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First-Hand Account From The Terrorist Attack on Charlie Hebdo
If I sound incoherent, it’s because I am shaken. The reasons will be obvious.
I had no intention of reporting on this from the scene of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. I was walking up Boulevard Richard Lenoir to meet a friend who lives in the neighborhood. But the moment I saw what I did, I knew for sure what had happened. A decade in Turkey teaches you that. That many ambulances, that many cops, that many journalists, and those kinds of faces can mean only one thing: a massive terrorist attack.
I also knew from the location just who’d been attacked: Charlie Hebdo, the magazine known for many things, but, above all, for its fearlessness in publishing caricatures of Mohamed. They’d been firebombed for this in 2011, but their response — in effect — was the only one free men would ever consider: “As long as we’re alive, you’ll never shut us up.”
They are no longer alive. They managed to shut them up.
The only thing I didn’t immediately know was how many of them had died.
All of them, it seems, or close enough. So did two police officers who had been assigned to protect their offices. Twelve are dead for sure; I assume that number will rise; seven are seriously injured. It was at the time I was there unclear how many were wounded.
And the attackers are still at large.
Given that two police officers are dead, now doesn’t seem the time to say what comes to mind about the fact that the assailants escaped. It will say this much though: if they’re not dead before nightfall, I’ll say exactly what comes to mind, respect for the dead be damned.
I did what I could as a journalist but — since it wasn’t my plan to be one — I was there with neither a camera nor even a notebook. And it didn’t seem the time to ask the police to prioritize me. There were more than enough journalists on the scene and I doubt I’d have done better than they will.
What we know is this: at least two masked attackers. Kalashnikovs. Gunmen who shouted, “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad.” Rumors of a rocket launcher, but I suspect we should wait for confirmation on that; eyewitnesses tend to get confused about these things, especially when unused to seeing them.
The latest tweet on Charlie Hebdo’s Twitter account was a cartoon of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi:
Meilleurs vœux, au fait. pic.twitter.com/a2JOhqJZJM
— Charlie Hebdo (@Charlie_Hebdo_) January 7, 2015
This was the worst Islamic terrorist attack in Europe since the London tube bombings of 2005, and the worst of any kind since Anders Breivik.* If I’m correct — I have not checked carefully — it was also the worst in France since the Nazis were running the place.
I was there only by luck: I had no desire to see this. Luck is probably not the right word. I wish I hadn’t seen it. But lucky, certainly is the right word to use in noting that I was running late, and thus there a few minutes after the fact. Had I not been running late, it’s fairly obvious what might have happened. They weren’t discriminate in their targets.
There wasn’t much for me to do. I didn’t even have a pen on me. I spoke to a cameraman from France 3, to make sure I understood the facts. I didn’t ask if I could quote him, so I won’t use his name. But his comment summed up the sentiment. “This is the kind of thing you expect in Pakistan. And now it’s coming here.”
While I didn’t get any photos, Buzzfeed is running a few. They are warning that the images are “disturbing.” I’m so sorry if you find them disturbing, readers, but take a good long look at them anyway: they’re nothing compared to what I saw, and what I saw wasn’t “disturbing images”; they were “people who until this morning were alive, but this afternoon are dead.”
They included figures not apt to be household names in America, but certainly household names here: Charbonnier, Cabu, Wolinski, Verlhac; all alive this morning, and all of them now dead.
President François Hollande said the trivial: “No barbaric act will ever extinguish the freedom of the press.” That the statement is self-falsifying seemed to bother him little: That barbaric act literally extinguished the press. Literally. They are dead. Their freedom is thus of little relevance.
That I’m shaken is of concern to no one; my emotions are not the point. The entire city is shaken. So much that even my cab driver — I had to catch one to get home; the streets were otherwise blocked off — didn’t even ask me to pay the fare. When I said I was a journalist, and in a rush to say what little I knew, his response was, “Forget about the money. Just hurry.”
The assailants are as yet at liberty. I hope they’ll be dead by the time you read this. But if not: You want me too? Come get me. Because nothing short of killing me — and many more of my kind — will ever shut us up.
