A memorial to the victims of the Paris terror attacks. Credit: Demotix/Michael Debets.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris last month, amid all the talk of war and destruction, some people could be heard calling for love. But what would a loving response to terrorism be?
I understand love as a concern for all people, which has well-being as its first focus. It is, importantly, opposed to what Martin Luther King Jr. describes as “the barbaric consequences of any tribal-centered, national-centered, or racial-centered ethic” – of which terrorism and its causes (many of which the West is responsible for) provide us with numerous examples.
