For a week now, Charlie, an atheist magazine, has accomplished more miracles than all the saints and prophets together. That of which we are the most proud is that you have in your hands the magazine that we have always produced, in the company of those who have always produced it.
What made us laugh the most, is that the bells of Notre Dame rang in our honor … for a week now, Charlie has been moving far more than mountains across the world. For a week now, as Willem has shown us so magnificently in his drawing, Charlie has many new friends. Some anonymous, and some global celebrities. Some humble and some affluent. Some miscreants and some religious leaders. Some sincere and some akin to jesuits. Some who will be with us for the rest of our lives, and some who are just passing by.
We take them all on board today, we have neither the time nor the heart to separate them out. But that doesn’t mean that we are fooled. We wholeheartedly thank those in their millions whether simple citizens or embodying institutions who are truly at our sides, who deeply and sincerely “are Charlie.” They will know who they are. Pissing off the others who don’t give a fuck anyway.
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Pushing for universal rights, it alone, allows for equality, liberty, brotherhood and sisterhood. It alone allows for total freedom of conscience which all religions, as soon as they move from the arena of the strictly intimate into the political arena, deny, more or less openly according to their marketing position. Oddly enough, it alone allows believers and others to live in peace. All those who claim to defend Muslims, while accepting the totalitarian religious rhetoric, are in fact defending their executioners. The first victims of Islamic fascism are the Muslims.
The millions of anonymous people, all the institutions, all the heads of state and government, all the political, intellectual and media celebrities, all the religious dignitaries who this week proclaimed “Je Suis Charlie” should know that also means “I am secularism.” We are convinced that as far as most of our supporters are concerned, that goes without saying. The others can do what they like with it.
Last but not least. We would like to send a message to Pope Francis, who this week, he as well, “is Charlie”: We will only accept that the bells of Notre Dame are ringing in our honor when it is the Femen who are ringing them.
