#PrayforParis

The deadliest terrorist attack in Europe since 7/7 can only be described as sickening, vile, twisted, evil... Please, feel free to add to the list.

I will never understand terrorists. How can anyone justify the taking of innocent lives? And for what? As revenge? For your own personal political beliefs? It's just wrong. Ordinary people, who were just looking to have a nice evening at a restaurant, a concert,  a football match, suddenly gone. Just like that.

These militant attacks have been happening for a while now across the world and to be honest, I thought it was just another 'small'  vengeance assault (and just to be clear, that does not make it okay). But as the evening unfolded, I couldn't have been further from the truth.

Several attacks taking place at the same time, hostages taken, people slaughtered in restaurants and a concert hall, explosions near a stadium containing 80,000 people. I was thinking to myself, 'How did the intelligence service not know what was going to happen?', "How many more planned attacks are there?", "How many people are going to die?". If it wasn't for a particular steward, one bomber would have gone into the Stade de France and would have killed 80,000 people including the French President. Tens more hostages could have easily been killed as well.

Trying to keep updated, I learned of what was happening in Mexico, Japan and Lebanon and just like thousands of people I was thinking, "We live in a horrible world".

They definitely struck fear into god knows how many people. I imagine people in the centre of major cities this week and the next will have the thought dying in an attack at the back of their mind. Rumours have circulated about London being next, then Washington D.C. No one is safe sadly.

Yet the world came together in solidarity and in prayer. The colours of the French Flag covering most of the world's landmarks, the hashtag #PrayforParis and the spreading of #PorteOuverte on social media to allow people to seek shelter in Paris that fateful night. Touching yet sad that this had to happen.

Paris was dark, but the world was lit up for them.

The word 'Muslims' trended for a few hours that night and at first glance, I got angry. 'I bet people are blaming Muslims again for the actions of a splinter group' but were they? Well sadly there are some ignorant idiots who want to use even times like this to express their racist views but effectively every tweet was defending Muslims in some way or at least expressing support and sympathy for them as we all finally spoke out what 99.9% of the world knew already: TERRORISM HAS NO RELIGION.

I have not seen it often enough to be honest. Our generation, which is often branded as reckless and wild, universally showed our support for peace and diversity whilst showing sympathy and respect to the fallen. It helped many I'm sure to realise how precious life is and the task we're facing at defeating extremism.

Terrorism can be defeated. But how? I don't know. Bloodshed will continue and innocent lives will be lost before this is over but we've already shown we can stand together in solidarity in the face of adversity. Terrorists still don't seem to get that whenever there are racially or politically motivated attacks like this, they bring people even closer together. No race wars or stuff like that begin. We're not going to back down and let evil militants play with our fear.

Rest in peace to all that died.
Keep on praying for our world.