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WASHINGTON Je suis Charlie Hebdo. If freedom of expression is to be more than an empty slogan, Wednesdays terrorist attack in Paris cannot be allowed to have the chilling effect its murderous perpetrators intended.

Cartoons crudely lampooning the Prophet Muhammad may not be everyones cup of tea, but the right to speak freely must encompass the right to offend, without fear or favor. Obnoxiousness is grounds for denunciation but not for censorship and violence cannot be permitted to intimidate journalists into self-censorship.

It is clear that for the moment, at least, the attack on the Paris offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo was a miserable failure. Masked gunmen coldly assassinated two police officers and 10 journalists including several of Frances best-known cartoonists with the aim of avenging drawings seen by some Muslims as blasphemous. Now, however, the cartoons at issue are receiving wider exposure than ever before via newspapers, television networks and websites around the world.

This is a hopeful sign. But I fear it will be difficult to ensure that the Charlie Hebdo attack does not have a very different long-term impact. If we are not careful and vigilant, freedom of speech will indeed suffer.

We cannot ignore the fact that while the pen is mightier than the sword in the moral sense, no one interested in self-preservation would actually bring a pen to a sword fight.

Stephane Charbonnier, the Charlie Hebdo cartoonist and editor-in-chief who was among those slain Wednesday, had long been aware of the risks. The publications offices were firebombed in 2011, and death threats had become almost commonplace.

I dont have kids, no wife, no car, no credit, he said two years ago. Maybe its a little pompous to say, but Id rather die standing than live on my knees.

Such grandiloquent language did sound a bit pompous, frankly, although in retrospect it was tragically prescient. As a lifelong journalist, I can only applaud the courage with which Charbonnier and his colleagues lived and died. But selfless bravery to the point of martyrdom will surely be the exception, not the rule.

A line will inevitably be drawn between steadfastness and foolhardiness. This, too, may sound pompous, but how and where that line is drawn will determine whether freedom of speech has any real meaning.

The wrong way to draw the line is with self-censorship, which in this case can be difficult to recognize. The central issue involves the way in which Muhammad is portrayed. Many mainstream Muslims consider comic portrayals of their prophet to be offensive as, indeed, many Christians might consider similar depictions of Jesus. But in communities around the world, including the heavily Muslim suburbs of Paris, there are radical Islamic fundamentalists who consider drawings such as those published in Charlie Hebdo to be blasphemy punishable by death.

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ROBINSON: Journalists must stand firm