Madonna considered canceling her Stockholm concert a day after the Islamic State attacks in Paris but pressed on, determined not to let terrorists trample her freedom. She paused for a lengthy tribute to the victims and to strike a note of defiance.
"I feel torn. Why am I up here dancing and having fun when people are crying over the loss of their loved ones?" she said. "However, that is exactly what these people want to do. They want to shut us up. They want to silence us. We won’t let them. We will never let them."
The Associated Press reports that French police have raided 168 locations across the country and detained nearly two dozen people as authorities identified more members of a sleeper cell said to be behind the Paris attacks that killed nearly 130 people and injured more than 350.
"French and Belgian jihadis — and at least one potential Syrian member — were being implicated Monday in what was the worst attack on French soil since World War II," the AP reports. "The mastermind is said to be a Belgian national linked to thwarted earlier attacks on a train and a French church."
Madonna performed the day after the attacks.
"I was going to cancel my show, but then I thought, why should I give that to them?" she said. "Why should I allow them to stop me and to stop us from enjoying freedom? All of the places where people were killed were places where people were having fun. People were enjoying themselves, eating in restaurants, dancing, singing, watching a soccer match.
"These are freedoms we take for granted of course, and we must not. They’re freedoms that we deserve. There is no one in this world who should have the right to stop us from doing what we love."
Here's a video clip posted by Guy Oseary:
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