Beyond solidarité: How the West can respond to the Paris attacks

The events in Paris last Friday night are hard for modern and mostly secular Westerners to comprehend. How is it that the country of Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité could be subject to such targeted acts of gratuitous and apparently meaningless violence? The echoes of multicultural sentiments in modern Australia are chilling for what they appear to portend. Yet Australians want both to do something to show support for France and to address the evil scourge that is the so-called Islamic State, or Daesh.