On May 5, PEN received a letter from some of its Members regarding the Courage Award given to Charlie Hebdo, with an accompanying cover note from Teju Cole:
Dear Suzanne,
On behalf of the 242 signatories below, Francine Prose and I are passing along this letter. We would be delighted if you would put the letter and signatories up on the PEN website as soon as is feasible, in recognition of the seriousness and moral commitment of its signatories, as well as their collective investment in the work of PEN. I imagine that this conciliatory gesture will satisfy the need, for most of the signatories, to be heard on this matter. I obviously can’t make promises for anyone, but the honest sense I’ve gotten from the few people I’ve talked to is that a necessary dissent was expressed and it is time to move on.
On a personal note, I’d like to add that I very sincerely wish you a good, safe PEN Literary Gala tonight, as well as the same for this morning’s panel. Some of the people I love most in the world will be at tonight’s gala. My thoughts are with everyone who will be in that room tonight.
Francine and I admire PEN’s work, we fully understand its irreplaceable value, and look forward to doing more for the organization in the future.
all best wishes,
Teju Cole
Distinguished Writer in Residence, Bard College
Photography Critic, The New York Times Magazine
—
April 26, 2015
In March it was announced that the PEN Literary Gala, to be held May 5th 2015, would honor the magazine Charlie Hebdo with the PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award in response to the January 7 attacks that claimed the lives of many members of its editorial staff.
It is clear and inarguable that the murder of a dozen people in the Charlie Hebdo offices is sickening and tragic. What is neither clear nor inarguable is the decision to confer an award for courageous freedom of expression on Charlie Hebdo, or what criteria, exactly, were used to make that decision.
We do not believe in censoring expression. An expression of views, however disagreeable, is certainly not to be answered by violence or murder.
However, there is a critical difference between staunchly supporting expression that violates the acceptable, and enthusiastically rewarding such expression.
In the aftermath of the attacks, Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons were characterized as satire and “equal opportunity offense,” and the magazine seems to be entirely sincere in its anarchic expressions of disdain toward organized religion. But in an unequal society, equal opportunity offense does not have an equal effect.
Power and prestige are elements that must be recognized in considering almost any form of discourse, including satire. The inequities between the person holding the pen and the subject fixed on paper by that pen cannot, and must not, be ignored.
To the section of the French population that is already marginalized, embattled, and victimized, a population that is shaped by the legacy of France’s various colonial enterprises, and that contains a large percentage of devout Muslims, Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons of the Prophet must be seen as being intended to cause further humiliation and suffering.
Our concern is that, by bestowing the Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award on Charlie Hebdo, PEN is not simply conveying support for freedom of expression, but also valorizing selectively offensive material: material that intensifies the anti-Islamic, anti-Maghreb, anti-Arab sentiments already prevalent in the Western world.
In our view, PEN America could have chosen to confer its PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award upon any of a number of journalists and whistleblowers who have risked, and sometimes lost, their freedom (and even their lives) in service of the greater good.
PEN is an essential organization in the global battle for freedom of expression. It is therefore disheartening to see that PEN America has chosen to honor the work and mission of Charlie Hebdo above those who not only exemplify the principles of free expression, but whose courage, even when provocative and discomfiting, has also been pointedly exercised for the good of humanity.
We the undersigned, as writers, thinkers, and members of PEN, therefore respectfully wish to disassociate ourselves from PEN America’s decision to give the 2015 Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award to Charlie Hebdo.
