My true story | Zineb El Rhazoui | TEDxKalamata

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
A few months after the attack at Charlie Hebdo that shocked the world, Zineb came to TEDxKalamata for a powerful speech. At her talk, she is going to share her point view towards human rights, racism and freedom of speech.

Hello everyone. Thank you for being here.

I have to apologize first
for my very bad English.

I think it's as good as most of you.

I have no slides to show you.

The only one I want
to show you is this one,

because I'm going to tell you
what happened to my colleagues,

and what still will happen
if we do nothing,

if we just stand waiting,

and if we don't realize
that we are all threatened,

not only us, but our values,
our model of society.

Let me introduce myself,
my name is Zineb El Rhazoui.

I was born in Morocco,
to a Moroccan father and French mother.

I grew up in Morocco in a Muslim culture,

and I started struggling for freedom

in 2009.

I had a lot of problems
with the Moroccan regime.

Because you know, in Morocco,
Islam is the religion of state.

I had to leave Morocco after that,

and anyway, long story short,
I joined Charlie Hebdo in 2011,

and I started working with this team

in a very jokey atmosphere,

but defending very strong values,
and very simple values.

You know, yesterday,
we were here for the rehearsal,

and I was talking with Inna Shevchenko
from Femen, she will speak later,

and she was telling me something,

she was telling me, "Zineb, do you realize
that in that very beautiful place,

2000 years ago, people were speaking
about most interesting things,

then we will speak about tonight?"

Because tonight, actually I want just
to deliver a message which is very basic.

My message is that people
who make funny cartoons

like this one,

or who write jokes

about power, about religion, about money,
about politics, about you, about me,

they must not be killed.

(Applause)

Last January, I wasn't there

when the Kouachi brothers came
and executed eight of my colleagues,

and four other people in Charlie Hebdo.

I joined France the day after,

and today, just like
some of the survivors,

I live under police protection,

I have a very heavy
protocol of protection.

It means that when I go buy bread,
I have bodyguards with me.

When I am in a cafe, when I leave it,

I find one of my bodyguards
standing next to the door.

When I go to the supermarket
I have bodyguards with me,

when I go reporting,
I have bodyguards with me.

I live in the heart of Paris,
I live in this beautiful city of Paris,

where normally people like me
shouldn't be protected.

You know bodyguards normally work
with very important people,

with officials, with political people,

not with simple journalists
like me who write or draw.

But you know, I'm asking myself

why very often people who have
fatwas on their head like I have,

I have to tell you first
about those fatwas.

The threat started the 18th of January,

when we issued what the media called
the survivors' issue,

Luz, my colleague,
made this beautiful drawing,

when you have someone who is supposed
to be the prophet Muhammad crying,

and delivering a message of forgiveness,
and saying, "Je suis Charlie",

of course, because it has to be funny.

Some people, people from ISIS state,
the fundamentalists,

found that was a provocation.

And you know, their friends were just
killing my colleagues one week before,

but they found this is a provocation!

So we started receiving
threats from ISIS state,

telling me, "You escaped by miracle
our glorious attack in Paris

where your brothers in atheism,

the journalists of Charlie Hebdo
have been killed,

but believe us, we will not close our eyes

before we will separate
your head from your body."

In the same moment, a video
on YouTube was published

by a group calling itself
the Anonymous Islamic Youth,

promising to me that I am
condemned to death soon,

they didn't say when but it is soon,

and a few weeks later,

there were two hashtags
on Twitter in Arabic,

the first hashtag saying,

"The duty to kill Zineb El Rhazoui
to avenge the prophet",

and the second one saying,

"Locate Zineb El Rhazoui to kill her".

So there were serious attempts
to try to locate me in Paris,

They also gave
the whole religious justification,

why it became an obligation
for every single Muslim to kill me.

They gave several methods
how to execute me.

So if you don't have a bullet or a bomb,

just isolate me somewhere,
break my head with big stones,

cut my head or burn me,
or at least burn my house.

So I am wondering why am I threatened?

And also why very often
people who have contracts on their heads

are usually issued
from the Muslim culture.

That was the case for Salman Rushdie,
he was born in a Muslim family,

Taslima Nasreen, Kamel Daoud,
the Algerian writer,

Nawal El Saadawi, the Egyptian
feminist and writer,

Raif Badawi who is still
jailed now in Saudi Arabia,

Cheikh Ould Mâkhaitir,
the Mauritanian blogger

who is condemned to death.

All those people have
a contract on their head

or are condemned to death
because they criticized religion.

So I will tell you I think why.

Because I think people like us

are the living contradiction
to this smokescreen

that the fundamentalists
want to put in our heads.

If you have the same speech
as I have about Islam,

I grew up in this religion,

I studied it 16 years
in the Moroccan school,

I speak Arabic, I was
teaching Arabic in Egypt,

so I know what I criticize.

But if you as Greek people, if Westerners,
European people say the same as me,

they tell them,
"Oh, you are an Islamophobe."

It means you are a racist,
so shut your mouth.

But when people like us have this speech,
they cannot tell we are racist.