And if you don’t believe that now, you’ll believe it very soon. Because there are more of us willing to die for that freedom than those of you eager to take it from us. And soon you will find out that those of us willing to die for that freedom are also much better at killing than you.
So come and get me. Je suis Charlie.
And have a good long look at the cartoon below. Because you may have been able to kill its authors, but you sure didn’t kill what they created. And nor will we ever let you.
There are things I’m not allowed to say on Ricochet. But if I were allowed to say them, this is what I’d say—though I’d add a few other words.
Go ahead. Make my day. Because you’ve got no idea what we’re capable of when we are pushed too far. And you are more than pushing your luck.
Cover image credit: By Thierry Caro (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
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* Editor’s note: The original version of the post neglected mention of Anders Breivik; the correction was provided and requested by the author.
Published in General
I have been following the case on Google\alerts and, as of this afternoon, the investigators appear to be stymied. There is speculation that the local police and Sheriff are afraid of gangs operating in the locale.
Then maybe we should just send in AG Holder and the Feds to get to the bottom of this? Oh wait…
From the Washington Post:
Did these events really happen? Probably.
“Small explosives?” That could mean kids set off a firecracker somewhere near (not in) a mosque.
“Car belonging to a Muslim family was shot at,” but were they in the car at the time? Did whoever allegedly shot at the car even know who owned it?
Calling these “attacks” in the same context as the Charlie Hebdo attack is just plain insulting.
Anybody know of any arrests in the numerous confirmed cases of rape, murder, random spontaneous acts of violence just for the fun of it, looting, burning, break-ins, hate speech, etc. by practitioners of the religion of peace of/against France’s Jews and/or their homes and businesses?
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/22/france-jewish-shops-riot_n_5608612.html
I am glad that the islamic terrorists are dead, just as Claire hoped, albeit not as soon as we would have wished for. Thank you, Claire.
I think my preferred words would be “I am grateful that the murderers are dead.”
You know, it would seem the dictionary needs some serious revision. I would remove the term “suicide bomber” and replace it with “homicide bomber” among other things. “Terrorist” is a generic term, a tactic used by many to procure attention, fear, what have you. A better term to use these days is “Islamic thug”. I believe that connotates just the right amount of emphasis.
We need to totally remove “Religion of Peace”. Instead, “Religion of Global Uproar” may be more pertinent. “Jihad” is a totally Islamic term. It might be better to simply refer to it as “Uncontrolled Mayhem”.
I am sure you good people could think of more such replacement labels. Just giving this a start.
What about “Martyr”? In today’s media this term is misused to describe murderers of innocents. Thus giving a sense of reverence and esteem to an act of gross evil.
And then there is the insertion of “prophet” describing Mohammed, “The Prophet Mohammed”. Again undo respect shown to the supposed instigator of this ideology that is a testament to RETROGRADE BULLYISM.
Ah, yes! “Martyr” Christian martyrs died for not giving up their beliefs. Muslim martyrs die for killing those others who refuse to give up their beliefs.
?Is it now obvious that all this is a whole lot like what the “Cosa Nostra” was like. Organized intimidation, extortion writ large, mayhem and murder when they need to make a point, all sorts of false “honour” abridgements requiring someone die – usually someone who cannot fight back. So daughters are killed for “family honour” but no one confronts the guy who allegedly caused the “dishonour”. If women are, indeed, such inferior beings, then how can they be at fault for what the “superior being” (male) did. Only in warped minds.
Brava Claire! Bravo Ricochet!!
Jim,
I had no apprehension that these fellows would be taken alive, unless possibly — though I considered very unlikely — they would give themselves up. But in doing so, they would be betraying in their eyes their cause by stopping one death short. Though France is without the death penalty, in the eyes of the police, such civility is reserved only for people who are still men. Once they were, seemingly, able to live among their fellow French citizens. But their actions revealed that they had become like wild animals, who can only be put down.
And here I was glad you moved from Turkey to somewhere safe. But then, I lost three former workmates in the shooting at the Navy Yard in DC.
Nous sommes Charlie!