Nous Sommes Charlie. Where Were We?

The world seemed to show up in Paris last Sunday, after the terrorist attack at the offices of French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Ten staffers at the satirical (some would say wildly offensive) publication and two police officers were gunned down Jan. 7.
The next day, a police officer was slain, and on the following day – just before the Jewish sabbath – the same person killed four persons at a kosher grocery in the French capital.

Three days of terror left 17 persons dead, excluding three Islamists killed by police.

On Jan. 11, world leaders – along with almost four million others – came together in Paris to rally for freedom of expression and the ideals of the Enlightenment. The biggest assembly ever in France, it was not so much a protest march as a proclamation of unity and support for the values of Western civilization. Whether you were there or just watched it on television, it took your breath away.

Yes, this time it seemed different . . . a new chapter in our new normal, a struggle that may come to define the 21st century. France called the attacks their 9/11 and declared the country at “war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islamism, against everything that is intended to break fraternity, liberty, solidarity.”

In D.C., the first night after the attack, people rallied at the Newseum for free expression and to honor the memory of the Charlie Hebdo victims. On Sunday, there was a march from the Newseum to the Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, who has held ministerial posts in the French government, was at both events.
No one representing the federal government attended either event.

By now, everyone is aware that the Obama administration sent no one to Sunday’s rally in Paris – save Jane Hartley, the U.S. Ambassador to France. The omission revealed a lack of emotional intelligence and lack of leadership by the White House. It moved the New York Daily News to write a striking headline to the administration: “You let the world down.”

We missed the moment. Shame on the administration. Shame on us.

Aside from a renewed sense of cooperation in fighting terrorism, what do we take away from this moment? How steadfast are we in defending the right of free expression for everyone and every opinion – which includes the right to offend? Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes called it the “freedom for the thought that we hate.”

Our citizens should follow that lead; the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects both freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

Let’s keep talking freely. It is one of our greatest weapons against terrorism and extremism.