They were watching fireworks.
Children with
their parents were stood watching fireworks.
They weren't
working for a satirical magazine, finding humor at someone else's expense. They
weren't government officials. They weren't political activists.
They were families
watching fireworks, celebrating a national holiday.
Let that sink in
for a moment.
Let it sink in
that in the past year people have been murdered for going to a concert, a
football match and now a fireworks display.
And yet am I
surprised?
Sadly, no.
I woke up this
morning next to my girlfriend. She gave me a hug and said 'there's been another
terrorist attack in France '.
My morning eyes soon woke up and I looked at her as if to urge her to tell me
she was joking or that she had grossly misinterpreted a news article.
But she hadn't.
I had to write
about the attack. I simply HAD to. But as I opened the web page, placed my
fingers upon the keyboard, I froze.
I try to write
these posts without structure, without plan, without fear of expressing an
opinion. For me they should be spontaneous, therapeutic, and raw.
But this one was
tricky.
I was speechless.
I was sickened. I was desperately sad.
And I felt, and
feel still, that whatever I wrote down was not going to come close to what was
deserved to be said.
But I'm going to
try and make some sort of point amidst the chaos.
For me there are
two things I'm finding astonishingly powerful in this attack.
One is how unbelievable this attack is.
Two is how believable this attack is.
Confused? Allow me
to explain.
It is unbelievable to think of young children being
killed, lying on the road with 'toys and flesh lying besides them' - what an
eye-witness said.
It is unbelievable that a single human being was
capable of knocking down humans as if they were bowling pins and leaving them
behind looking like road kill.
It is unbelievable that mothers, fathers, sons,
daughters, and friends have lost loved ones on a day of celebration; out that
evening to smile and laugh.
It is unbelievable that once again a nation fears to
live.
But then again, is
this not really quite grotesquely believable?
People are being
slaughtered every day in the name of this-or-that.
There are murders
every day in the Middle-East from extremists that receive little to no
coverage.
*In fact, I will
openly hold my hands up high and apologies for not writing about those
incidents. I think the reason why we, as Westerners, do not talk about it is
that we have come to expect it to happen in the backyard of Islamic extremism. It
is a shameful outlook but a true one, I believe.*
We live in a world
whereby terror slaughters peace every day.
The unrelenting
love and sympathy from the world is being constantly torn apart and stitched
back together like a wound that doesn't have time to heal.
We, as decent
people, are forever findings new ways of saying 'let's not succumb to hate'.
And we shouldn't
ever succumb to hate. But how much more can we take of this?
For me, hearing of
this news and finding it believable marks a dark day in my time on this planet.
Terror attacks are
no longer events of just shock and horror; they are events we have come to
expect.
I can't imagine a
world without innocent people being killed. I so wish I could but I simply
can't.
My absolute sympathy
goes out to France ,
a nation that has been ravaged by death and scenes of macabre nightmares.
It feels wrong to
go about today as normal.
But once more we
are required to go about our lives knowing that others are suffering grief, not
able to do anything about it apart from love, sympathise, or in my case, write
a few words down, hoping to make myself feel a little better about it.
It hasn't.
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