By
(O)CT(O)PUS
To put this story into context, a new and unknown terrorist cell called
al-Qaeda had not yet made headlines. The attack on 9/11 would not occur for
another six years. Yet, the 1990s
were by no means safe and carefree.
There were terrorist groups everywhere - combatants of the Bosnian conflict, the
IRA, and the PLO - but none of these represented an imminent threat to life in Paris. A civil war raging in Algeria had crossed the Mediterranean into France.
In July of 1995, the first terrorist bombing struck Saint-Michel Station during the evening rush hour. A gas-filled bottle bomb caused eight
fatalities; 80 victims suffered serious injuries including loss of limbs. It was summer, a season for vacations
and family visitors from the United States.
My daughter and I passed through Saint-Michel Station literally hours before the first attack. For my family, it was our closest brush with terrorism until years later when my cousin Ruthie perished in the twin towers on 9/11.
Terrorists detonated a second bottle bomb near Arc de Triomphe wounding
17 people, followed by an explosive device tossed into a trash bin on Avenue
des Champs Elysées. Thereafter,
all trash bins in the City of Paris were bolted shut, and litter filled the
streets. A French military unit
encamped at Champs de Mars; gendarmes armed with automatic weapons patrolled streets and Métro stations; France
had become a country under siege.
In late
August, a large bomb was discovered on a high-speed rail line near Lyon,
followed by an attack on a Jewish school that claimed 14 victims. Finally, September brought a break in
the case. Fingerprints left on
unexploded bombs identified the ringleader, who was apprehended and killed by
gendarmes. Yet, the bombings
continued into October of that year. Another bottle bomb wounded 13 at Métro Maison Blanche. The last bombing occurred on October 17th
in the RER train station at Musée d'Orsay - leaving 29 casualties.
Acts of terror become sensationalized media events (and parenthetically a burden borne by authorities who neither eat nor sleep until the villains are brought to justice). The actual loss of innocent life, the sheer brutality, the carnage … these do not matter to the depraved persons who commit such crimes.
What matters is the message inside the bottle bombs.
There is a passage in the Koran: "Lo! We warn you of a doom at hand, a day whereon a man will look on that which his own hands have sent before, and the disbeliever will cry: "Would that I were dust!" Would that the religious vermin of the world were whom the Prophet was talking about. But if Allah is hesitant, we should not be. I dream of mushroom clouds.
ReplyDeleteThe "We are not afraid" banners express my own feelings about racists, bigots and terrorists adequately. If speaking the truth is risky, that's all the more reason for speaking it and I wish I had seen more of that sentiment in 2001 instead of the "we will have to give up our civil rights" in self-pitying cowardice. The only thing I didn't see yesterday were the hordes of Muslims protesting. Why is that? Why should I respect their cringing silence? Recite this says the angel of death.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is right and we have to recognize that this arrogant savagery is intrinsically and firmly imbedded in Islam, that "the Prophet" is no moral guide for our age. We have to see that those who don't actively oppose the slaughter, intimidation, terrorism and torture have blood on their hands, but we can't afford to wait for some reformation to happen spontaneously. I've had enough of "I'm just a Muslim" from people who are submitting to God by sawing off heads with hunting knives, mutilating their daughters and forcing their diseased religion on the world. I've had enough of respecting religion just because it's religion. I've had enough of Islamic self-pity, Islamic cowardice and evil. I'm starting to dream of mushroom clouds and seas of molten glass
Je suis Charlie. Je suis de France. Je suis armé
"C' est une Bordelle!"
DeleteMoral of the story: It's not about what others do to us but what we do to ourselves. That year, I started a new tradition. Harrods became my choice of eternal return.
From the appropriately named Capt Fogg: "The only thing I didn't see yesterday were the hordes of Muslims protesting." That's because you're not looking hard enough, nor can you even tell who's Muslim by sight to begin with, so enough already with the mythologizing.
