Standing With Charlie
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

It is difficult to think of a terrorist attack that strikes more deeply at the core of western liberty than the slaughter that took place this morning in the editorial rooms of Charlie Hebdo. The editors of the French satirical weekly were slain as they were meeting to decide on the content of their next issue. They had to have known they were playing with fire. They were, after all, firebombed as recently as 2011, and it was their now late publisher, Stephane Charbonnier, who said: “I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”
Charbonnier’s words are likely to emerge as among the most famous in French history. They will rank with Patrick Henry’s “Give me Liberty or give me Death.” The sentiment has been widely marked (including in the slogans of New Hampshire and Greece). Charb’s formulation is a clarion construction, though, and will be quoted at his funeral, written about in newspaper editorials, used in sermons, focused on in school essays, and etched into plinths. All of us will be inspired by his words, and life, for decades to come.
This is not dimminished by the fact that Charlie Hebdo itself has not been edited for everyone. Its mockery of religion extended not only the tyrannical sects but also to religious Christians and Jews. Yet such religious persons learned and prayed under and cherished the same concept of liberty that was sheltering the editors who were slain this morning (and that shelter moderate Moslems). We remark on that not to suggest that Charlie Hebdo in any way tempted its fate but rather to suggest that in this point lies the logic of a united front.
The truth is that the secular and satirical sages of Charlie Hebdo have the same interests in liberty as the sages of religion that the magazine so mocked. The rabbis who were chopped to death at Har Nof but seven weeks ago were slain by killers uttering the same cry — Allahu akbar — as those who came for the cartoonists in the rue Serpollet. In America it is no coincidence that religion and the press are covered by the same article of the Bill of Rights.
What do Charbonnier’s words suggest in the conduct of our public affairs? Secretary of State Kerry, speaking at Washington in the wake of the massacre, offered fine sentiments. Yet he was all adjectives. He will soon resume treating with the Iranian regime in search of a deal that will see America, Israel, and France — and others — on their knees for generations in the face of an imminent Iranian atomic bomb. President Obama, who also offered fine words, will continue to seek to cut America’s army in the middle of a war.
This is a marker for the West to resume the offensive in the war on Islamist terror. At least one of the suspects in this engagement in that war — the suspects have been now named as two brothers and a third figure — turns out to have been well known to the police, having already been convicted on terrorism charges. It is a reminder of the importance of an aggressive posture in the free countries not only abroad but at home, where so many of our enemies are now setting their sights, so that more Charlie Hebdos can stand up for their freedom.