Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Last Friday on the streets of Paris, we saw mass murder on a frightening scale. We saw multiple acts of cruelty intended to denigrate those killed and to challenge the way of life of the society in which they lived. Today, I join with others in expressing solidarity with the families and friends of the victims, as well as with the people of Paris and of France.

Since Friday we have heard something of the lives of those who were killed and the experience of those who lived through the events of that awful night. We have heard the stories of those young people who went out to enjoy a concert and never came home. Much of what happened was about young people in their early 20s setting out to kill other young people. We have heard the stories of those who went out to enjoy an evening with a partner or loved one, only to say goodbye forever on the blood-spattered floor of the Bataclan. We have heard stories of courage, of desperation, of kindness and of fear.

After the horror and the shock, we ask ourselves, why. Why would men look to treat their fellow men and women with such callous cruelty? Maybe they are psychopaths; maybe they are common criminals. In many ways, it would be easier for us to explain and to react if that were true. Whatever is true of the individuals who planned and carried out the attack on Paris, however, it is clear this was more than the individual acts of deranged people. This was a political act, a gesture of hatred, a challenge, an act carried out by a group, Daesh, which sees itself as our enemy and wants to destroy what we believe in.

It is a philosophy of hatred and intolerance. It enforces it with cruelty and uses acts of barbarity to attract others to its cause. This is an organisation which regards all those who disagree with it as apostates and treats them as subhuman. This is an organisation which enslaved, raped and denigrated Yazidi women unfortunate enough to live in the wrong place. This is an organisation which routinely forces children to commit murder, which has thrown gay men off the top of high buildings and encouraged its supporters to thrash their bodies in the streets below. This is an organisation which destroyed the architectural heritage of Palmyra and beheaded the renowned and elderly curator of the site in the public square.

Now it has brought its message of hatred to our European streets. It chose Paris, a city synonymous with culture, with debate, with openness, with joie de vivre. It chose Paris, which has for centuries been part of Europe’s gateway to the world, a city of diversity, which has opened its doors to millions of people from around the world in recent decades. In its fight with us, Daesh has targeted the home of the revolution, the home of the Enlightenment. It has targeted a city and a country which throughout its turbulent history has looked to give meaning to its eternal values of liberté, égalité, fraternité, solidaritié.

Like many others, the Irish people have looked to France for many years as we have struggled to define what it really means to be a republic. We know that behind the idealism of the words, there is a great deal of room for difference and debate. We know our tricolour of green, white and gold is based on France’s tricolour of red, white and blue. We chose that to be our symbol of our Republic and republicanism. We know liberty is not absolute and freedom brings with it responsibility. We know equality is a goal that cannot be achieved without sacrifice. We know fraternity entails embracing people who believe in values other than our own.

Therein lies the greatest challenge of all. Our belief in diversity obliges us to embrace those who do not want to be embraced. Our belief in freedom of speech obliges us to tolerate much that we regard as offensive. At what point, however, do we suspend our belief in tolerance and decide some beliefs or some people are simply intolerable? This is the essence of the challenge which the people and Government of France face in these coming months and years.

The French President, François Hollande, said yesterday that we cannot have liberty without security. He is right. If we are not safe in the streets, then we cannot enjoy the lifestyle of a diverse liberal republic.

In our efforts to defeat those who attack us, however, we risk the very republican values we are looking to defend. In Ireland we know the risks. We know terrorism cannot be allowed to win but we also know that some of the measures aimed at defeating terrorism run the risk of recruiting others to its cause. We know there is a balance to be struck and we should be forever conscious of the consequences of the decisions we take.

Our friends in France will do what they can to defeat the military threat of Daesh. After the events of Friday, the French people are entitled to expect nothing less. There are limits to what can be achieved through military action, however. Daesh will be defeated militarily someday and the sooner the better. There is another battle, however, one which must be won if the threat of extremism is to be defeated. That is the battle for the allegiance of our own citizens. That is the battle to defeat extremism, not just in the Middle East, but in the banlieuesof Paris, the backstreets of Brussels and in the Muslim communities of most of our major cities. This battle will not be won just by bombing Raqqa. It can only be truly won by defining our western society as one that is truly republican, one which imposes rights and responsibility in a way which is blind as to colour, religion, ethnicity and gender. We must be clear that the secular republic is not the enemy of Islam or of any religion. Equally, however, we must make it clear that we will not tolerate fascist beliefs just because those who espouse them seek to excuse their hatred for others by invoking religion and distorting its teachings.

The ties between Ireland and France are profound. Over the centuries, we looked to France for inspiration and support. More recently, contact between our peoples has become routine. Irish people in their tens of thousands have made their home in France, while many French people come and live here. We enjoy the same rights, the same lifestyle in many respects. We share the same games and many of the same values. We know the attacks on Paris are a threat to those values, which we share with our French friends and neighbours. Just as fascism and nazism threatened Paris until it was liberated, we will stand with the people of Paris and France as they look to deal with the new threat. We will stand with them in mourning and reflection. We will stand with them as they look to fight back, sometimes offering full-blooded support and other times advising caution as good friends should, but always on the same side.

This is not just a threat to Paris and France; it is also a threat to all of us who value the democracy of Europe, however flawed it may be. Many people here are very critical of it, understandably so, but, at the same time, we all enjoy valuable freedoms that some of the perpetrators of what happened on Friday were seeking to extinguish, not only in the regions they see as part of their world but on European soil also. That is a threat we can never not seek to bring to an end.

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