They may say we are the home Arab,
or self hating Arab,

I don't know but it not very serious.

So, those people, the fundamentalists,

in the countries where Islam
is the religion of state,

where they have the power,

in those countries,
if you criticize their religion,

they just put you in jail or kill you.

But in Europe, they have
no legal tool, to shut your mouth.

So they accuse you
of being Islamophobe then racist.

So let's study this notion,
this concept of Islamophobia.

Why the hell when a Christian
criticizes his religion,

we say he is an anticlerical.

We don't say he is a Christianophobe.

But when a Muslim criticizes
his religion, he is an Islamophobe.

This is a question.

Second question,

why are we supposed
to consider Muslims as a race?

And why do we consider that the Muslims

are condemned to be ruled
by their own tradition?

Aren't they capable of sharing
the same universal values as us?

Why accusing those who criticize Islam
of being racist?

They are just people who say,

"Okay, we are for equality
between men and women,

and we consider
that the whole human being

should apply this equality.

Why exclude the Muslims
from this equality?

Why exclude them
from the universal values?

Isn't that exactly racism?

Isn't racism to say, "We as Westerners
want certain values for our society,

but you know those people,

we will understand
that they are doing it differently

because you know
we don't want to be racist."

This is exactly racism for me.

And you know this Islamophobia actually,

it is an intellectual imposture,

which was invented, which was created
the first time by the Iranian Mullah,

to shut our mouths,
but actually it doesn't really work.

This word entered this year
the French dictionary Larousse.

It is described as Islamophobia means

hostility towards Islam and the Muslims.

So here, there is a confusion

between criticizing ideas
and criticizing people.

These are two things
that are very different.

And the Council of Europe also,

adopted recently
this definition of Islamophobia,

as expressing any hostile
or negative ideas

toward Islam or Muslims,

and this is considered to be racist.

So if we consider that in countries
like France for instance,

racism is not an opinion,

racism is forbidden by the low in France.

So if we consider that Islamophobia,
which is the fact to criticize Islam,

is racism,

you are obliged by the law
to have a positive opinion on Islam.

Isn't that fascism?

Let us consider a second notion,

a second smokescreen

that the fundamentalists
want to put on our minds

to stop us from criticizing
their fundamentalism.

You know, in the United States
for instance,

I have been there recently,

they have a new concept
called the safe space.

What does the safe space mean?

The safe space means
that you come to my conference,

you pay to come to my conference,

no one obliged you,

but you don't agree with me,
so you want me to shut my mouth,

because you don't agree with it.

The safe space is the right
not to be offended.

Okay, so if you don't want to be offended,

either you don't come,
you turn off your television,

you don't buy Charlie Hebdo,

or you just pass your way,

but if you come, listen to me
and I am able to listen to you too.

And actually, this right
to not be offended doesn't exist,

the only right that exists
is the right to free speech.

Freedom of speech is a right that exists.

(Applause)

So what I want to say to all of you,

we must be very aware of the techniques,

the very complicated techniques

used by the fundamentalists

to change the notions,

to put a poison in certain values
that were very simple,

that are very clear,

such as democracy, such as secularism,
such as freedom of speech,

such as racism.

Racism exists in Europe,

but racism is not the fact
to criticize a religion,

is not the fact to criticize an idea,

racism is the fact to deprave
someone from his rights,

or the fact to apply general clichés

to people who are supposed
to belong to a community,

either a religion or a race or color.

This is racism.

Racism is not criticizing Islam
or any other idea,

because Islam is an idea,

and Islam is a power,

Islam is a political power

in the country where Islam
is the religion of state,

your life is ruled by Islam.

For instance, I was born in Morocco,

I am considered by the law as a Muslim,
while I am atheist actually,

but I am obliged to be considered
as a Muslim by the law,

I am condemned to be ruled by Islam,

I am condemned to marry a Muslim man
even if I love a non Muslim man,

I can't marry him,
it's forbidden by the law.

I only inherent half
of what a man inherits,

either, even if I pay
my coffee the same price,

so why the hell don't I have the right
to criticize this power?

Isn't that racism?

Isn't that racism to say

you were born in a culture
so you cannot reach the universal values.

We all have to be aware of that,

and we all have now to understand
that in this world, here in Europe,

many events like this one
were canceled for security reasons,

that there are people who speak,
who are threatened,

who have their lives destroyed
by those threats,

who have their lives destroyed
by this monster without face

who can be everywhere,

and who want us to stop defending

our universal values of freedom.

So I think that we must be aware

that today I am threatened as a person,

but no matter my person,
no matter the people,

it is a question of values,

and the more we are,
the cheaper will be the price,

and with Charlie Hebdo we paid
a very very expensive price

for our freedom of speech,

because we were isolated,

many people, even in France,

didn't understand
what we were talking about.

Many people said, "Okay,
it's not important to make those jokes,

we can abandon those jokes,
and just not offend the others,

but actually it's not a question
of offending the others,

it's a question of civilization,

and the right to blasphemy

is exactly the boundary
between barbarism and civilization,

and this is why we did it.

Thank you.

(Applause)