As we make our way to Kerala on holiday, I notice on the flight map that I am flying across Turkey along the Northern boundary of Syria and Iraq – must be Kurdistan.It’s a strange feeling this weekend of all weekends with the awful events in Paris.

It is hard to think that below us, there is a world of fear. There is a land of desperation with families making the agonising choice to leave their homes and take their families on a migration to the unknown.

To bring added poignancy I have just read the New Statesman article about the threat that IS poses to Britain. It was not a pleasant read as it is peppered with the most horrific images of the barbaric murders committed by their followers. We will all have thought long and hard about how it is possible for humans to perpetrate such obscene crime and see so little value in human life. We should not be surprised. It has happened through the centuries from the time of mediaeval England to the excesses of Nazi Germany and Pol Pot’s Cambodia.

The feeling I have is the same one I had so many years ago when sitting on a beach in Tanzania after taking a school trip to Dodoma and Dar. It was the time of the Rwanda genocide and I had just read Ferghal Keane’s ‘Letter to Daniel’ There I was sitting on a white beach next to an azure sea reading how at the same time mutilated bodies were floating out of the country into Lake Victoria. So again here I go on an adventure to Kerala whilst the world is in turmoil.

You also get a further guilt trip. Writing this is no response to the wickedness below. Feeling bad about the whole thing is not a response. Watching the scenes of sorrow in France and changing my Facebook page to incorporate the French tricolour may be signs of solidarity but is that enough or just a way to feel better about the situation. A couple of quotes come to mind.
“All it requires for evil is for succeed is for good men to ignore it and do nothing”
and
“First they came for the Jews and I said nothing, then they came for the disabled and I said nothing, then they came for the homosexuals and I said nothing, then they came for the priests and I said nothing…..then they came for me”

I suspect that the mess we are in is a culmination of the sins of so many leaders going back decades. We have records of appeasement rather than reconciliation. We show scant understanding of the cultures and sensitivities of other peoples. We divided nations on arbitrary lines convenient for us. We armed dictators because it served our own interests and then turned against them for similar reasons. We create conditions for hate and evil to succeed.

And it goes on and on. At the very moment of this week’s massacre in Paris, the Daily Mail has decided without doubt that one of the terrorists came into France through Greece as a supposed refugee. If true it is not a surprise. Better as well to remind ourselves that these are the very people Syrian families are fleeing from. What we see in Paris is nothing compared to the horror they have witnessed and persists. Here is yet another example of where we in the West have leaders who largely manage their own interests rather than take a moral position for the good of others.

The Labour Party recently elected Jeremy Corbyn as their leader. I suspect that this was as much to do with a refreshing attitude with a strong personal moral commitment rather than any belief he will be a good leader to take the party to success in the future. We need both strength and compassion. Sometimes this means sacrificing once own interests for the greater good. Here aren’t many Gandhis or Mandelas.

So where does this rant leave me. What is a citizen to do? It seems hopeless. You feel so small. Here’s my agenda
Try to understand fully why we got to this point. Information and knowledge is important if you want to argue with others and stand for what is right. Watch Lawrence of Arabia and how back then in the first world war he came in his unique way to understand the Arab values and interests, yet was dismissed by arrogant British and French self interest.

Pray. Drawing back to one’s faith and what it teaches is is what gives you personal power. Love conquers all. Turn the other cheek. Help the least of these. All of these teachings should guide our moral position. Believe in the power of prayer.
Take every opportunity with the people you know to argue the case for reconciliation.
I probably think that in the short term this may mean supporting unpalatable decisions about fighting evil. But we need to push for a wide decision of all those many civilised world powers so is is not based on the usual Western interests. Of course we need to do this to protect ourselves, but so much more important to do it for those facing the brunt of the aggression.
It may be the right strategy to try and provide homes for those in the refugee camps of Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey but to have any impact on stemming the tide of human misery on the long walk across Europe, we need to step it up. Not a few 1000 but many thousands. We can all help in our own communities and homes and churches. Other countries like Sweden and Germany have stepped up. Can’t we?
We have a vote. We have the power to influence so many in the world do not. We must use it in every way we can.

All this seems barely enough? History tells us that evil does not persist but reinvents itself when we are not vigilant.. The New Statesman posed the thought that IS have taken the hate to a new generation when only a couple of years ago with the Arab Spring seemed to offer hope of an amelioration in the area. Now young people have been recruited to a new cause and filled with the ideology of hate. Taking a more moral position rather than one of self interest might have been able to harness that young idealism differently.

We are asked to ensure the school curriculum now embraces British values. Is not tolerance of diversity one of those values.