We also are Charlie at Energy Post, because we are an independent online newspaper made by journalists with the help of guest writers, like any other newspaper. The brutal assault on Charlie Hebdo’s cartoonists and writers during their editorial meeting in Paris, France, on 7 January is shocking because it introduces incertitude at the very heart of our daily existence. It’s a bit like from one second to another having to doubt whether the light will go on when you flick a switch, or whether the service-station will have some fuel for your car today.
Any attack on a journalist is felt by all journalists, but the acts in Paris were unprecedented. In France this is a totally new situation. My country has a long tradition of being disrespectful of its elite through cartoons. Cartoonists are journalists which say in a picture what would take many words to write. They use humour, something that makes every one of us human. Yes, something is broken in the country of Molière – a very irreverent writer indeed – because fanatics have tried to kill a newspaper through the planned assassination of its staff.
As a French journalist, I have experienced my own 9/11 because there is no more distance to horror: the unimaginable happened in my home. I am Charlie, now.
Hughes Belin, editor Energy Post