COLUMN: No title, only silence
I don’t think any particular lead will ever be able to describe the chaotic feelings that are rising in the city of Paris, my hometown.
It will need and years to fully explain and understand what happened there.
Paris, France, is again a victim of terrorist attacks, again soaked with the blood of the innocent. According to the government, more than 120 people died and around 350 were wounded, not to mention thousands that are still shocked.
I remember when the Charlie Hebdo Attack hit my ideals as a journalist, as a writer and as an artist; I shouted and wrote for the sake of freedom of speech. But this time my entire human integrity has fallen completely into pieces. I just stayed as silent and powerless as a lifeless being.
People were posting tons of messages on social media with hashtags such as #prayforparis.
That’s terribly ironic to see how Paris has been always the center of religious acts and beliefs, both in good and bad sides. For centuries, Catholics, Protestants, Atheists and Positivists fought all over the country to impose their doctrines; some history students would remember the famous sentence of King Henry IV, “Paris is worth a mass.” Now, it’s happening another time, but with different shades and contexts.
Paris doesn’t need only prayers, but understanding from the world. All this carnage won’t wash away; it will be probably remembered as one of the worst attacks of the last half century.
ISIS claimed the recent attack, but the terrorists were French citizens. The terrible reality of the main French cities is that there are still many ghettos scattered all around their outskirts.
Ethnicities have still difficulties to integrating in the French community for different reasons: complete isolation due to bad public transports networks, failure in organizing cultural and integrative events, little attention given by the government and a low standard of living.
The consequence is that many young people identify themselves no more as French citizens, but as loyal members of their culture, ethnicity and, eventually, religion.
This is a terrible drama of incommunicability between cultures and people; probably similar to the racial and gender issues occurring here in America.
And it will be useless now going to war with other countries killing more and more, because everybody knows the real victims of this game of exterminations are civilians, us. We must understand it for a better change.
The recovery of Paris, my hometown, will be long and painful. I think this will be similar as the distressed recovery process that New York had to face after Sept. 11. I remember when I was a kid I was watching the Twin Towers falling and disappearing in a huge black cloud on TV. I was distant and careless. I actually wanted to see my cartoons.
Now, I can understand each victim. Each anguished American, each suffering African, each tormented Syrian, each suffering South American.
My fingers are still shaking.
