Give in to fear and live like a dangling bat!

In normal circumstances, we want to maintain our equilibrium by having our feet on the ground. Such stability is needed for us to do all the normal things we enjoy or perhaps take for granted like: work, rest, drive, wine and dine, sell and shop, bank, fly, play and cheer, chat and laugh etc.,

That is until someone deliberately chucks hailstones on or steers a hurricane towards you in an attempt to disrupt your sense of normality. Acts of bullying, domestic violence, slavery, dictatorship and terrorism all aim to achieve one thing: to get you to dangle like a bat in fear. Then comes Mr Antoine Leiris who after losing his wife and being left alone with a one year old son in the wake of the Paris attacks, has decided to defy such imposition of fear. Instead of letting the stranglehold of fear to dictate his life, he has in quite a remarkable way decided to reclaim his normality in honour of his wife but also in defiance to a bat-like regime that requires not only him but the entire society to live in fear and hatred.

That said, we know that point-blank defiance (often accompanied with the deployment of military force) is only a starting point in a long process that requires us to use our most powerful weapon (education according to Nelson Mandela) to change attitudes. Reclaiming the ground of normality through education will also require more than spreading the values that need to be adopted but also making a convincing case about why we have to adopt some virtues such as tolerance among many others.