After this week’s horrific terror attack on Paris, we commissioned artist Stacy Bias to depict the intentions of ISIS in targeting ordinary French civilians. The far right both in France and abroad is already mobilizing to use this tragedy for an Islamophobic agenda, with French National Front leader Marine Le Pen using deliberately warlike language, while across the Atlantic, senior GOP politicians are ranting about Muslims and trying to twist it into an argument for more guns.
A silver lining amid the horror and the cynicism is that people across the world are answering back with confidence and dignity. Fascists in Lille demonstrating today against Islam were chased out of town, and social media is alight with the thoughtful responses of a population who is already prepared to fight the forces of reaction and hatred that ISIS is trying to activate.
