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Good morning, Roca Nation. A lot of new readers have joined us in the past week, so a quick note about We The 66: We send out this newsletter with a deep-dive daily at 7 AM Eastern Time. A few times a week it’s free; a few times a week it’s paid. We also send out four “need-to-know” stories here each morning. Roca Members (become one here!) get all for $5.99 a month; free readers get some.
So before getting into today’s deep-dive, here are today’s four need-to-knows: UNICEF reports that more children are now obese than underweight (free); Trump announces plans to deploy troops to Memphis (free); additional details emerge about Charlie Kirk’s alleged shooter; and Trump is proposing changes to international asylum laws.
By Max Frost
“Charlie” promoted controversial views that many deemed disrespectful and hateful. Extremists responded by using bullets to silence them. The victim wasn’t Charlie Kirk, but Charlie Hebdo – and not just one, but 12 people, were killed.
Charlie Kirk’s assassination reminded us of that terror attack in France in 2015, which we proceeded to look into. We wanted to know: How did the murder of a newspaper staff impact the views and mission of Charlie Hebdo? That’s the subject of today’s deep-dive.
Charlie Hebdo launched in the 1960s as Hara-Kiri, a satirical magazine that often clashed with French authorities over its often shocking and anti-establishment tone. Hara-Kiri was banned in 1970 for mocking the death of former President Charles de Gaulle, prompting the team to regroup under a new name, Charlie Hebdo.
True to its roots, the paper embraced a spirit of biting satire and a fierce commitment to freedom of expression, making it both beloved and controversial in French society.
Over the decades, Charlie Hebdo became a central figure in France’s tradition of satirical press, publishing cartoons and essays that skewered the Catholic Church, politicians, and celebrities. Its uncompromising style often landed it in court or at the center of public outrage, but the staff insisted that offending sensibilities was part of their democratic mission.
As Islam became an increasingly contentious topic in French political life, the paper increasingly made that faith – in addition to all the others – a subject of its satire. They were getting into dangerous territory.
Concerns about the Islamist threat to free speech dated to at least 1989, when Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa – an Islamic ruling – condemning Salman Rushdie over his book, The Satanic Verses. Rushdie’s Japanese translator was stabbed to death in 1991, and his Norwegian publisher was shot in 1993.
In 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was shot dead on a public street in Amsterdam after directing a short film that criticized the treatment of women in Islam. A year later, Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten newspaper published 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (Islam prohibits depictions of the Prophet). The backlash included riots that claimed up to 200 lives worldwide; attacks on Danish embassies; and multiple assassination plots against the cartoonists and editors involved. In 2010, one of the cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard, survived an axe attack at his home by a Somali-born Islamist.
Such attacks kept coming: In 2010, a suicide bomber attacked a crowd in Stockholm, Sweden, citing revenge for cartoons of Muhammad; in 2011, Charlie Hebdo’s Paris offices were firebombed after it announced an issue “guest-edited” by Muhammad.
On the morning of January 7, 2015, this extremism came to Paris with a bloody vengeance.
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Editor’s Note
Our inbox has been flooded with replies in recent days. Thank you for all of it, positive and negative – and keep it coming here. The only thing we won’t thank you for are notes accusing us of being “hateful” and “harmful” by reporting the news. It’s absurd – and the rhetoric that just got Charlie Kirk killed.
We received hundreds of replies to yesterday’s story that gave the context for viral Charlie Kirk quotes. Here’s a small sample.
Chris from Iowa wrote:
The assassination of Charlie is such an important issue because of the response that many (not all) people on the left have had. Many influencers have praised and cheered for his murder. I think it is similar to when Brian Thompson was murdered. There are actually people out there who believe these killings were justified. Thompson’s because he was an insurance CEO, and Kirk because he had public discourse and challenged perspectives in politics. The celebrations and whatnot regarding both of these murders show that there isn’t a political argument to be had anymore. Rather, a moral argument for when such killings could be considered justified. Here we are in the most developed and strongest nation on the planet, and we are trying to figure out if murder is wrong.
See, this is what Charlie did so well, he got young people involved and educated on politics. I didn’t even agree with him on everything, but he encouraged me to learn about the sides of political issues and to be able to support what I believe. It feels like, in my opinion, we have lost this fundamental education in this nation. If someone who encourages free speech, debate, education, and a pursuit of truth is considered a target deserving of assassination, then things in this nation are going to get a lot worse before them get better.
Josh wrote:
Frankly the lack of actual journalism or commentary here is startling. This article alone implies that everything Charlie Kirk said in those quotes was accurate and factual, with no delineation between opinion or interpretation. I appreciate that in the past you have attempted to be unbiased. However, writing this article in this way shows significant clashes with your mission statement.
Just a reminder that while reading comprehension allows people to distinguish fact from opinion in articles such as these, you have a duty to write in a way that a layman can easily interpret.
Do better.
Carrie from Orange County wrote:
His death upset me - a political assassination must always be condemned. We saw a similar response to his death as we did to Trump’s attempted assassination. Those who hate their points of views, celebrating or justifying their murder or attempted murder. I wasn’t alive in the 60s but I wonder if the public reacted the same way to Malcolm X, MLK, and RFK’s assassinations. As a country, we have become desensitized to murder and violence as it flashes across our screens so often now.
I appreciate the context you shared. I don’t have strong opinion for or against Charlie Kirk and I still am upset by his death. Freedom of speech is a right we all have because of the constitution. No one deserves to be killed to it. Even after reading his views on the Civil Rights Act and his “interpretation” of it, and my vehement disagreement with (and he does make him look racist), I still don’t think he deserved to be murdered for them.
If we don’t start to consider how social media and division is affecting us as a country, it could very well be our downfall.
Diana said:
I've been reading and following since 2021 or so and have widely shared your work with my friends and family. I talk about it constantly because it has made such a significant impact on my ability to absorb and respond to current events. This week has been so so awful for our nation, there is something so deeply and invasively unsettling about Kirk's assassination. He was young he was a free thinker and he was a world changer. I've been so discouraged reading the rhetoric that my friends have posted about him on social media. I have been so discouraged realizing how little they have been able to find context for. This week I listened to a book by Ayan Hirsi Ali called Heretic, it calls for a reformation of Islam. It is fascinating but at the end she quoted Beatrice Hall for saying that " I disagree with what you are saying, but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it."
This is what we need more of. So thank you, you're not condemning even those who I want to condemn, you're paving the way for a new path to handle these issues and it is deeply appreciated. I hope and pray that our generation and the youngers are able to be different and lead with kindness and humility, not power and control. Well done.
And Jennifer wrote in:
This was an important article. Thank you.
You changed a perspective today.
Thank you all.
In case you missed any of our last five stories, find them below:
That’s all. See you back here tomorrow.
—Max and Max
