The truck driver who ran over little children in Nice — who were just having fun with their families — didn’t care whom he ran over. He ran over the last tendrils of hope that good would triumph over evil.
That driver did not care about the faith or beliefs or nationalities of those he mowed down. To him they were targets. Equal in his eyes.
It is one of the paradoxes of our times that even as terrorism is spreading, those fighting it with maximum casualties are Muslim countries. Whether it is in Syria or Iraq, Afghanistan or Yemen, the front-line troops taking on extremism are Muslims.
Every time something like this happens the innocent pays the price. A Muslim traveling to Europe today with his family will seriously consider turning back.
How many of the 800,000 Tunisians who live in France will cower in their homes just in case grief heats into rage and the mob prowls the streets.
By natural progression all brown people, people with beards, people with Muslim names, women in veils, children afraid to go to school, cabbies not prepared to drive out and truckers standing down.
Tourism drops, jobs are lost, business suffers and the divide gets wider. In fact, in essence so long as suspicion can be sown between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim rest, the terrorist will always have an edge.
What about the messages such acts give to possible leaders of the free world like Donald Trump who has the best election machine in the terrorist. He does not even have to even canvas votes. In one horrifying act this maniac told us, the world, that we are not safe from the agony of terrorism — none of us.
You don’t need bombs and suicide bombers. You can create mayhem from behind a wheel. You do not need elaborate planning you just scythe your way through human life.
This is how vulnerable we are! One man and his vehicle on a deadly mission gets up in the morning finds his vehicle keys, starts the engine and ploughs through human beings like they were made of plasticine. This is horror beyond comprehension.
In the 1970s when the spate of hijackings made flying scary we were told nothing could get worse. Airports were the only dicey public place. Then came the bomb blasts on trains and buses followed by the suicide bombers and hit squads and the hostage taking and the soft underbelly targets of malls, hotels, cinemas, fairs and sports events.
Now we know the truth. There is no haven, no refuge and no place safe for us. The entire planet has become a battlefield.
Forget about travel. You have to worry about going shopping. Scared if your family members do not answer their mobile phone, an engaged tone, this is not paranoia, this is real. Searing chill if they are an hour late. Shopping arcades are dangerous. Schools are a favorite and transportation is now a conveyor of death.
Enough with the VIP condemnations and the expression of sorrow in the aftermath. This does not wash any more. No more je suis anything. All that cute stuff is passé. We are in peril, snap out of it. All that brave sloganeering by elected reps is papier mache as a defense against those who kill at will. The world has to wake up to the fact that there is a common enemy out there and it is a disease. This madness has virally moved from the swampland to the mainstream and a vaccine has to be found. There is nothing here by way of faith or belief or some damn shining path to glory. This is just total insanity and everyone is a possible victim.
With each act of depravity some of these leaders still don’t get the message. Come together as one or continue to mumble eulogies that have lost their value. Unless every nation gets on to the same page and begins a concerted effort to strike back and take on this hydra headed monster of terrorism both structured and individual by creating a global defense this truck will spawn more trucks, more deaths, more fear because there is no cause to justify such destruction.
The random factor is so overpowering now that we can only pray we are not in the way. Pointless lighting candles and holding midnight vigils or going to a house of worship to pray. They could all be targets. In fact they have been. There is nothing sacred anymore. Not even little children.
That driver did not care about the faith or beliefs or nationalities of those he mowed down. To him they were targets. Equal in his eyes.
It is one of the paradoxes of our times that even as terrorism is spreading, those fighting it with maximum casualties are Muslim countries. Whether it is in Syria or Iraq, Afghanistan or Yemen, the front-line troops taking on extremism are Muslims.
Every time something like this happens the innocent pays the price. A Muslim traveling to Europe today with his family will seriously consider turning back.
How many of the 800,000 Tunisians who live in France will cower in their homes just in case grief heats into rage and the mob prowls the streets.
By natural progression all brown people, people with beards, people with Muslim names, women in veils, children afraid to go to school, cabbies not prepared to drive out and truckers standing down.
Tourism drops, jobs are lost, business suffers and the divide gets wider. In fact, in essence so long as suspicion can be sown between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim rest, the terrorist will always have an edge.
What about the messages such acts give to possible leaders of the free world like Donald Trump who has the best election machine in the terrorist. He does not even have to even canvas votes. In one horrifying act this maniac told us, the world, that we are not safe from the agony of terrorism — none of us.
You don’t need bombs and suicide bombers. You can create mayhem from behind a wheel. You do not need elaborate planning you just scythe your way through human life.
This is how vulnerable we are! One man and his vehicle on a deadly mission gets up in the morning finds his vehicle keys, starts the engine and ploughs through human beings like they were made of plasticine. This is horror beyond comprehension.
In the 1970s when the spate of hijackings made flying scary we were told nothing could get worse. Airports were the only dicey public place. Then came the bomb blasts on trains and buses followed by the suicide bombers and hit squads and the hostage taking and the soft underbelly targets of malls, hotels, cinemas, fairs and sports events.
Now we know the truth. There is no haven, no refuge and no place safe for us. The entire planet has become a battlefield.
Forget about travel. You have to worry about going shopping. Scared if your family members do not answer their mobile phone, an engaged tone, this is not paranoia, this is real. Searing chill if they are an hour late. Shopping arcades are dangerous. Schools are a favorite and transportation is now a conveyor of death.
Enough with the VIP condemnations and the expression of sorrow in the aftermath. This does not wash any more. No more je suis anything. All that cute stuff is passé. We are in peril, snap out of it. All that brave sloganeering by elected reps is papier mache as a defense against those who kill at will. The world has to wake up to the fact that there is a common enemy out there and it is a disease. This madness has virally moved from the swampland to the mainstream and a vaccine has to be found. There is nothing here by way of faith or belief or some damn shining path to glory. This is just total insanity and everyone is a possible victim.
With each act of depravity some of these leaders still don’t get the message. Come together as one or continue to mumble eulogies that have lost their value. Unless every nation gets on to the same page and begins a concerted effort to strike back and take on this hydra headed monster of terrorism both structured and individual by creating a global defense this truck will spawn more trucks, more deaths, more fear because there is no cause to justify such destruction.
The random factor is so overpowering now that we can only pray we are not in the way. Pointless lighting candles and holding midnight vigils or going to a house of worship to pray. They could all be targets. In fact they have been. There is nothing sacred anymore. Not even little children.
