Now, I don't profess to know anything about any of this. I don't make a habit of researching the religion, politics or laws of other countries and cultures, and if I'm completely honest, I think that, like so many of us, I don't do it because a lot of what is happening in the world is scary and unfair and sometimes it's better to block it all out and pretend it's not happening.
Wrongly or rightly, this is usually pretty easy - I don't have a pair of scissors that look like a Syrian landmark to remind me of the hundreds of innocent people being killed there everyday. I couldn't tell you what the Beirut flag looked like, so even if people were changing their Facebook profile pictures to show their solidarity with a country who were also subject to terrorist attacks that killed innocent people last week, I wouldn't recognise why.
Why though? Is this really down to my subconscious desire to ignore all the horrors of the world, or is it because unless you go looking for it, these peoples stories aren't being told. I'm not for one moment saying that I'm not dreadfully upset for the people of Paris, but I wonder how the people of Kenya feel about so many countries lighting their landmarks red white and blue in a show of support for Paris, when nobody did the same for them in April when 150 people were gunned down in a school.
Don't get me wrong, I've shared a picture of the Eiffel tower, and re-posted an image of Norwich City Hall lit up red white and blue, but these images are available for me to do so, and of course I am thinking about what has happened because it's abhorrent. I won't be changing my profile picture though.
Also, I'm proposing a new hashtag. Yes, I've used #avecparis, because of course I am with the people of France. But more than that, I am with the people of the world. I know it's a naive way of thinking, because evidently they're not - but surely humans are humans. We should all be 'with' each other.
And yet, even as I'm writing this, I'm reading reports of France sending fighter jets to drop bombs on Syria. As I've said before, I know nothing of the politics of this, but all I'm imagining is more dead people. Why is a dead Syrian ok, but a dead Parisian isn't? Fire doesn't put out fire as far as I'm aware.
Let's all just be nice to one another, be 'with' one another, lets concentrate on being the best human beings we can be, the best friends we can be, doing good deeds, living our lives mindfully and taking time to notice how bloody awesome things are, because as we've all been reminded of, people die too soon every single day, from cancer and dementia and motor neurone disease, and other things we can't so a single thing about.
Sometimes life is shit and scary enough without us humans killing each other because of what we believe in, or because of the way we think things should be.
#withoneanother
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