Reflections | How Mark Twain’s ‘I am a Boxer too’ preceded the ‘Je suis Charlie’ slogan of Paris horror attack
- Mark Twain’s sympathetic writing about the Boxer rebels in China, which neglected the murder and violence the movement unleashed on Chinese Christians and foreigners, makes satire problematic reading when it comes to slaughter
- The eight-nation response to the turn-of-the-century Chinese uprising showed alarming hypocrisy as the allied force sought to quash the Yihetuan movement, raping and killing civilians
Charlie Hebdo is a French publication that has habitually courted controversy with its satirical attacks on politicians and religious leaders. The magazine caricaturised the prophet on its cover and pages in 2011 and 2012, angering Muslims in France and around the world. In January 2015, two armed terrorists stormed into the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris. They killed 12 people and injured 11 others.
The killings shocked the world, including Muslims, most of whom do not subscribe to the violent and murderous creed of the fanatical terrorists who commit atrocities in their name. Soon afterwards, the slogan “Je suis Charlie” (French for “I am Charlie”) began trending on social media and the internet, embraced by those who support freedom of expression and resist armed violence.
To this day, whenever a catastrophic disaster occurred anywhere in the world, the slogan “Je suis [insert name of location or person]” or its English equivalent would start flashing on screens around the world, like virtue-signalling fairy lights. The “I am X” slogan is, in fact, not a recent invention; it was spoken more than a century ago by the American writer Mark Twain in response to events in China.
In his address at a meeting of the Public Education Association in New York City on November 23, 1900, he spoke the following words:
“China never wanted foreigners any more than foreigners wanted Chinamen, and on this question I am with the Boxers every time. The Boxer is a patriot. He loves his country better than he does the countries of other people. I wish him success. The Boxer believes in driving us out of his country. I am a Boxer too, for I believe in driving him out of our country.”