Everyone's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's really an easy way: Stop participating in it. - Noam Chomsky

We are humans, I think. Different from other animals. Different because we mourn humans we don't know, we mourn humans we never even met.

We mourn them if we see them like Aylan Kurdi, washed up on our sand. We mourn them more if we see their faces, and if their faces look like ours, and if their clothes are fashionable and match our own dress sense. We mourn them because they remind us of ourselves. We grieve for ourselves.

We don't mourn the ones sucked dry by the treacherous sun and sizzling sands of the Sahara, the ones on whom freedom is forced prematurely and eternally. The women raped senseless in Agadez, the children sold into slavery. We do not mourn these humans for we never get to see their faces because they wouldn't have one would they? The vultures make sure of that.

They are just bones in a desert. Not even a statistic. They are never counted because you do not count what doesn't count.

Face or no face, enough with mourning. Mourning is a luxury we might no longer afford.

It is time to put up a fight.

The fight does not start with Kalashnikovs. It might have to end with fire of the physical sort but it has to start with fire of the spirit.

For to fight, it is not enough for us to know what we are fighting against.

We have to know what we are fighting FOR.

Not only do we have to know what we are fighting for but we need to be equipped with the most powerful weapon - the weapon of conviction: the deep seated consolation that what we are fighting for is worth the pain and the sacrifice.

Let's have a look at what drives the terrorists who are convinced they can prevail. Let us imagine what motivates a healthy young man, in his prime, born and bred in Paris with a whole life ahead of him, who is fully aware that he is gazing into his own eyes for the last time, as he peers into his car mirror, seconds before proceeding to fasten his belt replete with explosives tightly to his lean healthy body, carefully concealing the Kalashnikov under his jacket, just a few minutes before coldly showering an unsuspecting happy crowd of young people with death , until his own time runs out.

Let me cite a couple of explanations from terrorists.

I will start with Hassan alSmeik, leader of the cell that plotted to kill 80,000 Jordanians in a chemical weapons attack.

"Terrorism is a badge of honour on our chests until Judgement Day. In the name of Allah, we're pursuing the path of jihad until we uproot you; exterminate your state until the rule of the king vanishes. We follow the steps of the Prophet (Muhammad)... Allah is our Lord; you have none.

Note the last three words: "you have none." From the Netherlands, "What moved me to do what I did was purely my faith. I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and his Prophet." That was from Mohammed Bouyeri, explaining in court why he stabbed Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh to death. Bouyeri was holding a Qur'an

Spain: "Allah, may he be praised, said... 'Kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from where they have driven you out; for internal strife [Fitna] is worse than killing.'"

The Quranic verse quoted by the Abu Hafs Al-Masri Brigades in explaining the murder of 202 Madrid train commuters.

I can bore you with many more examples , which will be useless, or I can ask you to read Hassan al Smeik again. He is convinced that our weak point is that non-extremists, including non-fundamentalist Muslims, not least due to our different religions and cultures, have no single common value that can forge a bond between nations that is strong enough to withstand the onslaught of a unified anti-human global terrorist force that has hijacked Islam to provide it with the necessary raison d'etre to deliver. Hassan and his ilk go on and on about annihilation of civilisation as we know it, homogenisation of human kind by eradication of different cultures "...exterminate your state until the rule of the king vanishes."

Now it is obvious that we are all against what these deprived terrorists are about. We are against their bloody antics and twisted reasoning, by which they justify the enslavement and destruction of entire ancient Iraqi tribes, human trafficking and sex-enslaving of women and children, torture and beheading of Christians and non-collaborating Muslims, systematic destruction of world heritage sites like Palmyra, and the list goes on.

But what will forge together an alliance of reason strong enough to withstand them and wipe them out from the face of the earth, is our willingness to fight, each in our own way but ultimately together, our resolve to fight for what we stand for.

Now here is the trick, because we are no longer Crusaders and Christianity does not fire enough of us anymore, what is there to unite us now? What do we stand for? We stand for protection and dignity for human life from beginning to end.

We stand for human rights for all, whether it's a woman, child, man, disabled, or homosexual;

We stand for democracy;

We stand for universal suffrage;

We stand for freedom of expression;

We stand for freedom of religious expression;

We stand for secularism, pluralism;

We stand for cultural diversity and multiculturalism;

We stand for clean accountable governance, justice and fair distribution of wealth;

We stand for nurturing the roots from which the Rule of Law grows and spreads; And there is more to the list. These are the values that we have to remind ourselves not to take for granted, and be ready to stand for and fight for.

Those among us who are terrified but fail to stand up and be counted when these unifying values are being jeopardised around us, far and near, will be abetting the spread of anti-human behaviour, and nurturing the soil for radicalisation of more young minds, by doing nothing to make the world a safer place where humanity can flourish in dignity.

Doing nothing will not keep us safe. We can help tackle the root of terrorism by standing by what is humanly right. That way we will be dealing a blow to invisible, subtle, faceless terrorism, as well as the explosive, rocking, Bataclan terror.

I will conclude by quoting this Japanese businessman who sums what has been historically proven time and time again, and then I will leave you to your thoughts.

"If we destroy human rights and the rule of law in the response to terrorism, they have won."- Joichi Ito