2023-08-28 15:30:03
Actress and writer Rachel Khan during the 16ᵉ Francophone Film Festival of Angoulême, August 22, 2023. YOHAN BONNET / AFP
At 47, Rachel Khan has had several lives. Trained as a lawyer, she worked for the socialist Jean-Paul Huchon in the Ile-de-France region, where she was cultural adviser, then co-director of La Place, the hip-hop cultural center of the City of Paris, l he essayist and now actress joined La République en Marche. Criticizing on the social network X (formerly Twitter) the invitation made by Les Verts this weekend to Le Havre rapper Médine, she – whose mother, Jewish, escaped the death camps and father is from Gambia – s drew the wrath of the singer with a message that caused the scandal. Culture of clash, weight of words, role of artists: the interested party comes out of silence for the first time.
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The tweet “ResKHANpée” by rapper Médine hijacking your last name has sparked controversy all week, yet we have not heard you. For what ?
I was a member of the jury of the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival and I didn’t want the political debate to interfere with this cultural event. I let others speak for me. I am happy to see the reactions that have crossed the political sphere to recall the values of the Republic, even within the Greens, who are my family of origin. Medina is a repeat offender of hate speech. He makes his excuses and each time he comes back with a new trick: the quenelle, homophobic and anti-Semitic attacks, secularism, and now this attack on my name. There are words that are offences, it’s not negotiable.
Do you think he didn’t apologize?
He attacked me personally on my journey, my ideas. And apologize in general. He says: yes, I could hit people. When you’re an artist – that’s what Camus said – you’re caught up in the galleys of your time, but you have a responsibility. We had the Simone Signorets, the Yves Montands, a French heritage with people, artists who were passionately committed. As an artist, Medina has the meaning of words. “Let us crucify the secularists as in Golgotha”, he sings. For the philosopher Hannah Arendt, the word is the beginning of the action. I have pain with this left which no longer defends the republican principles which are its own.
What is behind this controversy?
This deep violence that resurfaces brings me back to what I wrote in 2021 in Racy [éditions de l’Observatoire, 2021]. It’s as if my skin color belonged to them and because I have that skin I’m called a traitor. When, upon leaving Racythe far right throws me « Khanania » in reference to Banania [la marque de chocolat dont le visuel est le visage réjoui d’un homme noir]it’s like “ ResKhanpe ». Again it is with my name that we play. As if we wanted to erase it. Khan is my father’s name to which the English settlers in Gambia had wildly added an h. But it also became that of my mother, who escaped the Shoah. She never imagined that by marrying a black Muslim she would find a Jewish name. This name belongs to the great world history. I will not allow Medina and his friends to sully a double memory.
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#words #crimes #negotiable