The world discovered Charlie Hebdo after the Danish cartoons of Muhammad affair of 2006 and the newsroom massacre in Paris of January 7, 2015. But not everyone quite grasps the magazine’s originality.

I worked there for five particularly intense and fascinating years, from 2004 to 2009.

The first time I met its audacious, fabled editorial team was as a young journalist, in 1997. Beloved by the radical left, Charlie is the last French paper to maintain a long tradition of trenchant caricatures of the religious, the sacred and the powerful, and to openly mock all forms of fanaticism. Its greatest covers, for many years, were devoted to poking fun at the Pope and the Catholic Church’s antiquated positions on abortion, sexuality and women’s rights.

But fewer people know that Charlie has always been the rallying paper of the anti-racist French left. Its legendary cartoonists — Cabu, Charb, Tignous, Wolinski, Honoré, Luz, Riss — were behind the emblematic illustrations of the “SOS Racisme” movement that gained momentum in the 1990s and pushed back against post-colonial anti-Arab discrimination. When the killers stormed the newsroom on January 7, the staff were in the middle of an argument — as they often were — on how to help the situation of the young victims of discrimination. A few seconds later, there were no more shouts, no laughter — the room was quiet. My colleagues lay covered in their own blood, slain by bullets, killed by men who cried “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad!”

A few months earlier, Al Qaeda had put a price on Charb’s head in its magazine “Inspire,” alongside others who had defended the right to freedom of expression. It was an attempt to regain the upper hand, as ISIL began to encroach on its turf. Charlie became a target for Islamists after it republished the controversial Danish caricatures of Muhammad that caused a worldwide controversy in 2006, an affair that fanatics and (more significantly) many journalists naively described as an Islamophobic provocation. This interpretation, as well as being false, placed a target on the cartoonists’ backs.

I know why Charlie published the caricatures. And I could very well have found myself in the newsroom, under fire, last January if I had not, in the meantime, taken a job at Le Monde.

In 2006, at the time of the Danish caricature affair, I worked at Charlie, and dealt with fanaticism (in all religions) and the extreme right. I heard of the Danish story through a friend, an Iranian refugee in Denmark, and explained to my colleagues the atmosphere of threats and intimidation in which Jyllands-Posten decided to publish the cartoons. Embassies in Iran and Syria were burning. Islamic radicals cried “Death to freedom of expression” in London.

The despicable accusation that Charlie was “Islamophobic” was not only wrong, it had killed and continued to put its survivors in danger.

We knew an illustrated magazine like ours couldn’t shy away from covering this instance of censorship and violence, the latest in a string of many others: Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen, the death of Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands and, of course, the murder of Algerian journalists during the “black years.” We decided to cover this incredible story, and to publish the drawings that had ignited it. For the cover, we chose a cartoon that captured the spirit of Charlie: Muhammad in despair, lamenting the fanatics who committed atrocities in his name.

We searched for the right image for a long time. We wanted something both funny and honest, representative of our editorial line: neutral on religion, but resolutely anti-racist.

We were going to fight to make that understood. And we did fight — relentlessly. As one of the few journalists at Charlie who spoke English, I gave countless interviews in publications around the world to explain that it was crucial not to give in to threats of violence, especially as an opinion newspaper. We understood the risks. We received countless threats, but also messages of support, from French Muslims who thanked us for believing that they too could have a sense of humor when faced with religious extremism.

We counted on our colleagues to defend us — to stand by us in the name of freedom of the press. And some did, including, most notably, many Arab and Turkish journalists, who took unfathomable risks to continue doing their work. Other publications, mostly English-language, stabbed us in the back: by lying about our intentions, refusing to explain the chronology of events and the context of our actions, and by echoing the same accusations we heard from fanatics themselves.

Reliving this same hell 10 years later, after the death of my colleagues, was deeply painful. The despicable accusation that Charlie was “Islamophobic” was not only wrong, it had killed and continued to put its survivors in danger.

Luz, one of the few cartoonists to survive the attack, drew the most poignant cartoon of his career in its aftermath: Muhammad, in tears, saying “Everything is forgiven.” Still, this was “too much” — many called it blasphemy. As if the killers had been justified in their violence. Democrats, trembling with fear, asked us to respect the fact that the laws of the most fanatic and violent among us may become the laws that govern our independent publications and our secular democracies. After harassing us with requests to see Luz’s illustration, American and British channels subsequently censured it — all the better to criticize it, and without allowing viewers to make their own judgements. I was stopped when I tried to show it on live TV. It was a living nightmare.

Charlie’s cartoons are repeatedly taken out of context, their message utterly distorted.

