Since the tragic shootings in Paris revolving around comics published by the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, many people on the Internet have tried to show solidarity with the victims and their families by prominently making posts with the hashtag “#jesuischarlie” — in English, “I am Charlie.”
While I sympathise with the sentiments expressed by these people and I feel terrible for the victims and their families, I’m afraid I cannot, in good conscience, use this hashtag. The fact is that I, Benjamin Buckley, am not Charlie. I have verified this by a brief glance at my birth certificate: my name is “Benjamin Nicholas Roland Buckley.” It is the name my parents gave me, and I have become rather attached to it.
In theory, it might be possible to legally change my name to “Charlie.” However, in British Columbia, this requires filling out a long form and paying a $137 fee, plus $25 for a criminal record check and fingerprinting. It would be unreasonable to expect me, let alone every member of our society, to go through such an inconvenient expense just to make a point about freedom of speech.
Even more troubling are the broad social consequences of a society in which every person is named “Charlie.” On the surface, living in such a society might seem more convenient. For one thing, it would be easier to remember everyone’s name. But it’s easy to forget that the reason we have names is so that we can tell each other apart. If, as these activists propose, we all call ourselves “Charlie,” then we will be left without a quick, simple way to identify ourselves. Even if we use variants like “Chuck,” “Charles,” and “C-Dawg,” it will be of little help.
I want to emphasize that I hold no ill will against people who are named Charlie. If you are named Charlie, that’s perfectly fine. Just keep it to yourself and don’t force your name down the rest of our throats. A tragedy, even one so symbolic of the fight for freedom of speech as the Paris shootings, is no reason to rob the world of all the diverse names it has to offer.
A person can believe in freedom without having to change their name to Charlie. It’s time for these online activists to wake up and realize that.