Chris Abani
Hosam M. Aboul-Ela
Leslie Absher
Elizabeth Adams
Ali Jimale Ahmed
Lauren K. Alleyne
Sinan Antoon
Judith Appelbaum
Nicole Aragi
Michael Archer
Tony Ardizzone
Sarah Arvio
Gabeba Baderoon
Deborah Baker
Russell Banks
Susan Bell
Naomi Benaron
Helen Benedict
Christopher Benfey
Cara Benson
Charles Ramírez Berg
John Berger
Susan Bernofsky
Eric Bogosian
Robert Bononno
Barrie Jean Borich
Blanche McCrary Boyd
Catherine Brady
Adam Braver
Donald Breckenridge
Rita Nakashima Brock
Ami Sands Brodoff
Karen Brown Brooks
Edward Burlingame
Janet Burroway
Viola Canales
Helene Cardona
Peter Carey
John Casey
Bryn Chancellor
Myriam J. A. Chancy
Hayan Charara
Bell Gale Chevigny
Rita Zoey Chin
Angie Chuang
Catherine Chung
Jane Ciabattari
Carmela Ciuraru
Patricia Clark
Tony Cohan
Peter Cole
Teju Cole
Ted Conover
Ellen Cooney
Randall Couch
Gwyneth Cravens
Michael Cunningham
John D’Agata
Katherine Dalsimer
Emily M. Danforth
Tod Davies
Annabel Davis-Goff
Siddhartha Deb
Sonali Deraniyagala
Jason Diamond
Junot Díaz
Stephen Dobyns
Geoff Dyer
Erin Edmison
Brent Hayes Edwards
Brian T. Edwards
Marshall Efron
Deborah Eisenberg
Susan Eisenberg
Hedi El Kholti
Trey Ellis
Eve Ensler
Elizabeth Enslin
Barbara Epler
Jennifer Cody Epstein
Ali Eteraz
Percival Everett
Monica Ferrell
Joshua Ferris
Marlon L. Fick
Boris Fishman
Stona Fitch
Frances FitzGerald
Peter H. Fogtdal
Seánan Forbes
Ashley Ford
Aminatta Forna
Linda Nemec Foster
Lauren Francis-Sharma
Edwin Frank
Judith Frank
John Freeman
Ru Freeman
Nell Freudenberger
Molly Friedrich
Joshua Furst
Indira Ganesan
Forrest Gander
Suzanne Gardinier
Johanna Garfield
Mordicai Gerstein
Gretchen Gerzina
Keith Gessen
Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Cobina Gillitt
Francisco Goldman
Jorie Graham
John Guare
Conner Habib
Jessica Hagedorn
Brian Hall
Theodore Hamm
Lis Harris
Kathryn Harrison
JoAnn Hart
Jonathan T. Hine Jr.
Edward Hoagland
Jen Hofer
Adina Hoffman
Laura Hoffmann
Lucy Honig
Nancy Horan
Marya Hornbacher
Tracie Hotchner
Sandra Hunter
Megan Hustad
Vanessa Furse Jackson
Randa Jarrar
T. Geronimo Johnson
Paul Kane
John Keahey
Rick Kearns
Daniel J. Kevles
Uzma Aslam Khan
Eugenia Kim
Dave King
Gilbert King
Marshall N. Klimasewiski
Robert Spencer Knotts
Ruth Ellen Kocher
Ron Kolm
Nancy Kricorian
Tom Kuhn
Amitava Kumar
Rachel Kushner
Joy Ladin
Amy Lawless
Zachary Lazar
David Leavitt
Jonathan Lee
Katherine Leiner
Ben Lerner
Ted Lewin
Ed Lin
Michael Lindgren
Julie Livingston
Craig Lucas
Doug Magee
Ann Malaspina
Janet Malcolm
Charlotte Mandell
C. M. Mayo
Patrick McGrath
Clarissa McNair
Deena Metzger
Thais Miller
Vica Miller
Kyle Minor
Rick Moody
Skye Moody
Lorrie Moore
Dolan Morgan
James McGrath Morris
Bradford Morrow
Judith Nies
Idra Novey
Stephen O’Connor
Joyce Carol Oates
Alfa-Betty Olsen
Michael Ondaatje
Peter Orner
Duvall Osteen
Raj Patel
Chris Pavone
William Pierce
Francine Prose
Marcus Rediker
Adam Rex
Clay Risen
Roxana Robinson
David Roediger
Paul Rome
Mark Rotella
Jess Row
Gina Ruiz
Luc Sante
Steven Schroeder
Sarah Schulman
Taiye Selasi
Elissa Schappell
Danzy Senna
Vijay Seshadri
Kamila Shamsie
Jeff Sharlet
Wallace Shawn
Matthew Shenoda
Nancy Shiffrin
Charles J. Shields
Russell Shorto
Elisabeth Sifton
Charles Simic
Tom Sleigh
Holly Goldberg Sloan
Alexis M. Smith
Jill Smolowe
Linda Spalding
Scott Spencer
Betsy Sussler
Emily Gray Tedrowe
Roy A. Teel Jr.
Janne Teller
Michael Thomas
Ted Thompson
Kathleen Tolan
Pauls Toutonghi
Joanne Turnbull
Chase Twichell
Padma Venkatraman
Jasmine Dreame Wagner
Eliot Weinberger
Jon Wiener
Elizabeth Winthrop
Sung J. Woo
G. K. Wuori
Matvei Yankelevich
Irene Zabytko
Dave Zirin