OBV: Je Suis Charlie!

It’s difficult to write about such shocking news so close to London, so close to the ideals and values that we hold dearly. But yesterday’s cold blooded massacre which killed 10 staff working for the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo and two police officers including a Muslim officer in a Paris suburb brutally reminds about what we have and what we cherish has to be constantly fought for.

Our first thoughts must go out to the families and the unbearable pain they must feel about losing loved ones to such a heinous crime.

Beyond weeping, beyond mourning it’s also a time to show our defiance. Defiance against the murderers who have no value for neither life nor liberty, but also defiance towards those such as the National Front and other Far Right groups who would seek to use this tragedy to divide our communities.

The French President François Hollande made it clear that this barbarism “would not divide France”, which was both right and courageous. Muslim leaders in France and around the world too have also condemned the gun men stating that they’ve hijacked Islam for their own ‘blood lust’.

Here at OBV and in the UK we show sympathy and solidarity with the simple message that: “we too are Charlie”.  Not the Charlie that is racist,--which at times it is, but to the one which can satarise religions and politicians.  By claiming that we are Charlie tells the terrorist that they simple can’t win, in fact the opposite is true. They kill one person and a million more Charlie’s step forward. The freedoms we stand for  are strengthened not weakened.

Rest in peace those those employees of 'Charlie Hebdo' and the two police officers.

You have not died in vain.

Simon Woolley