No one is born a monster

The terrible events in Paris have left many shaken who are oblivious to horrors elsewhere in the world happening on a regular basis.  I’m shaken too, because it feels close, we readily identify with the victims… we’re reminded of things that happened closer to home.

But I’m most upset because no one is born a monster, they become one.  And I still struggle to understand how anyone becomes so alienated and so desperate that they can commit such terrible acts.  But we owe it to each other to try to find out, and to never be part of the problem, and to remember there is an overarching WE rather than a them and us.

Some of you will shake your heads at the last bit, but then what is the alternative?  Once you decide someone is “them”, you’ve devalued their lives… you no longer care what happens to them.  Those who opened fire in Paris last night didn’t see anyone apart from “them” either.

I was struck by something else reading the headlines tonight – that passports were found on the terrorists.  Why would anyone do that?  Take the risk that anyone they cared about would be hounded to the ends of the Earth for what they had done?  Unless they had no one left?