Liberté Egalité Fraternité

janvier 13, 2015

Liberté Egalité Fraternité

Today I am writing with a broken heart.

I feel sad, angry and overwhelmed.

I need to express what I feel and probably what we all feel about what we just lived in France this week. I maybe take a risk to write those few words and who knows who will read this but, this is my small contribution of the world's battle against terrorism.

I work in Paris. I love this town so much despite all the bad air and the ugly grey sky mostly everyday. I love my job, I talk with so many people from all over the world : Germany, Spain, Nederlands, Italy, UK, China, South Africa, United States of America, South Korea, Canada, Brazil... I love to share my experience of the town with them and help them to visit.

When I walk in the street, I am calm and not afraid what can happen. I feel safe and I feel free. I know this is a privilege, I am perfectly aware about the chance I have to BE free, to have rights, to walk peacefully without any fear. I am aware that many people in the world don't have the same liberty.

Wednesday 7th of January 2015

In the morning of this day, I was working. A client came to the reception to say that we have to tell that something terrible happened : there was a terrorist attack in town.

At first, I didn't believe it so I said to her that we must check online before telling informations to clients. Then, I left to get back home. When I was waiting for my bus, I received a tweet about Charlie Hebdo. Some people were tweeted about it. I was surprised and didn't understand why they were talking about it. Then I read the terrible news : "Charb, Cabu, Wolinsky, Honoré and 8 other people from Charlie Hebdo's news paper have been killed". My first reaction was a very deep sadness and I was so chocked because I knew all these names before. I have been reading Charlie for a long long time, this is the only newspaper I actually buy. I couldn't believe what just happened. I immediately thought it was all about freedom of expression because of the past of Charlie.

I came home and I checked my phone every second. Some people said they will go to Place de la République in town to protest against the 12 murders and I wanted to go. We have felt that was pretty dangerous as we knew that the terrorists were still in the nature, so we decided to stay at home. My friend Ariane from the blog Ariamsita (@ariamsita on twitter) managed to get there and told me she couldn't count how many persons were over there ... 2000 ? 5000 ? 10 000 ? Hard to say but there were there, all together to say "we don't care what you think, we are a Democracy, we are united, we are proud of our country and we are not afraid of you".

Yes, we are in a Democracy. This means that we have rights. This means that we are in a laic state where a religion is private. We live together and we try our damn best to respect all the believes of each of us. We can't accept murders anymore. We don't want war, we don't want to fight in the blood like we used to before. This in 2015, holly crap ! We can't forget how many people are dead for our Liberty. We must fight peacefully against terrorism and fanatism. In Democracy, we are free to laugh about everything but this is not un-respect. We don't want more innocent dead people just because extreme religion.

I naively think that the History can be usefull for everyone. This is not the first time we see murders because of Religion but this time, we are not in a war and we don't want to be in a war at all. It's been so many years now that in France and in Europe, we are in PEACE but most important we are free to talk, to think, to communicate, to travel, to have sex with who we want ... and draw whatever we want to draw. We are in the 21st Century and I just CAN'T believe this murders are happening here in my own country, in my own town, in my Home. This is crazyness.

Thursday 8th and Friday 9th of January 2015

When we thought the worst was behind us, news came again that a french police woman was killed in Montrouge, in the south of Paris. Then again, the next day, the same guy who killed her was in a supermarket in Porte de Vincennes (Paris) with hostages. The scene was unrealistic. I was in front of the TV, totally shocked and without any other reaction than fear. Moreover, the two killers of Charlie Hebdo journalists and workers were near Paris in Dammartin-en-Goële in a company with also hostages. We knew after that they were not proper hostages but this is a detail. At this moment, I can't breathe properly, I cry, I only wish they don't kill innocent people. Then at 5pm, the police from the GIGN (the french SWAT) and BRI saved all the hostages. We have known quickly that the 3 murderer are now killed. It's not a satisfaction but it's a relief.

Sunday 11th of January 2015

I knew this day will be special. I knew that we will write a bit of History and not only French one.

I can't believe the numbers. We were more than 2 MILLION people only in Paris (3 million in the entire France). This is incredible ! I tried to be with all my Paris friends but this was almost impossible to contact them or just even try to organized a meeting somewhere. All the streets were full of people. We started at 2pm to walked from Grands Boulevard to near Nation. We left around 6pm but so many people were still in the streets. Everybody was so calm, we were singing, clapping, screaming all sorted of slogans. Many of us have placards (took some pictures of them) talking about sadness and hope at the same time. We felt that we were all connected with the same feeling : we want this murders to stop. We want to protest against hate of a human for another one. This walk was amazing to be involved with. I am so proud I did this with my friends but mostly with people I don't know.

Today I am Charlie. But not only today. Of course I will be Charlie every day. I will think about all the people we lost in Paris but not only here. All around the world, there are so many innocent people killed by crazy inhuman other people. We think about the innocents, we will fight for them.

I still have hope for Humanity. I still hope we can live peacefully all together and we won't be afraid of each other. We will fight for everybody's liberty every day.