This week, Cambridge has been Charlie. Over 400 people gathered together last Sunday to express this sentiment, and it has been at the forefront of conversations, thoughts, and media attention throughout the university since. In addition to this, however, Cambridge has been Ahmed. Cambridge has been Juif. And presumably, in between, Cambridge has also been stressed students preparing for the first week of term.

Yet ‘students’ appears to have been an insufficient standpoint from which to condemn the horrible events in Paris that left 17 dead. This newspaper stands in solidarity with these victims and has co-signed an editorial expressing this with more than 100 journalists from over ten student publications nationwide in the Tab National.

It is interesting, however, that as student journalists, and moreover as students, a community that has shown overwhelming support for those affected by events in France, we still choose to articulate this sympathy from the standpoint of someone else. Nous sommes Charlie.

But what do we really mean when we claim these identities for ourselves? How closely can we identify with a French satirical magazine, a police officer protecting it, and the religion of a supermarket in east Paris? The answer, it seems, is with difficulty. And yet identity politics of this kind is not unusual in our responses to tragedy. Last year we were Michael Brown, Eric Garner.

Why is our voice less powerful as students, who can view these events with nuance and draw our own conclusions, than as ‘Charlie’ or ‘Ahmed’? As George W. Bush declared in the aftermath of 9/11, “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists”. A statement as idiotic today as it was then, with the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo containing a crying Prophet Mohamed, it is of course possible to be against a borderline racist publication and the terrorists who threaten it. This nuance is even more important when The Economist reveals that in most major European countries, France included, over 50 per cent of the population believe Islam is not compatible with the West. As the British media has pointed out tirelessly, racist publications don’t help this fact. While the recalcitrant response of #JeSuisAhmed was better, the ‘not all Islam is bad’ mentality inherent in this is equally unhelpful.

Our response to these events shouldn’t be claiming that we, too, are Ahmed, or that his identity is now somehow acceptable because we recognise in ourselves aspects of it. At a time when certain identities’ ‘incompatibility’ with the West is once again in focus, we should celebrate difference, not insist everyone file behind a single ‘Je Suis’.

Because, whether Ahmed, Juif or Charlie, these are not our identities. They are theirs. But that does not mean that we can’t stand with them, as Cambridge did on Sunday 11th January.