Freedom Of Satire: Hara Kiri To Charlie Hebdo

"Je suis Charlie!" The call across the Internet, as people across the world show their support for the not just the right the free speech, but the right to satire. Particularly in Europe, satire has a long tradition the stretches back hundreds of years. The ridiculing of the political and religious establishment, as well as society itself at times can be found in both Ancient Greece and Rome. The term "satire", a word of 14th century French origin, and related terms have their roots in both Latin and Greek. Using wit as a weapon of social change, satirists often employ extreme forms of sarcasm and irony to hold up a mirror of ridicule to the failings and follies of elements within society. While at the same time upholding one of the cornerstones of the right to free speech, the right to offend. 
Satirist, Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745)
The Age of Enlightenment in Europe saw a revival of satire, particularly in Britain and France. One of the most famous satirists in Britain was Jonathan Swift, whose most famous work of satire Gulliver's Travels (1726) is regarded as one of the greatest works of English literature. A commentary on the pettiness and small-mindedness of the ruling and political elite in Europe. It satirised the under-lying theme of Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe (1719), that heralded the self-centred idea of the individual being elevated above the society in which they exist. Which was based on, as Swift saw it, the flawed "social contract" political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. One of the themes in Gulliver's Travels is the questioning of moral ambiguities, whether humans are corrupted by the society they live in, or are inherently morally corrupt. Questioning Hobbes's and other Enlightenment thinkers attempts to legitimate the sovereignty of the state, and that there could ever be an objective "science" of morality, and human nature. Swift, as many satirists since, ridiculed the ideas of any individual or group having moral superiority over another. Something that is a particularly important theme in the area of "religious satire".
Religious satire, too has a long history going back centuries, coalescing in European tradition during the Renaissance, with early works such as Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in 14th century England, Dutch humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus's The Praise Of Folly (1509), through to Swift's first major work published in 1704, A Tale Of A Tub. Satire of the dogma and institutions of religion has always been a controversial one, as believers of the faiths being satirised often take it as a personal affront. Often using their political and social positions to censor or have such works banned. The question from satirists to this attempt to quell their freedom of speech has always been, that if the faith of believers is so strong, what do they care what a bunch of artists and writers have to say about their religion. How can a supposed absolute religious faith be undermined or damaged by a work of literature, a play, a movie or a cartoon? And simply claiming that it is an offence to their beliefs is no argument at all. As in any civilised society it is everyone's democratic right to question the pillars of that society, be they philosophical, political, social or indeed religious.
In post-WWII Europe as the Baby Boomers grew-up and began to question the norms of the society, as part of the counterculture movement. The austerity and post-war banality of the 1950s, was eventually replaced with an explosion of ideas. And in among the cultural revolution, a strong groundswell of satire emerged. In 1960, in England the satirical stage show Beyond The Fringe emerged, soon spawning the magazine Private Eye. Which was based on a well established and long running French satirical magazine, Le Canard Enchaîné. Also at the same time that Private Eye was lampooning the establishment in England, a new satirical magazine emerged out of France. 

Hara Kiri was a monthly French satirical magazine founded by humourist Georges Bernier (Le Professeur Choron), the author and editor François Cavanna and cartoonist Frédéric "Fred" Aristidès. The three met while working on the satirical newspaper Zéro. The new magazine which was to push the boundaries of not only satire, but taste was subtitled "Journal bête et méchant" ("Stupid and vicious magazine"). So from the out-set readers knew they were getting from Hara Kiri. However it still courted controversy from the start, as it satirised all parts of the French establishment and society. From 1961 through to 1966, the monthly magazine was banned. 
In 1969, they published a weekly version of the magazine Hara Kiri Hebdo, renamed L'Hebdo Hara-Kiri by May 1970. In the November 1970, Hara Kiri was once again banned by the authorities following a story about the death of Charles de Gaulle. Cavanna came up quickly renamed the magazine for the next weeks' issue, and Charlie Hebdo was born. It has been claimed by magazine editor Georges Wolinski that the name "Charlie" was an inside joke, referencing the de Gaulle controversy, but in reality the name came from the monthly comic magazine he himself edited, Charlie Mensuel. The name of which was a homage to the famous Peanuts comic-strip character Charlie Brown, created by Charles M. Schulz.
With the controversial history around the birth of the magazine, it struggled to find an audience, eventually closing in 1981. However it was reborn screaming and kicking in 1992, under the editorship of Philippe Val, a French comedian and journalist. The magazine went on under the leadership of Val to courted controversy in France, but that controversy spilled beyond the borders of France in 2006, bringing Charlie Hebdo to the attention of the International community. The controversy arose over the publication's edition of February 9th 2006. Under the title "Mahomet débordé par les intégristes" ("Muhammad overwhelmed by fundamentalists"), the front cover showed a cartoon of a sobbing Muhammad saying "C'est dur d'être aimé par des cons" ("it's hard being loved by jerks"). The newspaper reprinted the already infamous twelve cartoons of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy,  which were originally published in the Danish newspaper on September 30th 2005. As well as the original twelve, Charle Hebdo added some of their own, adding furl to the fire. Compared to a regular circulation of 100,000 sold copies, this edition enjoyed great commercial success. 160,000 copies were sold and another 150,000 were in print later that day. This was only the beginning of the magazines stand not only against Islamic extremism, but for the rights of satirists to freely target target whoever they felt deserved lampooning, especially via the medium of cartoon.
Six months later, several Muslim groups took Charlie Hebdo to court for publicly "insulting" Islam. Key figures in the French political establishment jumped to Charlie Hebdo's defence, including then future president François Hollande. The magazine was unrepentant, and were acquitted in court.  In November 2011, the day after a fire bomb attack on their offices, the magazine renamed their issue "Charia Hebdo" (a reference to Sharia law) and "guest-edited" by Muhammad, depicted Muhammad saying: "100 lashes of the whip if you don't die laughing." Due to the attack, the magazine was forced to move offices to Rue Serpollet, where on Wednesday 10th January this year Charlie Hebdo journalists - including Stéphane "Charb" Charbonnier, Philippe Val's successor - were killed. 

Despite the deaths of the editorial staff from the magazine, Charlie Hebdo vows to carry on. Saying that their next edition will have a print run of one million copies. Proving that in the face of the worst kind of religious extremism, that the "freedom of satire" is the only thing that is sacrosanct.
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