In December, it crushed the Commune of Guangzhou ( Commune de Canton ).

As with a sword in my bones, my adversaries reproach me, while they continually ask me, Where is your God?

As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?

So, to cut a long story short, I went home, went underneath the microscope, and I crushed up a piece of glass, crushed it up.

This is what the Israeli government tried to achieve in Lebanon by smashing Hezbollah in 2006.

His foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, had already threatened to crush the PA government on the West Bank if the UN vote went ahead.

All totalitarian systems have one thing in common by crushing all forms of political expression except adulation of the regime, they make everything political.

Crass tribalism now threatens to overwhelm all that unites us in our common care for our children, our planet, and our future.

Thousands of ordinary citizens defied the tanks when Marcos threatened to crush People Power with force, but the presence of priests and nuns gave the rebellion its moral authority.

The cost of non intervention, of allowing Qaddafi to crush his own people, and of thus signaling to the world s despots that a campaign of domestic terror is acceptable, is far more menacing.

Chai Ling said she had forgiven Deng Xiaoping and Li Peng who had ordered the people's army to wipe out the students and Beijing residents at Tiananmen Square in 1989, as well as the current leadership of China who continue to suppress people.

Now, more than ever, we must believe this, for Russian troops wearing Ukrainian uniforms have entered our country, because Ukrainian soldiers are refusing to carry out orders to crush those who are demonstrating to defend our democracy.

In short, when we're thinking like academics, we regard people as elaborate and complicated machines, like computers or cars, but when we revert to being human we behave more like Basil Fawlty, who, we remember, thrashed his car to teach it a lesson when it wouldn't start on gourmet night.

All those young men and women cut down in Paris must not have been slaughtered in vain. Their deaths should challenge us to make sure that Paris, the city of light, will help to banish the darkness that threatens to overwhelm the century ahead.