|
|
Terrorist Attacks in Paris: Can Tragedy Bring Change?
Johnstone, Diana
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/16/terrorist-attacks-in-paris-can-tragedy-bring-change/Date Written: 2015-11-16 Publisher: CounterPunch Year Published: 2015 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX18146 Paris has now suffered the sort of attacks that are familiar to Beirut or to Russia. The big question is: what next? Will this fear cause people to wake up to reality and think clearly? Abstract: - Excerpt: Paris has suffered the sort of attacks that are familiar to Beirut or to Russia. Yes, as Chris Floyd wrote, the West is reaping the whirlwind of its support for extremist violence. But it is not time to tell the victims that they are to blame, especially when the main targets in Paris were young people relaxing on a Friday evening, too young to bear responsibility for the disastrous Western policies that have fostered madness in the Middle East for several decades. The targeted assassination last January of staff members of Charlie Hebdo led to the slogan of solidarity, "We are all Charlie". That slogan has become unpleasantly true: yes, we are all Charlie now. Anyone who, say, was enjoying a nice low priced meal in a modest Cambodian restaurant in the unpretentious 10th arrondissement could have been gunned down in cold blood, just like that. The killers did not go after symbols of power, they went after anybody and everybody. Their rampage targeted a neighborhood without tourist attractions, just ordinary café terraces known to be popular with young Parisians. It had to have been chosen by people who knew the terrain. The big question is: what next? Will this fear cause people to wake up to reality and think clearly? Subject Headings |