Charlie Hebdo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (February 2007) |
Charlie Hebdo (English: Charlie Weekly) is a French satirical political weekly newspaper, successor of Hara-Kiri, created in 1960. Its editor is currently Philippe Val. It has a strongly left-wing and anarchist slant.
Contents |
[edit] History
In 1960, Georges Bernier, alias "Professeur Choron", and François Cavanna launched a monthly magazine entitled Hara-Kiri. Choron acted as the director of publication and Cavanna as its editor. Eventually Cavanna gathered together a team which included Roland Topor, Fred Othon Aristidès, Jean-Marc Reiser, Georges Wolinski, Georges "Gébé" Blondeaux, and Jean "Cabu" Cabut. After an early reader's letter accused them of being "dumb and nasty", this became an official slogan for the magazine and made it into everyday language in France ("bête et méchant").
The publication was banned in 1961, but reappeared in 1966. Certain collaborators did not return along with the newspaper, such as Gébé, Cabu, Topor, and Fred. New members of the team included Delfeil de Ton, Pierre Fournier, and Bernhard Willem Holtrop.
[edit] 1969 - 1981
In 1969, the team decided to produce a weekly publication as well as a monthly magazine. Gébé and Cabu returned. In February 1969, Hara-Kiri Hebdo was launched, and then renamed L'Hebdo Hara-Kiri in May of the same year.
In November of 1970, Charles de Gaulle died in his home village of Colombey, ten days before a club fire caused the death of 146. The magazine released a cover spoofing the popular press's coverage of this disaster, headlined "Tragic Ball at Colombey, one dead." As a result, the journal was once more banned, this time by the Minister of the Interior.
In order to side-step the ban, the team decided to change its title, and used Charlie Hebdo. The new name was derived from a monthly comics magazine called Charlie Mensuel (English: Charlie Monthly), which had been started by Bernier and de Ton in 1968. Charlie took its name from Charlie Brown, the lead character of Peanuts, and was possibly also a nod to Charles de Gaulle.
In December 1981, the publication ceased, owing to a lack of readers.
[edit] 1992
From a historical standpoint, there is no direct continuity between the Charlie Hebdo of 1992 and that of its earlier years.
In 1991, Gébé, Cabu and others were reunited to work for La Grosse Bertha, a new weekly magazine resembling Charlie created in reaction to the Gulf War and edited by Val. However, the following year, Val clashed with the publisher, who wanted apolitical mischief, and was fired. Gébé and Cabu walked out with him and decided to launch their own paper again. The three called upon Cavanna, de Ton and Wolinski, requesting their help and input. After much searching for a new name, the obvious idea of resurrecting Charlie-Hebdo was agreed on.
The publication of the new Charlie Hebdo began in July of 1992. It profited from the notoriety of its namesake, and was treated as a republication of old. The first issue under the new publication sold 100,000 copies.
Choron tried to restart a weekly Hara-Kiri, but its publication was short-lived.
[edit] From 1992 on...
In the new Charlie Hebdo, Val, Gébé and Cabu hold all the responsibilities. Val serves as editor and Gébé as artistic director. Under Val's direction, the journal carries a leftist view.
It is felt that the current publication does not have continuity or stability, and several collaborators have left the newspaper.
It is published every Wednesday and sometimes issues a few editions variably.
Charlie Hebdo is respected as being nonconformist and liberal, and remains symbolic of the press having a certain freedom of tone. See also Le Canard enchaine.
[edit] 2004
Following the death of Gébé, Val succeeded him as director of the publication, while still holding his position as editor.
[edit] 2006
Instant controversy arose over this publication's edition of February 9, 2006. Under the title "Mahomet débordé par les intégristes" ("Muhammad overwhelmed by fundamentalists"), the front page showed a cartoon of a weeping Prophet Muhammad saying "C'est dur d'être aimé par des cons" ("it's hard to be loved by jerks"). The newspaper reprinted the twelve cartoons of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy and added some of their own.
Compared to a regular circulation of 100'000 sold copies, this edition was a great commercial success. 160,000 copies were sold, another 150,000 were in print later that day.
In response French President Jacques Chirac condemned "overt provocations" which could inflame passions. "Anything that can hurt the convictions of someone else, in particular religious convictions, should be avoided," Chirac said.
The Grand Mosque and the Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF) sue, claiming the cartoon edition included racist cartoons.
From BBC News, March 1 2006: A group of 12 writers have put their names to a statement in French weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo warning against Islamic "totalitarianism". Here is the text in full:
After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global totalitarian threat: Islamism.
We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.
Recent events, prompted by the publication of drawings of Muhammad in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values.
This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field.
It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism between West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.
Like all totalitarian ideologies, Islamism is nurtured by fear and frustration.
Preachers of hatred play on these feelings to build the forces with which they can impose a world where liberty is crushed and inequality reigns.
But we say this, loud and clear: nothing, not even despair, justifies choosing darkness, totalitarianism and hatred.
Islamism is a reactionary ideology that kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present.
Its victory can only lead to a world of injustice and domination: men over women, fundamentalists over others.
On the contrary, we must ensure access to universal rights for the oppressed or those discriminated against.
We reject the "cultural relativism" which implies an acceptance that men and women of Muslim culture are deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secularism in the name of the respect for certain cultures and traditions.
We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", a wretched concept that confuses criticism of Islam as a religion and stigmatisation of those who believe in it.
We defend the universality of the freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit can exist in every continent, towards each and every maltreatment and dogma.
We appeal to democrats and free spirits in every country that our century may be one of light and not dark.
Signed by:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Levy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq
[edit] 2007
Suit by the Grand Mosque and the Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF) reaches the courts in February.
Publisher Philippe Val contends "It is racist to imagine that they can't understand a joke." but Francis Szpiner, the lawyer for the Grand Mosque, explains the suit: "Two of those caricatures make a link between Muslims and Muslim terrorists. That has a name and it's called racism."
On March 22 2007 executive editor Philippe Val was acquitted by the court [1]. The court followed the state attorney's reasoning that two of the three cartoons were not an attack on Islam, but on Muslim terrorists, and that the third cartoon with Mohammed with a bomb in his turban should be seen in the context of the magazine in question which attacked religious fundamentalism.
[edit] Bibliography
- La bande à Charlie (Charlie-Hebdo). Stock, 1976. by Jean Egen.
