The Dalai Lama has said, "Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive."
The opposite of love is fear. On a personal level, those who love and show compassion to others tend to be happier. Those who perpetrate fear feel are in a constant fight or flight mode.
We are designed to live under this stress for only short periods of time when it is necessary for our survival, but constant negative stress is not good for our well-being. The same is true of societies.
We are facing a time in history when we have a clear choice as to how we are going to respond to troubles in the world. Daesh (also known as the Islamic State, ISIS or ISIL) is preaching a message of fear of infidels, and at the moment it looks like they are thriving.
If we scratch the surface, however, we see that the greatest threat to their success is the compassion of these same "unbelievers."
Nicholas Henin is a French journalist who was held captive by Daesh for 10 months.
He refers to the international response to the refugee crisis as a "blow to ISIS."
Here we have unbelievers welcoming people fleeing from their ideal Islamic State. He also speculates that the attacks in Paris were an effort to turn sentiments against those fleeing.
The fact that the majority of Westerners, though expressing legitimate concerns over security issues, continue to welcome those fleeing the Middle East is an added blow to Daesh.
We can only imagine the impact of international headlines of Canada celebrating the arrival of these new
immigrants.
Henin further states that coalition bombing of northern Syria and Iraq is "pushing people into the hands of ISIS."
He calls for a no-fly zone in the region, and efforts to engage the local population. If we can do so, Daesh will lose its legitimacy. By responding with compassion, we prove to the population that the lies of fear are completely unsubstantiated.
The other alternative, of course, is to make Daesh pay for their crimes.
It seems to make sense. They hurt us, so we hurt them back and we make sure that they can never hurt us again.
Looking through history, we see that this approach can be disastrous. The Treaty of Versailles, for example, made Germany pay for the First World War.
This brought about incredible hardship and created conditions which resulted in the rise of radical nationalism, and then the carnage of the Second World War.
The end of the Second World War, in contrast, gave rise to the European Recovery Program, better known as the Marshall Plan. This American initiative allowed German industry to rebuild.
The result has been more peace and prosperity than the European continent has ever known. Germany has become a world economic leader and a nation known for its humanitarianism.
Daesh will eventually destroy itself if it continues on its current path, violent dictatorships always fall, but it can take many years. The global response to them will determine how quickly this happens and how much havoc they wreak upon the planet.
Fear leads to violence and isolationism. Love and compassion lead to peace and prosperity.
Which will we choose?
