The first time I traveled to Paris, I stayed in a little dump of a hotel off the Canal St. Martin. The Place de la Republique and its environs became the first French playground for me and my new wife. When we retuned to the city five years later, it was the first place we visited even though our hotel that time was in a different part of town. I have magical memories of the park and the canal and all the avenues and little side streets leading into them. I can still remember every bar and restaurant we patronized, including the one that had been disappointingly and inexplicably converted into a Tex-Mex restaurant on our return visit.
I know other people have been directly impacted by these attacks. The assault on my memory is a small thing. And, yet, it saddens me.
On Sunday night, the sound of what may have been a firecracker, or a light fixture blowing a circuit breaker at a restaurant near the Place de la Republique, where a vigil was taking place, ignited an extraordinary panic. People stampeded out of restaurants, bars and stores across a two-mile-wide sector of the city as false warnings of gunshots erupted on Twitter. Some dived into news vans. Hotels turned off their lights as employees huddled behind chairs. One woman flung herself into the Canal St. Martin.
“Suddenly people were running and screaming everywhere, going in every direction,” said Omar Zahiri, a 50-year-old lawyer attending the vigil. “I said, ‘Stop running like a crazy person, calm down.’ But they didn’t. They kept running.”
I’d visit the Place de la Republique tomorrow if I could. I’d take my whole family there. It’s a wonderfully vibrant place. But, yeah, I’d have to be vigilant, and a firecracker might send me into survival mode. And that’s not the place I remember.
We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.
Absolutely! That’s why the reactions on blogs have become quite similar to reporters writing their pages for the MSM. The mess colonial powers have made in Africa and the Middle East before WWII has its effects generations later.
The pre-emptive bullshit of the US and its Congress is pure criminal. The choice to fight a war should be as a last resort. The mental damage to individuals, children cannot be healed in a lifetime. I have friends who were interned in Japanese camps in Indonesia as a young child. They are bodies with a broken soul, feelings and trust are completed shattered .. they have lived an insecure life.
In The Hague during my lifetime I have witnessed terror from the Bader Meinhof gang, Palestinians with their Japanese Red Army compatriots and a number of hostage takings from the movement to free Molucca. Indonesian people who were part of the Dutch colony, employed as KNIL military before its independence in 1948.
Similarly, other western European nations have issues with former decolonized states like Congo for Belgium and Algeria/Lebanon for France. Great Britain being a former global empire has its roots across the planet and especiaily in the Middle East and South-east Asia.
Mercenaries have been part of armed conflicts throughout hsitory. Guns for hire for money or an ideology … avoid violence and armed conflict. Once you choose policy for regime change, it’s like pandora’s box, it’s not easily closed. Arrogance of power comes before the fall of an empire. 😉
Why is isolation not an option? Because capitalists would have to forgo some profit?
One of my first memories of Paris is seeing soldiers with machine guns. I was 23, had never been to Europe, and had never seen a machine gun. They were guarding a place off the Champs Elysee. I know – the irony.
On of the things a couple of articles pointed out was where the attacks occured. The terrorists didn’t attack the historic landmarks, and they didn’t attack a church.
The attacked the places the young go – the heart of secularism and sin.
One writer noted:
This is who the terrorists regard as their enemy. The very existence of life freed from the tyranny of religion. An accommodation can be reached between the fundamentalist Christians and the fundamentalist Moslems.
But an accommodation with the secular young is much harder.
Also, no police standing around with machine guns at those venues, who might have shot back.
Most Americans have never been to Paris; they cannot afford it. Yet, they are terrorized as if they had. But Americans are much more likely to die from French fries than from terrorists.
It is fascinating how much the political power of terror is created by the witnesses to the terrorist act. Once we understand our own power to stop terrorism by not being terrorized, we will make better political decisions that will allow for better national security actions.
No national condemnation and not as big a terrorist strike, but of the same magnitude:
http://abc7chicago.com/news/mccarthy-weekend-shootings-groundhog-day-in-chicago/162880/
That was one weekend. I’m trying to find an annual total, but without success.
Many, if not most, of these victims are bystanders, small children, grandmothers, other people going about their lawful occasions.
I was visiting a friend living in Paris back a couple of decades ago. It was a time in Europe when some group or other was occasionally carrying out terrorist attacks. We were having lunch outdoors at a cafe somewhere, don’t recall where, in the heart of the city, when a sudden BOOM at some small distance jolted us and the diners around us.
People looked around, wondering. There were nervous titters, some neck-craning in the direction of the blast. I exchanged a grimace and shrug with a woman at a nearby table.
Then we all quietly went back to our meals. Because, really, what else was there to do?
○ PM Cameron Gives Full Support to Algeria in Hostage Crisis
○ Terrorists of Benghazi Raid Killed in Algerian Hostage Massacre
That could be it. Thanks!