L.ART en Loire 8

Teklal
Neguib
Tonight, I write to you from a country in tears, in
tears of mourning and horror, a country who has
seen 12 of its people die from for drawing cartoons.
Bullets for cartoons. No comment.
Since Wednesday, I have spent my time crying.
My body trembling, not from fear, but because of emotions,
overwhealming emotions. Thoughts, shock, knock together.
My heart is broken. Cartoonists, columnists, policemen, a
cleaner, a proofreader, a festival founder are dead. Dead for
France. Dead for an idea, a beautiful idea, one of the founding
ideas of our democraties: freedom of speech.
Our ancestors of blood and arts fought before, and for
some died for it, for us now. XVIII° century philosophers,
rest in peace. Such freedom, such right, so dearly obtained,
Wednesday was flouted. Murdering Charlie has murdered
the Revolution. Murdering the 12 has murdered Voltaire.
Murdering them has murdered French people, these people
the Revolution told «all free man is French». Our hearts,
our bodies and our souls vandalised by bullets and the blood
of our dead. Our hearts are broken and our souls shattered.
We are touched. All the country, the World, together behind
Charlie, whatever we may have thought about it before. Get
behind it, because it’s not time … no time to criticize. It’s
time to be ONE, one people, one soul, one heart, with our
decimated family.
Because it’s an important part of our family that we have
lost, a part of what makes us who we are, we, this generation
raised in the 80’s and the 90’s. Charlie Hebdo represents the
part of irony which is so important to us, which built us as
humans and now as adults. Our generation has lost part of
what educated it. But the question is how will this generation
of irony act and react ? out of sincerity, out of cynicism,
out of hypocrisy and out of naivety, this generation which
had been described as metamodernist. A generation born in
crisis, nurtured in crisis, living an adult life in crisis. Living in
a crisis culture. Living this days a transitional crisis moment.
What will we do with this time? This event? Which part at
the crossroads will we choose? More irony, in this time of the
murder of irony? The increase of cynicism as a complete fall
in faith for the future and for humanity? Could sincerity win,
after these events? Or naivety as all the gatherings seem to
show? Or, perhaps, a sort of balance will appear. Our generation
is at the crossroads of which ways humans envisage the
world and future.
In 10 or 15 years, we will reach in masses the levels of power:
political power, economic power, artistic power… Some
of us will become leaders. But how will this metamodernist
generation use its power? What will we do with the World,
with our siblings? What leaders will we become? This event is
such an important moment, which impacts not only France,
but the whole world, citizens of all countries, members of our
generation all over the world, that we may say it will have
an impact upon what sort of humans we will become, we
will decide to become. Perhaps we will do nothing following
this event (which is yet doing something). Perhaps we will
do something, perhaps it will empower us. For the moment,
it’s much too early to know, to answer the questions, but the
next weeks, months and years will teach us a lot about our
metamodernist generation, and what it will become. This
event is such an impacting moment because the dead were
our fathers, our brothers and sisters, and we are the depositories
of their legacy, of this murdered irony. They died for
freedom of speech. Because of a war, a war declared on art,
politically correct or incorrect. To fall on a battlefield should
not have to exist for paper and cartoons.
What did we think about the cartoons? Most of us appreciated
them a lot, and some of us were shocked. Does that
still have any importance? They are dead for us to have the
right to agree, or not, for us to have the right to think, to
question, about ourselves, about others, about everything.
They are dead for us to be free. They acted without hate,
and that is the essential. Because today, they can’t publish
anything, even things which could make us moan. And that,
that makes us moan even more. Because what is the use of
having the right to moan if there is no-one to moan against?
What is the use of having the right to laugh if there is no-one
to make us laugh? Never forget that they are dead for us to
have the right not to agree with them. Because, it would be
better to moan, to grumble, to be angry, instead of seeing
them all dead, all twelve of them, fallen for France and for
freedom of speech. Dead on their own battlefield.
Because being a journalist, a cartoonist, but also an artist
or a chief editor seems to be dangerous professions. How
could we imagine that with our paintbrushes, our pencils,
our pens, our photo-cameras and our film cameras, our
bodies, our canvases, we could risk our lives, our safety,
while we live in democraties? Our goal is never hatred, our
goal is the instillation of thought within our fellow humans
for a more peaceful coexistence, for all of us to reflect upon
the world we live in. Because it’s the vocation of art and
newspapers, even they are ironic or the complete opposite
to make people reflect, question, effect self-analysis, widen
their perspectives. How will the artists of our generation act
and react? Art and newspapers are a richness, and an enrichment
for each of us, as citizens, as artists, as humans.
How can art and newspapers play a role, a key role in the
94
L.ART en LOIRE - # 8 - février 2015 - mini thème : oscillation métamoderniste philosophia