IoS letters, emails and online postings (22 November 2015)

The horrific attacks in Paris mean that the people there have now had a personal experience of what has been daily life for those comprising the great tide of humanity on their desperate journey to what they hope will be a safe future.

While there is the danger that refugees will be regarded with fear and hostility, it is to be hoped that the reverse will be true. In all the shock and fear of the past few days, Parisians might pause to give thanks that this is only a brief episode, and consider what it must be like to live in terror every day. They are not being bombed by their own government, they have homes and jobs, with warmth and food and normal life. Hopefully this will bring a better understanding and a feeling of compassion and solidarity with those who have endured so much and now need respite from suffering.

Now it is up to governments to accept that the refugees need a massive effort involving resources and imagination to help them become a productive, secure new sector of European society, where they can make the most of their potential for the good of all. Many will want to return to their own countries when they are able, and need to form a good foundation for stability when they do. They need our help, and we will reap the rewards if we offer it with kindness and generosity.

Sierra Hutton-Wilson

Evercreech, Somerset

The flow of refugees is anathema to Daesh [Isis], undermining its message that its self-styled caliphate is a refuge. It has repeatedly put out messages to refugees ranging from pleading to warnings to threats. In just four days in September it released a dozen videos aimed at people fleeing Syria.

Roy Isserlis

Ormiston, East Lothian

The award-winning film The Class, about school life in multi-ethnic Paris, gives clues about how a terrorist can be formed. In the film a Malian boy, Souleymane, gets into a fight with his teacher. Souleymane has to attend a disciplinary hearing with his mother. His mother is very apologetic. However, the school expels him and he returns to Mali. We don’t learn what happens to Souleymane. Whether young men turn to violence or not, depends a lot on how they are treated by schools and other institutions.

Shouvik Datta

Bromley, Kent

Austerity measures are cutting our defence, security and police forces to the bone. The emergency services, which would have to deal with the carnage that follows an attack such as that seen in Paris, are overstretched, under-resourced and undervalued.

It should be apparent to all that a low tax, small-government mentality is not going to enhance the defence or security of this nation. A government that really cared would put the safety of the people first and make sure that everybody contributed to the cost according to their means. Wearing a poppy, kneeling to the Queen and sabre-rattling merely give the appearance of patriotism.

Alan Millington

Beverley, East Yorkshire

After 9/11 we reacted by bombing the Middle East and attacking our own liberties. There are calls to repeat this response. Why do we expect a different outcome?

Fainthearts are calling for a snoopers’ charter. France has a snoopers’ charter. Spying on everybody dilutes intelligence and allows criminals and terrorists to sneak through in the crowd. The answer is targetted surveillance not blanket snooping.

Barry Tighe

Woodford Green, Greater London

Tom McTague (“PM warns a strike on UK is highly likely”, 15 November) quotes the Stop the War Coalition that “Without decades of intervention by the US and its allies there would have been no ‘war on terror’ and no terrorist attacks in Paris”.

This claim, which has at least partial assent from both Tony Blair and Barack Obama, he finds “inflammatory” – why? Our mourning for Paris is not helped by hiding truth behind a fantasy of our blamelessness.

John Heawood

York