How The Terrorists Win

This thought from Waleed Aly was shared by J. K. Doyle:

Terrorism is, above all, a test of character for the community that suffers at the hands of terrorism. The very worst people in the world have come to take away our humanity. What are we going to do about it?

The community that keeps its values in the face of hate and fear wins. What do they win? They win the war, the contest of wills, they win the proof of the superiority of their values, and they win the freedom to be free.

The community that that loses its values in the face of hate and fear loses. What do they lose? They lose their freedoms. They lose their peace. They lose the differences that differentiate from the Terrorists, and they lose the war of ideas, because they become their enemies.

If Terrorists want you to be afraid, then fearing them hands them the victory. If Terrorists want you to hate, then hating them is the same as importing terrorism into your community. When you are willing to do anything to the people willing to do anything to you, you’ve ceased to be you, you’ve become them. 

See also Don Burrows’ post “Kicking the Samaritan” which makes the same points as the tweet below even just through its title.

And if you haven’t seen it, don’t miss the article about what one journalist learned from interviewing captured ISIS fighters.

Finally, here it the video that the quote from Waleed Aly comes from: