For many of us on getting up on Saturday, hearing the news of the attacks in Paris caused again a note of fear or frustration. Be it in Iraq or London or Bali, or the steps of an office in Parramatta, or a plane blown up mid-air, such violence has too often become part of life.
The forces of violent intolerance appear to be on the rise in many parts of the world. The Middle East, parts of Africa, and the Ukraine feature almost daily in the news. We struggle too, with the appropriate response to such violence, balancing security with civil rights, taking the fight to its bases, while addressing the causes of such violence.
In many of these conflicts religious difference constitutes an important element in the conflict. Some commentators point to religion as the cause of many of humankind's wars. In a sense they are correct, as they would be also if they ascribed war to humankind's quest for liberty, equality, justice, or even love. It is a paradox of the human condition that that which is noblest in the human often gives way to violence and intolerance.
This of course does not negate the value of justice or liberty, any more than it does of religion. Christians look to the reality of sin and its impact on our humanity as the explanation for this paradox.
Naturally enough our media is full of commentary and reactions to the events in Paris. How are we supposed to react to such an attack? I was struck by a post of a student on Facebook. Cormac wrote:
'Today is a day where we need to refrain from accusing Islam and Muslim people in general for being people of hatred, terror and violence, because they most definitely are not.
'Today is a day where need to show to the disgusting human beings who committed these atrocious acts, and who do not represent the values of Islam and the Muslim community in any way, shape or form, that we will not allow for hatred, terror and violence to breed further hatred, terror and violence.
'Today is a day where need to showcase our solidarity as a society and as a people.
'So please, I beg of you, do not point the finger at Islam, point the finger at the evil people who were truly behind these attacks. The evil people whose only true faith is in the power of terror and violence. We need to show them that there is no power in terror or violence, that their faith is horribly misplaced.
'May all those who tragically perished rest in peace and may their loved ones have comfort in this time of horrible grief.'
Cormac speaks to what is best in us. Islam is a massive, diverse and complex reality in our world. There is much that is noble in the faith, and millions follow its precepts devoutly in their ordinary and peaceful lives. I would argue a little differently than Cormac, and take more seriously the religious foundation of IS in the extreme Islamic beliefs of a small but important section of the Islamic world. Nevertheless, Cormac's point about the nature of fear leading to attacks on all Muslims, or on a religion itself, is valid.
In contrast to Cormac's comments, Pauline Hanson was on the news arguing that Australians need to feel protected, and that we should not take in the 12,000 Syrian refugees committed to by the federal government. Fear is a terrible counsellor. She conveniently ignores the fact that many of these refugees are themselves victims of IS, just as sure as were those killed in Paris.
This is partly an issue for our media that seems to ignore an ongoing record of atrocities by IS that almost weekly matches those witnessed in Paris.
Hanson ignores the fact that many of the 12,000 will be from religious minorities that face genocidal attacks from IS — the Yezidi, Assyrian Christians, Druze and so on. She ignores the fact that each of the 12,000 will be processed by the government with background checks etc. (a position different from that of the tide of desperate people pouring into Europe).
There will be those who seek to exploit our fears to promote racist or isolationist views, which are both ignorant and dangerous. At the same time, the attack in Paris, and community reactions to it, challenge those who argue for essentially an open boarder approach. They ignore the realities of legitimate fears, and risk not only the rise of extremist political movements, but put in danger the very social cohesion of countries which is essential for the ongoing and successful resettlement of those in need.
The reality also is that we ignore to our own peril the situation on the ground in Syria and Iraq. Military, political and diplomatic efforts need to continue for the sake not only of the peoples of Iraq and Syria, but also for all of us.
Some of the issues associated with Paris go beyond the big geo-political level, to speak to our common human condition. Nobel laureate Alice Munroe's insight that 'there are no such things as big and little subjects' resonates with me.
'The major things,' she goes on to say, 'the evils that exist in the world have a direct relationship to the evil that exists around a dining room table when people are doing things to each other.' We can all wear the faces of intolerance: cynicism, apathy and indifference, hostility and prejudice.
Intolerance can be addressed in a number of ways.
Firstly, we need to see and accept difference as a good. What a boring and mundane world we would live in if it were without difference, if we all had the same interests, abilities, personalities. Secondly, we can seek to understand others, be they another culture, another viewpoint, another personality. It is a great gift to be able to see the other side, to understand where someone is coming from.
Thirdly, there is a virtue that St Ignatius was fond of; he used to stress that the Christian should look for the good in the other, rather than to look for the bad. Finally, we need to focus on the virtue of global solidarity, or as author Clifford Longley in the Tablet put it, 'the mental habit of seeing the entire human race as one family, every brother and sister responsible for every other'.
Longley refers to Pope John Paul II's articulation of this principle of solidarity, and how in the Pope's thinking limiting solidarity to one's own kind was a kind of sacrilege, an offence against the deep religious conviction that every human being on the planet is equally loved and valued by God.
In response to this truth John Paul II urged 'a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all'. Such a sentiment remains a bedrock principle of the Christian world view.
Chris Middleton SJ is the Rector at Xavier College, Kew, in Melbourne.