You’ve changed your avatar – so what?

So you made your own little statement.

You made your Facebook profile picture turn into a French flag.

Maybe you’ve shared some quote GIFs from fucking Ghandi or something.

Perhaps you even shared something that said “Je Suis Pairs” or similar.

Oh you put John Lennon on?

So what? Have a sticker.

Your little social media grief episode does nothing to address the reason why a bunch of deluded humans killed a bunch of other humans this week.

What did you do when our Government launched an illegal war that catalysed the growth of ISIS?

When one country thinks it has the God-given right to a piece of land and massacres any who get in it’s way, do you demand your Government acts?

Do you boycott or support the economies of countries who are well known for their human rights abuses, or merrily go to their holiday spots?

When your fellow citizens are denied the universal human right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty and the right to a fair trail do you celebrate that, or despair at the erosion of human rights for all of us.

If your government engages in mass, unfettered, indiscriminate surveillance of you and your neighbours, do you blindly accept their arguments about having “nothing to hide” or do you stand up for the basic principles of liberty and justice?

What do you do when your children, and your neighbour’s children, have no choice but to attend schools that are proven to be divisive?

When a country curtails freedom of religion and expression in the name of (and therefore completely botching it’s attempt at) secularism, do you cry out?

The actions of ISIS in France this week were horrific and inexcusable. The same goes for the actions of ISIS everywhere.

But don’t fall into the trap of being as hypocritical as “western” governments. Whether it’s foreign or domestic policy, the Governments of the nations fighting this so-called “war on terror” are hypocrites.

They speak of defending our freedoms whilst simultaneously eroding them.

They speak of human rights while denying them to their own citizens.

If we want to rid the world of terrorists we should live by the rules we want the entire world to live by, and challenge those who don’t – whether they are terrorists, or our own governments.