Love conquers all

Antoine Leiris writes an open letter to his wife’s killers on Facebook after attacks in Paris in November 2015. (Antoine Leiris)

By Korea.net Honorary Reporter Kelly Creuset

Korea.net has launched a new collaborative project with its honorary reporters around the world. Each honorary reporter will write a story on the same topic, but from each of their own home cities or countries. The stories will then be shared with our community of Korea.net readers.

For the first subject in the series, Korea.net asked our honorary reporters to send in a touching story from their home communities. Here's our 15th story on this subject, this time from France.

Concerning the attacks in Paris in November 2015, people were shocked and lost following those atrocities. Many videos of that evening were released via social media and some of the news created more fear and distress. Only a few people at that time reacted wisely and prayed for peace instead of more violence. 

Antoine Leiris is one of them. While he lost his wife in the attacks, the mother of his child, he decided to write an open letter to the attackers on his personal Facebook profile to tell them that, “You won’t get my hatred.” His letter went viral and inspired many people to help fight what the attackers wanted to get out of us.  While his sorrow could have lead him down the wrong path, his mind was clear enough to understand the situation and to turn something horrifying into a message for peace.

Antoine Leiris's open letter has been read more than 232,000 times, all over the world, and he has put his story into a book called 'You Will Not Have My Hate.' (ABC7)

“So, no, I will not give you the satisfaction of hating you. You want it, but to respond to hatred with anger would be to give in to the same ignorance that made you what you are.”

Most of us are hoping for a better world. Let’s focus on what is good in this world instead of what is pure evil.

As Fred Rogers said, "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."

wisdom117@korea.kr

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