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Stephen Schwartz
Anguish in the air is palpable…As a mother I feel it more because she is away from home in the university and yes, she was in a concert in London a few months back and is excited about another gig in December again, as I am sure the youngsters in the Bataclan Hall were…
Just another fun evening to enjoy and be with friends!
Just that it ended in anything but…..As it did for other people in Paris, Beirut, Islamabad, Mumbai, Boston, NYC and the numerous other cities and townships across the world...
Can feel the helplessness and frustration in the discussions among friends, in WA groups and on media at large…
How else do people give a voice to something over which they have no control?
Who do they reach out to…for consolation and just to feel that things are FINE?
We know very well it could have been any one of us…
I was, after all, one hour too early from the bomb which went off near the passport office in Worli in Mumbai blasts in 1993...
We were just fortunate…that we were not present at the wrong place at the wrong time!
Perhaps time to question more deeply…
Does it matter whether the terrorists were Greek or Syrian refugees?
Do we now prepare ourselves for the next city where indiscriminate gunshots/bomb blasts will terminate lives ?
What is escalating this organised terrorism?
What leads seemingly sane youth to commit heinous crimes such as these?
What leads seemingly sane youth to commit heinous crimes such as these?
What socio-political and economic dynamics fuels this phenomena …how else is it burgeoning so rampantly?
Are we so blind that we do not know that proliferation of weapons and encouraging jihad in one region will reverberate with hatred elsewhere?
Who are these elusive politicians who are supposed to wave the magic wand and make the world “ a better place?” and for heavens sake, 'What is this “better place”?
Is retaliation and fighting back the only solution to such a barbaric act or do we think there is a quick-fix one-shot solution to terrorism or we have lost all hope of solution?
This is not a crisis for one city and/or one nation/continent.
Whether we like it or not, terrorism and organised hate attacks are the new World Wars , completely a world wide phenomena and we can’t pretend to live in our safe havens…which aren’t anyway safe any more!!
Time for us to lift our buried heads and stop the pretence that ‘THIS' doesn’t impact us…
It does !!!!
Whether its a young boy who died as he was refused a refuge
or a gun-toting jihadi who uses religion and hate as a refuge to exacerbate his hatred...
Time to dismantle our thoughts around hate politics,
divisiveness and rigid beliefs about ourselves
and the world we are living in
and to look at the truth more realistically and in the eye
divisiveness and rigid beliefs about ourselves
and the world we are living in
and to look at the truth more realistically and in the eye
Terrorism and divisiveness does not exist out there...
it is very much present inside us, in our unforgiving stances and unresolved hatred...
From the racism inside of us which wants to feel superior and rule over the other!
Perhaps small steps in resolving these resentment within
can contribute much more than jingoism and false hopes of candlelit marches!
it is very much present inside us, in our unforgiving stances and unresolved hatred...
From the racism inside of us which wants to feel superior and rule over the other!
Perhaps small steps in resolving these resentment within
can contribute much more than jingoism and false hopes of candlelit marches!
