In Malta, the name Charlie is quite familiar. Yesterday’s bus conductors, today’s irritated car drivers, even the burly bartender in a traditional każin, all find the name convenient. It is our Maltese way of conferring familiarity onto an unfamiliar person because everyone is somehow part of the family.

But what’s in a name? The Maltese usage of the name Charlie makes me think of a deep human question: are we human because we are unique individuals or because we form part of a community that makes us who we are?

In many ways the horrible events associated with the Charlie Hebdo murders are due to the inability of so many to answer this question in a dignified human way. If you absolutise the individual you end up with an isolating, self-centred individualism. If you absolutise the community you end up with an anonymous collectivity.

Freedom of expression enables us to freely communicate what makes us ourselves. Western society prizes and defends this fundamental right, and rightly so. Without freedom of expression there is no freedom, period.

But insistence on the individual’s rights and freedoms cannot be completely and shortsightedly disassociated from another side of what it means to be human – being part of a community. It is with others and thanks to them that an individual can exist and fully develop as human person. A person is the sum of his or her relations.

Our personal rights can only be real and guaranteed when freedom is shared and enjoyed by one and all. Real freedom is possible ‘with’ others and never ‘in spite’ of others. The spiral of violence that is destroying us is a self-evident proof of this. Freedom and security can survive only if they are a common good, and not just privileges of individuals.

What can freedom of expression mean when others are unwilling or incapable of listening? What kind of freedom is it to assert one’s views by killing those who will not listen? There is only one way out of this self-destructive spiral. It is the kind of freedom embraced and witnessed by Jesus.

Jesus used his freedom of expression to free other people, not to assert his superiority

He is a unique individual, yet in him all human beings can discover their real selves as members of one body.

He was supremely free to be himself, and yet free to identify with each and every person, irrespective of race, age, gender, political, religious or other categories.

Jesus was Charlie because he was unique, yet universal; irreplaceable yet available; fully human and fully divine. He was Charlie because no threats or fears stopped him from being himself. He was Charlie because he was courageous enough to offend the power of evil and pay the price for it.

But Jesus was not Charlie because his voice drowned that of others. He did not gratuitously offend what others hold to be sacred. He criticised courageously yet he never ridiculed anyone. He did not eliminate those who were not ready to listen, neither through physical nor through arrogant satire or printed violence. He humbly invited those who have ears to listen.

He refused to categorise people. He railed against sin but tenderly loved the sinner. He loved crowds but always helped individuals. He condemned the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and their establishment but never sought to replace theirs with another establishment.

He used his freedom of expression to free other people, not to assert his superiority. He was free to give his life for others but he was not a martyr of his own imprudence. He died to witness the unconditional love God has for all his children.

Because of all this we can safely say that our initial question remains happily unanswered. Jesus is and isn’t Charlie at the same time. This is why our post-modern society finds it so difficult to identify itself with him. We are all terribly afraid that apart from us there might be another Charlie right in the heart of our next-door neighbour.

Jesus was free to speak because he renounced to power. By taking upon himself the pain of humanity he could truly listen to that pain. Thus, unlike the Pharisees, he was free enough to speak as one who had authority.

pchetcuti@gmail.com

Fr Paul Chetcuti is a member of the Society of Jesus.