By Dan Golembeski, associate professor of French

I think there is something to be learned this week from what is going on in France.

On Wednesday (Jan. 7), gunmen broke into the editorial room of a French satirical newspaper and killed the paper’s cartoonists, writers and staff. Several others, including police officers, were killed or injured. The paper had been targeted before: in November 2011, its offices were firebombed. Still, Charlie survived, due in no small part to French determination to defend free speech. The editor-in-chief was given 24-hour-a-day police protection.

Why would a newspaper – a satirical one at that, specializing in cartoons – be targeted by gunmen?

As a matter of principal, the paper is unapologetically blunt in publishing satire of all kinds. No one is spared: not celebrities, not politicians, not religious leaders. This is a paper designed to make people laugh – and think – by poking fun at those who hold power in society.

Why? Because those who hold power – political, economic, or social – risk misusing it.

Satire is a gentle reminder to those who bear that significant responsibility. It is a powerful way to demand accountability.

French society has, over the years, developed distrust of those in power. There have been monarchs. Emperors. Bourgeois oligarchies. Occupation. The Establishment.

Wednesday’s event reminds us that our greatest freedom is to be able to say openly what we think. Without fear of being coerced into silence.

Will we have to answer for what we say? Of course. But we should not be afraid to speak our mind.

It is a remarkable that those who were most frequently mocked in cartoons by Charb, Cabu, Tignous, Honoré and Wolinski, are today some of the loudest voices in the paper’s defense. In a sheer act of defiance and democracy, the paper plans to publish…upwards of one million copies, as compared to a typical week’s circulation of 60,000.

In the aftermath of last Wednesday’s horrific events, Parisians are buying newspapers. Massively. It is as if such a simple act might help sustain free speech, seeming so fragile right now.

What can we do? Perhaps the best way to honor Charlie is to simply do what it did best: exercise your right to free speech. Unapologetically.

We are all Charlie Hebdo.