The Charlie Hebdo Affair in Three African Journalistic Fields

Abstract

The censorious Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack was a global “meta-event” that demonstrated the diversity of journalistic cultures and editorial decision-making traditions in many parts of the world. The repercussions of the event were also felt in a number of African countries with significant Muslim populations. This chapter surveys, describes, and explains how the “geo-graphic” phenomenon that was the Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cartoons affair was “deterritorialized” from its epicenter in Paris and diffused to Africa. We explore how the attack was conceptualized and regulated within the contextual complexities of the geographies of freedom of expression in three key African journalistic fields: Senegal (West Africa), Kenya (East Africa), and South Africa. Conceptualization and regulation of the Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cartoons affair in the three countries under study was consistent with the respective political and cultural geographies of freedom of expression, as well as the journalistic and religious fields of each country.