On terrorism

by aajohannas

It happened again. A few evil men decided that the best way to reach their goals, whatever they may be, was to murder over 100 innocent people. The death count as I write this is 100 people. 100. Think about that for a few minutes. That is 100 people who will never again hug their mother, see their children laugh, walk in the rain, sing in the shower, fight with their spouse. 100 people is 4 school classes. 4 entire school classes that are dead, for nothing. Imagine if everyone you attended fourth grade with was killed. To inspire fear. To terrorise us. To make us ask: who will be next?

Will it be me, when I go watch a movie? Will it be my brother, watching a football game? My sister, when she goes to a concert? Will they attack the school where my mother teaches?

In the end, it doesn’t matter where they strike next.

Terrorism, regardless of who it comes from, has as its goal to force a change in society. The second we give in, and create a society with more surveillance, with more armed police, with more control, and with less freedom, they win. I understand that France’s immediate reaction after the second serious terrorist attack this year is to close its border. However, I hope for the sake of democracy and openness that once they have the situation under control, France will open its borders again.

I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that we can deal with this without dropping more bombs, starting more wars. Because if we start killing in retaliation, the terrorists win. They get to recruit more potential terrorists, and force us to kill more, and so on in a neverending spiral of violence.

Terrorism should instead be treated like what it is: a war crime. Don’t bomb the attackers, try them in Hague. Show them all the courtesy a civilised country show criminals. Don’t fall to the same barbaric level of killing innocents “because the end justify the means”. They never do. Killing innocent Afghanis, and Syrians, and Irakis to kill the terrorists is wrong, just as wrong as killing innocent Frenchmen for some goal that we don’t yet know what it is, just as wrong as killing innocent Norwegian children because you hate immigrants. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. Instead of falling to their level of indiscriminate killing, let’s rise above and show the world how an open, democratic society deals with criminals.

My heart goes out to everyone who was directly affected by this heinous act of terror in France. Nous sommes tous Parisiennes.