Journalists killed, but attackers’ war already lost

They slaughtered the harmless harlequins of Paris last week.

The literary pranksters of Charlie Hebdo, armed with ink pens, keyboards and a wicked sense of humor, were gunned down by the sort of insane fanatics who generated so much of the satire magazine’s material in recent years.

Like so many of you, I’ve spent the past few days watching and reading news reports from Paris. The dismay and disgust of the early accounts of a mass murder at a diminutive publication, and the hunt for the perpetrators, were gradually replaced by a sense of pride in the French people for their reaction to the heinous act of homegrown terrorism.

The French, who have paid a high price for their free society, did exactly the right thing.

They took to the streets Sunday, nearly 2 million in Paris and 4 million nationwide, and reminded the world that they were united. “Je suis Charlie,” they chanted. I am Charlie.

As America’s buoyant Bostonians might have put it, they were “Paris Strong.” Everyone’s God should bless the French for standing up.

Freedom wins again.

It wasn’t the first time the magazine had been targeted after lampooning the powerful. Its offices were firebombed in 2011 after it published an edition it said was edited by the Prophet Muhammad. Readers were threatened with “a hundred lashes if you don’t die laughing.”

In an era in which prime-time animated shows in America such as “The Simpsons” and “The Family Guy” wickedly rib just about every institution, the “a hundred lashes” line seems particularly quaint.

But that’s the trouble with criminals who cloak themselves in religion: They don’t need a reason to start a revolution.

In a world riddled with so much misery and in such dire need of laughter, it’s hard to imagine following a prophet bereft of a sense of humor. One incapable of laughing at himself, or allowing even the ignorant to do so without resorting to murder, seems more pathetic than pious. Someone capable of being deeply offended by a cartoon, no matter how obnoxious, ought to quit the religion racket and go sell shoes.

But that’s the problem with jihadis. They’re control freaks in the extreme. Their inferiority complex is so great they feel compelled to force their beliefs on others at gunpoint.

They’re barbarous, but they’re also history’s laughing stock.

Their lash can’t exist in a free society. Their psychosis won’t allow it.

In a free society, you get to believe just about anything you want. You’re even allowed to stand in the public square and bore us with those beliefs. You’re just not allowed to force others to adhere to those beliefs.

We take that basic right of free expression for granted. But transport it to many other countries, and it is an abstract calculus that confounds and infuriates.

No society is worth a damn without the establishment of basic rights and freedoms and respect for the rule of law.

The greatest danger in our own society isn’t a terror cell, but the temptation to trade away our personal freedom and right of privacy out of fear and insecurity.

The blood of journalistic pranksters was spilled in Paris, but their attackers’ psychotic holy war is already lost. As long as we hold fast to our rights and freedoms, the joke will always be on them.

And speaking of jokes, FBI documents made public show America-born radical Muslim Anwar al-Awlaki — who inspired the leader of the Charlie Hebdo attack — spent thousands of dollars on prostitutes in the Washington, D.C., area. Perhaps that’s why al-Awlaki wore a beard — it kept the world from seeing him blush.

In a world this crazy, Charlie Hebdo won’t lack for material. Long may it live.

John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Email him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 702-383-0295. Follow him on Twitter @jlnevadasmith.