Je Suis Charlie

I am rather drunk, probably insufficiently-educated and overly-opinionated but the joy of blogging is that you are only your own filter.

I have been pretty addicted to the news over the last few days and today I have been obsessed.  My 101 year old Nana is convinced that bad things didn't happen as much in the olden days and I don't want to disillusion her by just telling her that these days we have immediate access to everything that is going on, always.  I did feel at some points today as if I was watching a Hollywood Blockbuster rather than BBC News - surely this couldn't be actually happening, right now?

There is no sense, no meaning and no rationale behind this obsessive fundamentalism. After Wednesday's horrific events I found myself hoping that the perpetrators would be found (and killed) as soon as possible so that they wouldn't be able to inflict any more damage on the further population.  How wrong is that though?  That I'm actually hoping that some human beings will hunt down other human beings and kill them and that that would be a success.  Am I a product of the recent media coverage or is this just the world we live in now?

I firmly believe that no human life is worth more than any other human life but still I begin to question how any God can let this happen over and over again.  My thoughts tonight lie with the victims, the families of the victims but also with every peace-loving Muslim in France and in the rest of the World.  Within hours, there were reports that Mosques in France had been vandalised by racist graffiti.  Unsurprising, but depressing, nevertheless.

It just feels as is these kind of attacks are happening more and more frequently and there is no way to stop them.  There is no way to combat radicalised individuals who have access to weapons and there is no way of knowing where they will indiscriminately strike next.

Zak thinks I'm crazy when I overreact to his monologues over breakfast about joining the army and it's 'OK Mum as they have the right sort of guns'.  I don't want a 7 year old to have any idea that any sort of guns are OK.  As far as I can see at the moment, guns are generally a key to people losing their lives. Without access to guns today, those terrorists would have struggled more to take the lives of innocent people.

The absolutely worst part of my soul is that I think tonight, at least three more people who want to kill and maim innocent people are dead.  Surely there can't be that many people in the world that want to do harm to other people?  I think there are though.  I didn't even realise this was a major whole world problem until 9/11, along with the majority of the rest of the world I think.

I worry for our future.  I worry for my children and their future.  I feel ultimately more sorry for every non-radicalised Muslim citizen of the western world however, who will be increasingly more segregated, more scrutinised and more ostracised from the countries in which they have chosen to make their home in this new, terrifying and unpredictable world we live in.