Our colleagues were losing their minds. Unwilling to acknowledge their crippling fear, they stopped defending the free press, they deformed the facts, and censured themselves. They lectured us on journalistic “responsibility.” And we still haven’t woken up from this nightmare: Today, Charlie’s cartoons are repeatedly taken out of context, their message utterly distorted. Most recently, this happened with the drawing of the little Syrian boy, Aylan, found dead at the foot of McDonald’s golden arches, an image that denounced Western indifference to the plight of the refugees. Others attacked the National Front. As for the cover of the commemorative edition, it takes issue with the sacred and shows God as a form of irrationality that incites people to kill in the name of religion. Of course, the God depicted is the God of the attackers, not of the pacifists. A caricature can’t do everything — and readers need to use their heads. That, too, has always been Charlie’s message.

If there’s one thing I’ve understood over the years, it’s that, even if humor is universal, what makes us laugh is not. Our laughter depends on cultural codes that can be easily understood by those who live in France and regularly read Charlie, but can be misinterpreted without this background. That includes the right to blasphemy, which lies at the heart of French culture and is arguably even the bedrock of our secular democracy, in the same way that other democracies, like in the U.S., were built on religious freedom.

I wrote a book called “Éloge du blasphème” ("In praise of blasphemy": Why Charlie Hebdo is not 'Islamophobic'") about Charlie to bridge the gap between us. I wanted to dispel the common misunderstandings that distance us from the crux of this fight against terrorism and religious extremism — a fight that by necessity involves us all. Writing gave me back the sleep that the January 7 attacks had robbed me of.

The book became a best-seller in France and Salman Rushdie, a man I admire infinitely, gave me his endorsement and support. But no American or British publisher was willing to publish the book. There’s no market for this kind of book, I was repeatedly told, in an attempt to justify their unwillingness to touch on something as explosive as the press’ right to blasphemy.

Thanks to the Internet and to this publication’s willingness to publish some pages below, I hope to touch a few readers. To renew a dialogue with those who “are not Charlie,” as a number of writers belonging to PEN International declared when the association decided to award Charlie with a prize. We all despaired. If they want to disassociate themselves from Charlie, then let them do so having truly made an effort to know and understand Charlie, and not on the basis of a cultural misunderstanding.

Caroline Fourest, a writer who lives in Paris, is the author, inter alia, of “Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan” (Encounter, 2008) and “Éloge du blasphème” (Grasset, 2015). This article was translated from the French by Esther King. To read the original click here.

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The following is excerpted from Caroline Fourest's book “Éloge du blaspheme” ("In Praise of Blasphemy: Why Charlie Hebdo is not 'Islamophobic,'"), which was published in French by Grasset in 2015.

The truth behind the cartoons affair

The incomprehension surrounding the Charlie cartoons and their message is directly related to our perception of their context. Those who are convinced that the world is threatened by anti-Muslim racism, and anti-Muslim racism alone, fail to understand why a progressive magazine persists in drawing Muhammad. When a cartoonist portrays crimes committed in the name of fanaticism, they’re accused of “fanning the flames.”

This refrain was heard thousands of times during the Danish cartoons affair and continues to ignore a vital contextual element: the origin of the “flames.” The cartoonists simply defended themselves, using peaceful and symbolic weapons against real acts of violence. When Muhammad appears on the cover of Charlie, after hundreds of other covers depicting the Pope or the Church, it’s in response to current events. Yet even then, the magazine was accused of being “obsessive” and “gratuitously provocative.”

We did not put Muhammad on the cover page for fun, nor even to provoke, but out of solidarity. Solidarity with the Danish cartoonists and citizens whose lives were threatened by fanatics.

At that time I was working at Charlie and was involved in every phase which led to the decision to publish this cover: the reason behind it, and the price we would pay. There was nothing gratuitous about this difficult decision. We did not put Muhammad on the cover page for fun, nor even to provoke, but out of solidarity. Solidarity with the Danish cartoonists and citizens whose lives were threatened by fanatics.

At first I failed to see the relevance of the Danish cartoons for Charlie. An Iranian refugee friend in Denmark showed them to me in Paris, three months before the affair erupted, but I couldn’t see the point in publishing them in Charlie. They weren’t challenging, nor particularly funny. But my Iranian friend insisted, and explained why Jyllands-Posten had published them.

In Denmark — which has a long tradition of comic books — an editor decided to publish a story of the life of Muhammad. Not a single illustrator would do the drawings. It was too risky. They feared being murdered in the street, or stabbed through the heart like Theo Van Gogh, assassinated by an Islamist in the Netherlands because of his film criticizing the Quran’s attitude to women, “Fitna” (“Submission”).

