Paris massacre: making sense of the senseless

After the shocking news began to filter through on Friday evening of the Parisian massacre of innocent men and women, perpetrated by the murderous Isis, I purposely began an almost news black-out.

Like many parents I sought to shield my ten year old son from such news that is almost impossible to comprehend as an adult, much less a child. Having seen snippets of it on his own tablet computer, his first reaction was, ‘Dad are they coming here too?

But I also realised that this self-imposed news black-out was much more than just protecting my son. It was also about protecting myself. Primarily from the utter pain that one human being can walk into a restaurant or music venue look another person in the eye and shoot them and many others dead.

Trying to comprehend the unimaginable pain for the families and friends whose lives have been devastated becomes too much to bear. Our too often blarzayness when these bombs and murdurous episodes occur further afield frankly shames us.

I guess I also hid from this because like many a feeling of paralysis sets in from knowing the depths of man’s inhumanity. Other than utter despair how are you suppose to react?

Those fears, that pain, the shock is still there as we start the working week, but we must not be paralysed by it. It seems a shocking cliché, but it is our humanity, solidarity and love of each other that absolutely must prevail. Yes we must confront, and where necessary fight evil. The truth is that evil ideology cannot be negotiated with on the same norms of a decent society.

However, there is a bigger picture of gross global injustice, racial hatred, and inequality. These three dynamics are the oxygen that extremism lives off; particularly in it’s recruiting of the alienated and the disenfranchised. It's also true that our interference in the Middle East and North Africa has contributed in leaving these regions in politcal and religious chaos.

Our global politicians, in particularly those powerful G20 countries must ensure that poorer countries are not the breeding ground for desperation and hopelessness.

Closer to home, at a time when it would be easy and somewhat understandable to both embrace hatred and direct it at those one might think have some association with the murderers, instead we must resist this at all cost.

Our arch enemies would like nothing more than to see hatred breed much more hatred. That's how evil works.

Whilst we pray for the families who have lost loved ones and those maimed and injured, our response to the tragic events in Paris surely should be to confront the evil doers, by demonstrating our universal values of decency, humanity and fairness.

Rest in peace those fallen souls in Paris

Simon Woolley