January 7, 2015, was an typical evening in Paris. At 11: 30 AM, two French-born Moroccan Muslim brothers, Saïd Kouachi and Chérif Kouachi, walked into the practices of the humorous newspaper” Charlie Hebdo” and opened fire. They massacred 12 people and damaged 11 people.  ,
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The sons were angry that the newspaper had published humorous cartoons about the Muslim apostle Mohammed. On the first problem after the invasion, January 14, the cover featured a film of Mohammed holding a sign saying in French,” All is forgiven”.
That nature of rebellion wasn’t lacking in the rest of the free world  , — at least for the moment. First outpouring of support for the” Charlie Hebdo” people and the notion that the two boys were actually attacking was sparked by the two brothers. 2 million citizens attended a protest in Paris on January 11 that included King Abdullah of Jordan, Queen Rania, and President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. All carried signs saying,” I am Charlie”.
Something unusual started to happen in newspapers and newspaper offices all over the free world, as Douglas Murray in a piece in The Free Press points out. The” nature of Charlie Hebdo” crumbled.
With pen in their arms, supporters of the free press walked through the streets of Paris, as though this was some sort of stand. The best thing those protesters may have done was walk through the streets of Paris holding up the Muhammad pictures, which had resulted in numerous problems on their offices yet before 2015, as Mark Steyn vividly recalls saying at the time.
The best response from the press itself would have been to immediately publish a “blasphemous” Charlie Hebdo , animation, in the heart of” I am Spartacus”. You didn’t get us all.
But even another” satirical” newspapers like the UK’s Personal Eye , showed they didn’t have the courage of Charb and his associates. But some journalists and cartoonists in the West had become secure poking at clear hornets ‘ nests—the Episcopal Church, the UK’s royal family, chuckle, chuckle, tee-hee—that they had forgotten what it takes to push a live one.
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However, it’s difficult to intentionally provoke someone who might try to kill you for enforcing your right to free speech. The good thing, the important things, rarely is. The word soup years  , — X, Y, Z, and don’t forget “me” — don’t realize that. They expect the American government, or the officers, or their families to defend them.  ,
Often, exercising our liberty hurts. Often, it’s risky. ( Ask Martin Luther King ). Often, it’s unhappy.  ,
And often, it gets us killed. The” Charlie Hebdo” writers aren’t alone. There have been seven U. S. editors killed on the job in the U. S. in recent years, according to the U. S. Press Freedom Tracker. Several others have been murdered elsewhere.  ,
What happened after the deaths in Paris was terrible.
Next came the victim-blaming. As left-leaning observers began to make claims that Charlie Hebdo was asking for it, the time of solidarity vanished. They claimed that the newspaper was “right-wing” when it was anything but. They asserted that its goal was to stir up tensions in European society. They claimed that the newspaper was “punching down” by making fun of Islam’s creator. Maybe the murdered readers should have checked their privileges?
Many of these commentators were probably unaware of Charlie Hebdo prior to the attack, and they were presumably unaware of its underlying Frenchness and anarchic style. In publishing cartoons of the apostle, Charb was just practicing the liberté at the heart of the Republic, celebrating the French excellent of laïcité, or atheism. In essence, Charlie Hebdo‘s personnel had often argued that all spiritual values were equally worthy of satire as their sons and daughters of France.
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Charb, the alias of the” Charlie Hebdo” editor Stéphane Jean-Abel Michel Charbonnier, said in an interview before his death,” I’d rather die standing than live on my knees”. The” Charlie Hebdo” headquarters were destroyed in 2011 after many threats had been made against the employees and Charb.  ,
How many of us may have paid the same for expressing our feelings in any way that we so chose, according to the God-given natural right to do so?
