November 16, 2015

Paris: a response

editor:	Gurmeet Singh

There’s a sense in which all responses to the Paris attacks are inadequate. Everything falls short: politicising deaths, equivocating atrocities, arguing over ‘who was right’, trying to get a pop song to top the charts – and of course, writing about the events. Nothing seems to match the scale and measure of the emotion surrounding the events – a whorl of confusion around sorrow, fear, anger and anxiety. Perhaps the best response to something like this is to make no public display at all, and privately grieve. But I can also think of a better way.

Empathy is the way out. Solidarity is the way out. Empathy with victims, friends and families of victims – solidarity with people the world over who suffer the brutalities of mangled ideologies and broken administrations – this is our way out. This is the only response to the attacks in Paris which enables us to see the humanity of victims, and in doing so, preserves and enhances our own humanity.

What do I mean by humanity? I mean the sense in which we are all meaning-creating and meaningful individuals, with our own perspectives on the world and our own understandings of ourselves. I mean the sense in which we are all vulnerable. When we call out all Muslims or all refugees to suffer for these attacks, we commit a failure of compassion and initiate what could be a gross injustice. Equally, when we write that if the Parisian assailants were of a different nationality, or a different ethnicity, then we would be talking instead about mental illness and not terrorism – then we do not serve our own cause. We set up more barriers between ourselves, and whoever we perceive as truly at fault.

The atrocities committed in Paris were acts of terrorism. There are acts of terrorism the whole world over; on a day-to-day basis. Yes, we need be compassionate, empathise with people globally – but we do not need to diminish the events in Paris, to elevate in prominence the events in Beirut or Baghdad or anywhere else to make the point that we sometimes suffer lapses in compassion. As much as it hurts us to do so, we should also try our best to understand how people become terrorists and what we can do to help the stem the flow of radicalisation. This is another act of empathy and compassion.

Refugees will now suffer. Europe looks set to re-establish the fortress, brick by brick – and socially, people’s hearts will harden against more seeking homes in Europe. The right-wingers are emboldened. The state will initiate more checks, everywhere. The idea that a terrorist posing as a refugee came through the Greek border should not be dismissed out of hand – but the idea that all refugees should now pay the price should be.

All responses to Paris might be inadequate, but there some better and some worse responses. We’ve been challenged – right-wing and left, white and black, religious and not – we now have a challenge to all of our beliefs, and how we act now – not just our writing, our Facebook updates, our buying a single – is our response. We can choose to give in and squabble over which atrocity is the worst and the hypocrisy of the media; we can lobby the government to stop taking refugees. Or we can promote empathy the world over, and do our best to ensure victims’ voices are heard, and those in need of help are given it.