DeleteModerate Muslims have been protesting around the world for decades — before and after 9/11 — even as ISIS militants today are slaughtering them by the hundreds. Just a few links for you:
http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2014/10/10/moderate-muslims-speak-out-against-terrorism/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/french-muslims-protest-against-islamic-state-1411755890
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/muslims-in-france-protest-against-extremism/
http://www.dw.de/muslim-protest-in-germany-against-jihadists/a-17934581
And if you're going to rely on Ayaan Hirsi Ali (whose thinking on "the true Islam" articulates the same twisted logic as Dick Cheney) for your opinions, you might as well consider your mushroom cloud dreams as reality. It's not like Islam is the sole source of human atrocity on earth; that argument was dashed to bits centuries ago with the Crusades, right on up to the Bosnian war of recent memory (where Serb Christians perpetrated 90 percent of the ethnic cleansing, according to the CIA). To quote Chris Hitchens: "The danger is not Islam or Christianity or any other religion. It is the human heart—the capacity we all have for evil."
What I read in this forum, in news accounts unfolding by the hour, and in commentary across Cyberspace are competing – often self-serving – narratives each trying to negate and nullify the other.
DeleteIs one religion inherently more violent than other? If one commenter gives examples of Muslim violence, there will be competing comments that give examples of Christian violence. Tit-for-tat. Point, counterpoint. Or are all religions inherently violent and unworthy relics of a superstitious and less civilized time?
Do hardscrabble beginnings account for violet behaviors? Sometimes the answer is ‘yes.’ Common knowledge and numerous studies support the view that deprivation and oppression turns people bitter. We know that childhood deprivation and trauma through war and violence radicalizes people. Pent up resentments lead to violent behaviors.
Shall we speak of centuries of colonialism, of economic exploitation, of wars fought over resources, of oppression, of human greed and corruption? Given the atrocity of the moment, is this the right time to speak of such matters?
So which self-serving narrative is the more valid one? Either none are valid, or all are valid. Let’s look at the historical record:
Christian against Muslim, Muslim against Christian, Christians against Christians, Shiite against Sunni, whites enslave blacks, blacks resent whites, Nazis murders Jews, Hutus slaughter Tutsis, partisans against partisans, them versus us, us against them … it appears no group has a monopoly on bigotry, oppression and violence. Meanwhile, these comments pile up and serve as the strophe/antistrophe of a grim Greek chorus on human history.
I am thinking of the diversity of life on this planet, of the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of species that have evolved over eons of time. Yet, here is a single species - almost as diverse as life – yet divided by language, culture, and customs: One species constantly at war with itself and committing acts of war and violence upon each other!
Shall we stop all immigration and keep people segregated? End all commerce and cultural exchange? Or shall we immigrate and integrate and learn how to tolerate – even appreciate – the rich cultural diversity among human kind?
There is much to be recommended in the viewpoint of a cephalopod. Let’s just say it give you a more detached perspective on the human condition.
Seems you're arguing with a straw man here and she's not the only Muslim protesting the lack of protest. Not the only Muslim protesting the ghastly lack of progress in bringing Islam out of the darkness. I think the protest is far, far weaker than circumstances would demand. Where are the crowds outside the Paris Mosque where this radical shit is being preached? Is it the Christians or the Hindus funding slander and libel and demanding bloody murder of Jews? Where oh where is action being taken by the "faithful" of France, byt the governments of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen and the rest? Bloody fucking murderers with smiles on their faces and "I'm just a peaceful Muslim" on their lips.
DeleteChristianity has moved on a bit since the 11th century, Mr. "scribe," Islam has gone the other way while far too many leaders preach mayhem, slaughter and murder of children, washing their hands of guilt and mewling about religious freedom. As the picture says, this is not a religion. Islam as it exists today is the greatest danger civilization and human values face. URLs are not a refutation. Look, whatever protest there has been has not been enough and that's such an understatement even a pompous ass of an apologist should acknowledge it.
While admire Hitchens' abilities as a writer, he's a master of the techniques of evasion, feint and side step. You're not. He's more like Cheney, Wolfowitz and the rest of the liars club than you will admit. The "capacity we have for evil" is the resource for religious and fanatical beliefs. Individual evil is insignificant when compared to the inhuman brutality of Islamic states.
Of course the issue has nothing to do with your amateurish distraction about Islam being the only source of evil or your childish insults. Those are your words, not mine. Hell, your argument is an insult to reason itself. Ronin Scribe? What are you - 12 years old? and as I said, you're tossing your talking points at a straw man.
