To mark the release of the latest issue of Polka magazine, editor-in-chief Alain Genestar sent us this editorial.
“I remember that moment. It was August 2006, a Sunday evening on the heights outside Kabul. Georges was sitting next to me. The city was below us. We didn’t say much, our eyes gazing out. A few hours earlier, with the Nouvelles de Kaboul team we had been to the tomb of Massoud, deep in the Panjshir Valley. The road was dangerous. Everything was dangerous here. An old man invited us to sit down outside of his modest shop. His granddaughter was playing on our knees. It was nice outside. Quiet. The silence was barely broken by the laughter of children and the noises of the city below. Georges Wolinski often mentioned that moment, so simple, in a country plagued by violence. He told me, “That’s one one of my favorite memories.” Why am I telling you this story about our friendship? Georges is dead. He was murdered by terrorists with his friends at Charlie Hebdo. Other people were killed on that day and in the following days. During the long march on January 11th in Paris, I thought back on that simple, ordinary time we shared together overlooking a city subjected to a methodical violence that threatened to return. We both felt this “Moment in Kabul” to be a unique, rare and exceptional one. Like a truce.”
Read the full article on the French version of L’Oeil.
MAGAZINE
Polka #29
Issue: March 5th, 2015
Polka
Cour de venise
12, rue Saint-Gilles
75003 Paris
212 pages
5,90 €