After the Netherlands, it was London’s turn to fall victim to self-censorship. Just after the terrorist attacks of July 7, 2005 the director of the Tate Gallery admitted that he could not go ahead with the satirical exhibition which had been scheduled a few months earlier on the Talmud, the Quran and the Bible, and that it would be withdrawn.

A museum in Sweden then decided to cancel an exhibition of paintings showing sexual symbols and quotes from the Quran. In Denmark, a comedian was quoted in Jyllands-Posten as saying that he saw no problem urinating on the Bible in front of a camera, but that he would never urinate on the Quran.

How could a newspaper like Charlie Hebdo fail to address issues which were setting the world ablaze and covered non-stop by worldwide media?

The then editor of the arts section, Flemming Rose, put a stop to this self-censorship. After 14 years of working under censorship in Moscow, he wanted to enjoy his freedom of expression. The newspaper decided to commission cartoonists to draw Muhammad as they imagined him, but without making fun of him. Twelve sketches were selected. They were a mixed bag: light-hearted, innocent, and mocking. One depicted all the prophets of the different religions in a police line-up. Another showed candidates for martyrdom flying up to Muhammad. He stops them: “Stop! Stop! We’ve run out of virgins.”

Only two of the 12 cartoons were harsher. One showed a man with a beard holding a sword standing in front of two veiled women. His eyes are hidden by a black square the exact dimension of the square allowing the women to see through their niqab, a way of saying that in the name of Islam, the real Muhammad is veiled in the same way as women.

The last and most controversial drawing showed a glowering Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. At face value its symbolism is debatable. But the ensuing uproar was pure hypocrisy. How could anyone imagine that out of 12 drawings not one would address the issue of terrorism in the name of Muhammad? Was it really the cartoonist who made the connection, or those who threaten and plant bombs in the name of Muhammad? Should we denounce the mirror or its reflection?

I met the illustrator who drew the cartoon, Kurt Westergaard. I had been told he was a reactionary. In reality the person I interviewed was an old anarchist who has made fun of Jesus and the Catholic Church many times.

He told me that his “Muhammad with a bomb in his turban” had been published 10 years earlier to condemn terrorist attacks in Algeria. He also explained an allusion in his drawing that only Danes would understand: According to a Danish proverb, putting an orange in one’s hat brings good luck. By replacing the orange with a bomb, the terrorists bring bad luck to Algeria.

There was no outcry when Westergaard’s cartoon was first published. In September 2005, thousands of Muslims demonstrated in Copenhagen. For Abu Laban, one of the imams fanning the flames, it was an opportunity to settle a score with Jyllands-Posten, which had often criticized his doublespeak, so typical of the Muslim Brotherhood to which he is very close.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, an Islamist party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, offered a reward to anyone who killed one of the cartoonists involved, many of whom had to go into hiding. But Abu Laban didn’t stop there. He and a group of fellow imams set off on a flame-fanning tour of the Middle East.

At Charlie we argue over every subject, but if there is one thing that unites us it’s the right to make fun of fanaticism.

Danish Islamist militants added unrelated cartoons to their file of accusations, including one of a horned Muhammad holding little girls in his hands, bearing the caption “Muhammad, pedophile,” found on an extreme right-wing website. The Arab League was outraged, and called it a scandal. The Islamic Conference countries (now the Islamic Co-operation) urged the U.N. to denounce the cartoons.

Everything was now in place to ignite the fire. On January 10, 2006 a Norwegian Christian newspaper, Magazinet, re-published the cartoons. Saudi Arabia was the first to denounce them, but Iran could not just sit back.

Angry crowds in Iran and Syria marched on the Danish (and even Norwegian) embassies to burn them down. Needless to say, their anger was manipulated.

In countries like Syria and Iran where it is close to impossible to protest freely, the aim was to create a diversion. At that time Syria was under attack for its hand in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. In Iran, which was engaged in a trial of strength with the international community over the nuclear problem, the anger could only have been a diversion since Shiite Islam does not forbid representations of Muhammad.

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How could a newspaper like Charlie Hebdo fail to address issues which were setting the world ablaze and covered non-stop by worldwide media? And how could we cover these events in a cartoon magazine, which has always been insolent toward religion, without showing the cartoons that were being targeted?

What was considered “gratuitous” three months earlier was no longer so. Journalists contacted us to ask what Charlie would do in response to the controversy. “If we back down, it will be another Munich,” declared Philippe Val, editor of Charlie at the time. It drew smiles, but no one felt like joking. We all knew that the situation was critical.

