Very early on while learning to write, I was given some sage advice and learned a valuable lesson: don't write about something if you're too emotionally involved. You should know I'm not heeding that advice right now.
What happened in Nice two days ago was a shocking, horrific, abhorrent, gruesome, atrocious, and terrible act, but it was not an act of terror, try as we might to make it one.
Terror, for those of you who may have forgotten, is the use of excessive, random violence for political ends. And as things stand at the moment, there is no political connection to be found, regardless of how badly the authorities and media want us to believe there is.
A foreign-born, but French, petty criminal with more personal and family problems than most of us can begin to imagine takes a truck and drives amok into a family event, wreaking unimaginable harm, injury and death upon everyday men, women, and children -- families and friends who wanted no more than a bit of joy in their lives. This is a tragedy. You can't know how deeply I grieve for victims, their families and their friends. France was not attacked. Families were attacked. And you can't believe how irate I am that this tragedy is being instrumentalized for other, much less honorable, purposes.
The perpetrator is dead. He can never tell us what motivated him to commit such a brutally horrendous act. There is no mention of the situation in the socially volatile and disadvantaged hot spots in most large French cities. It doesn't matter that we've imposed an economic system that is more exclusionary than capable of meeting even the most basic human needs. And what is more, there are questions about the level and types of security being provided for the event, especially in light of the fact that France is essentially living under marshal law. But all of that is merely brushed aside.
The French prime minister has already declared an Islamistic connection, without offering even the merest shred of evidence. Without claiming responsibility, Daesh is thrilled with the result. Why is that surprising but how is that even newsworthy? The media has been abuzz with one special report after another parading out an endless stream terrorism experts in blatant disregard for the known facts of the case. Even Hollande promised in his initial remarks to increase military retaliation in Syria, and civilian deaths that will result will be the consequence of real, not imagined, terror.
Are we ever going to learn anything? I have my doubts.
When people snap mentally, they go on killing sprees, be it when they used to "go postal" as we referred to it America (because it seemed to happen more often to postal employees than others) and shot up their co-workers or be it when they drive a truck into a crowd of people out for a celebration. Until 9/11 no such event would have labeled as terrorism, but since then there is no killing spree that is not.
9/11 didn't change everything. We changed. We became frightened and fearful and allowed our rights and civil protections to be taken away because of an unavoidable event. We packed it up in the package of terrorism and we've been terrorized ever since. We've dug ourselves in so deeply that we can't see anything anymore without it having a terrorist tint. And if it doesn't have one, we're more than willing to give it one. We're so concerned with what might possibly, perhaps, unexpectedly happen to ourselves that we don't have it in us, it would seem, to stop and mourn for those who need it.
We're in the process of making this about us, when it has to be about those who have been killed and those who have been left to suffer.
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