Listen up little boy -- every damned Muslim -- all Billion and a half or so should be protesting these murders right now, but all I hear is denialism like yours: blaming others, making false comparisons tossing around websites and stupid analogies. Every one of them every one of us -- and this shit would be over today. Instead we have obedience to murderous Mullahs, vast efforts to blame Jews, to blame 19th century colonialism, to blame everyone but the vermin with the Kalashnikovs -- to blame everyone but the guilty and their billion accomplices like you.
Octo:
DeleteI replied before I read yours. There is a vast gulf between what most of us call tolerance and trying to explain away the straffing of innocents for making jokes about the murderous vermin sawing off heads and molesting little girls and blowing up airplanes and buildings in the name of their non-existent God. Islamic countries will kill you for not believing idiotic stories. Non-Islamic countries? Not so much. If Muslims can't stop this who can?
Some of the reasons they use to justify their hatred of us have some validity. Some don't. Neither sort of reasons justify any of their atrocities. Muslim authorities have an enormously greater power to put a stop to it (and for Christ's sake to stop promoting and funding it) than we do for all our H-Bombs. And they don't. And we can't suggest holding them or their "faith" to account without having to listen to sophistical refutations and grotesque ad hominems. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not like Dick Cheney and our little boy who thinks he's a literate Samurai is not worth pissing on.
"Terrorism did not terrify us"
DeleteI remembered that line as I watched countless Frenchmen this morning declaring that they are not terrorized by recent events. Apparently they were that way in the 1990 and still are even if the memories of vastly more horrible events in the 1940s nay have faded a bit. Why do so many Americans like to portray them as cowards? Isn't it in our 'home of the brave' where everything is expected to be risk free, where opinion shouters shout when we don't use the word "terror" to describe every attack?
Perhaps France needs to address the less violent acts of terrorism like the quickly escalating persecution of Jews in France, but that's another story.
You know, many Americans act as if terrorism is something new and that it began on 9/11/01. Up until that time they thought they were safe and that bombings and the like were for Europe and Asia, no doubt some even thought of terrorism as punishment for unChristian activities such as equality for gays and single payer healthcare. It is a lie and always has been, we have never been safe. I recall a trip to Germany in 1972 when we were delayed in JFK for several hours - because there had been a bomb threat called in on our plane. This would have been only a month or so after the horrific massacre in Munich in 1972. Acts of terrorism, which amounts to either anarchy or a declaration of war, depending on the participants, has been around nearly as long as time itself. 9/11 was indeed dramatic and stunningly horrific but not all that different from the home grown attack on Oklahoma City. EXCEPT we can blame a group of foreigners. We want freedom of movement and privacy but also want the government to stop any further attacks on Americans. So we allowed the atrocity known as the Patriot Act with all its oppressive tactics to be enacted and then complain about being searched at the airport and the long lines, we cry foul when we find out about wiretappings and email captures. And yet that is exactly what Americans asked for because, unlike most of Europe, we are terrified. After 9/11 our economy nosedived, anyone with dark skin was treated with suspicion and hatred. And yet after each mass shooting in this country, there is no equating with terrorism but rather a fear of gun control. It seems to be escalating only because there are so many more people with so many more "causes". do we keep shaking our fist at our attackers, give them the finger and declare we are not afraid? We cannot end the endless cycle of rage and fear and rage again unless we are willing to try and create a global community devoted to acceptance and love and respect. Only a movement such as this, as it grows and its message spreads, will we be able to push back the darkness of hate and barbarism.
ReplyDeleteHell, Chimps make terrorist raids on other chimps. It's part of who we are: aggressive apes. Suspicion, tribalism, aggression, violence - it's bred in the bone. Are we the only country whose national anthem describes us as brave? We aren't of course. We're afraid of everything and of most things that don't even exist.
DeleteI'm no believer in utopias and in fact I think the concept is dangerous because it inspires us to violence and persecution in the name of peace and love. History is my witness and so is the misguided apologist above. I'm still waiting for an international conference of Muslim leaders denouncing apocalyptic jihadists and their violence. I hear nothing for the most part unless it's a faint damnation serving as praise. Tribalism at work, you don't criticize anything that might sound like a criticism of Islam. I a thousandth part of the passion devoted to the Haj went into working for peace, we'd see something but we don't. Tolerance is a weak force in individuals and non existent in large groups.