At Charlie we argue over every subject, but if there is one thing that unites us it’s the right to make fun of fanaticism. So we decided to go ahead and publish the drawings. Philippe was in no way trying to pull off a scoop, despite what former Charlie colleagues who nurse a deep and irrational hatred toward him claimed. He contacted other French newspaper editors so that they would all publish the Danish cartoons at the same time, a way of attenuating the threats and showing our solidarity with the Danes.

Charlie was on the front line, and its caption captured this spirit of resistance with Muhammad weeping into his hands: “It’s so hard to be loved by these morons...”

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The dangers of giving in to violence

After years of pleading “the refusal to offend religious beliefs,” some English-language media hid behind the principle of “responsibility,” of not wanting to provoke violence, to justify their refusal to show the cover of Charlie Hebdo after the January 7 attack.

The question of responsibility merits discussion. It is perfectly justifiable to question the relevance of showing the Charlie cover when fanatics promise to avenge Muhammad (again). But how do the media present this question? They show rolling footage of furious protesters as if this were the reaction of the Muslim world as a whole, when in fact the protestors represent a few hundred hotheads out of 1.5 billion Muslims.

Only in Grozny, Chechnya, was there a mass demonstration against the Charlie cartoons. Huge crowds took to the streets on the orders of Ramzan Kadyrov, a Mafioso mercenary imposed by Moscow as head of the country. His intentions were obvious: to pose as defender of Islam against Charlie and to make people forget how Russia ravaged their country.

And what about Niger, where crowds of protesters commit anti-Christian pogroms and burn down churches in retaliation against drawings published by one of the least Christian newspapers, Charlie? Could there be a causal connection here?

If newspapers stood up to the threats together, it is likely that none in particular would have been singled out and targeted, and perhaps my friends and colleagues would still be alive today.

These things occur throughout the year, at the slightest pretext, with or without Charlie, and will continue to occur. Is the commemorative edition of Charlie responsible for these deaths, or for the fanatics in Niger who kill at the slightest opportunity? Is blasphemy really responsible for this folly, or ignorance? What about fanaticism fostered by the absence of secularism, and fanned by manipulative leaders for their own ends?

The determining factor behind international blasphemy scandals is usually geopolitics. The fatwa against Salman Rushdie was launched by Iran at the very moment when Saudi Arabia won an important victory against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Shiite regime could not allow their old Sunni rivals to triumph. Shouldn’t journalists explain the context as well as providing political perspective? Instead of showing their “responsibility” by censoring the cover of Charlie, they portray Muslims as humorless and incapable of reason.

By censoring Charlie they give credence to the idea that the magazine has produced a prohibited and shameful image. Their censorship implies that people are right to be angry. And the decision not to show the Danish cartoons contributed to vilifying them. Had the international media simply shown the Charlie cover instead of transforming it into a taboo, wouldn’t it have made the situation in France and elsewhere less dangerous?

If newspapers stood up to the threats together, it is likely that none in particular would have been singled out and targeted, and perhaps my friends and colleagues would still be alive today. I am not alone in saying this. Many British and American journalists think so too, but their editors opted for censorship: not out of a sense of responsibility, but out of fear.

The only newspaper that deserves forgiveness is Jyllands-Posten. Although Charlie republished its cartoons out of solidarity, the Danish newspaper that initiated the controversy did not reciprocate after the January 7 massacre, for fear of reliving the nightmare it had been through: years of living under police protection; a cartoonist attacked in his own home, in front of his young granddaughter, by an axe-wielding jihadist. Who could blame Jyllands-Posten? It has done enough and it’s time for others to show courage. At least its editors had the honesty to admit that they were censoring out of fear.

The same can’t be said for the cowardly journalists who turned away or criticized Charlie. The cowardice of journalists living in democratic countries is even less excusable when compared with the courage demonstrated by those in countries where Islamists have been voted into power, like Turkey.

"I would rather die fighting than to live in fear and surrender” — Charb

Turkey’s online libertarian newspaper T24 and its republican Cumhuriyet, the main opposition newspaper, published Charlie cartoons in solidarity. Ahmet Şık, a Turkish reporter, asserts his responsibility as a journalist: “I believe religion can be criticized. Our job is to destroy taboos.”

The sentiment was shared by Mine Kırıkkanat: “We have lost a war between secularism and Islamism. Fear will not help to protect us, so it is better to fight.”

The courage of these journalists who share our values is the finest tribute we can make to our friends who died for their ideas. Charb would have appreciated it. Just before he died he said: “It might seem pretentious to say this, but I would rather die fighting than to live in fear and surrender.”

The saddest, and in the longer term the most worrying, aspect of all this is how few are prepared to risk intimidation and violence to protect freedom of expression.