The people who blew themselves and others up in Brussels ...

The people who blew themselves and others up in Brussels did so in a way that bears questioning. The targets were hardly high status or specific. These were the softest of soft targets, and the killing was without anything one could call discrimination. It was simple butchery.

What can we do with people who just want to kill someone, anyone, and themselves too? We can’t do much, because anyone who embarks on this course of action is already beyond anything we could consider rational thinking.

What we can do is quietly reassert human decency. We can be kind to each other.

We can also choose to remember that Brussels is stronger than this. Its people withstood an occupation by the Kaiser’s armies in World War One. It survived the Nazi occupation in the war that followed. And it did so without ceasing to be populated by decent human beings.

This is a strong city, stronger than the cowardly acts we’ve just witnessed. We must remember – we are stronger than these actions because we know how to be kind.