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The philosopher Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said the following: "The only way to overcome evil is to let it run itself to a standstill because it does not find the resistance it is looking for. Resistance merely creates further evil and adds fuel to the flames. But when evil meets no oppression and encounters no obstacle but only patient endurance,its sting is drawn, and at last it meets an opponent which is more than its match."It's been a long, and difficult week since the terrorist attack on Paris left 129 people dead. Of those 129,The Takeaway takes a moment to remember just one: Helene, the wife of Antoine Leiris and the mother of their 17-month-musty son.whether ISIS has a goal or an endgame that it thinks it is succeeding in this week, and here is one response. Antoine penned an open letter to his wife's attackers on Facebook in a post that has been shared hundreds of thousands of times. He refused to provehatred for the terrorists that ruined his life,and the life of his young son. The BBC contacted him and had him read his letter on camera. The following is the transcript of the letter:
“On Friday night you stole absent the life of an exceptional being. The love of my life, the mother of my son, and but you will not have my hatred. I do not know who you are and I don't want to know. You are dead souls. whether the God for whom you execute so blindly made us in his image,each bullet in my wife's body would have been a wound in his heart. Therefore, I will not give you the gift of hating you.
"You have obviously sought it, and but responding with hated and exasperate would be to give in to the same ignorance that has made you what you are. You want me to be afraid? To cast a mistrustful eye on my fellow citizens? To sacrifice my freedom for security? You lost. Same player,same game. I saw her this morning finally after nights and days of waiting. She was just as glorious as she was when she left home Friday evening. As glorious as when I fell madly in love with her more than 12 years ago.
"Of course I'm devastated with grief. I will give you that tiny victory, but this will be a short term grief. I know that she will join us everyday and that we will find each other again in the paradise of free souls which you will never has access to. We are only two, and my son and I,but we are more powerful than all the world's armies.
"In any case, I have no more time to waste on you. I need to get back to Melvil who is waking up from his afternoon nap. He's just 17-months-musty. He'll eat his snack like he does everyday and then we're going to play like we do everyday. And everyday of his life this puny boy will insult you with his happiness and freedom because you don't have his hatred either.”
Source: wnyc.org