

Since several days, especially when I write these lines I could not hold back my tears and I even cry. They wanted to kill Liberty. Freedom, always I will cherish your name ...

May my tears, and all those paid by bereaved families and relatives of the victims, the ones of the thousands of anonymous, in France and in the world, yes, all these tears will meet and form a stream, a river, a river which will irrigate all the fields or blossom and grow the trees of liberty...

They used weapons against your pencils but it's ink to continue to flow, not blood ...

Charb, Cabu, Wolinski, Tignous, Honoré, Bernard Maris, Mustapha Ourrad, Elsa Cayat, Frédéric Boisseau, Michel Renauds, Franck Brinsolaro, Ahmed Merabet, Clarissa Jean-Philippe, Yoav Hattab, Philippe Braham, Yohan Cohen, 

...we will not forget you...

 but I also like that we don't forget to have thoughts to all civilians, children or adults who die every day in Gaza, in Israel, in Syria, Afghanistan, Mali, Ukraine and elsewhere in the world, victims of murderous folly, terrorism, madness of men acting under the guise of religions...

Don't forget them ...

Then today, I'am Christian, I'am Muslim, I'am Jewish, I'am sad but I'm stand up and... 

I'm not afraid,  I'am Charlie

we are not afraid, we are Charlie...    

 

Drawing by Serena Leitner in tribute to victims