The Brussels Bombings: Blind, Violent, and Cowardly
A few short days ago my aunt received a sobering phone call from her cousin; a resident of Brussels. She was supposed to be on the bus bombed in the already-infamous Brussels attack. She had, however, called in sick that day, and thus did not use the metro system in her daily trek to work; her life, ironically, was saved by the flu.
Anecdotes such as this bring humanity to the inhumane incident; no longer merely a tragic number, the death toll resounds with each individual death, lamenting each life lost and illuminating the messy wake of heartbreak. The causalities surpassed 30; the injured numbered over 200 – this is tragedy on a massive scale, and in a continent still recovering from the Paris attack, the terror of terrorism runs rampant. The bombings, perpetrated by IS, were dubbed by Belgium’s prime minister, Charles Michel, “blind, violent, and cowardly” – and yet the words lack fury, and an underlying resignation leaks through. The Economist sardonically greets horror-struck Europeans entering the regime of terror: “Welcome to the new normal”. It is imperative, however, that this “new normal” is not a long-term fixture in the European political climate; yet the question of a response is such a delicate one.
That IS is powerful is uncontested; though 18 suspected jihadists complicit in the Paris attacks are under arrest, the organization still gathered enough unyielding support for another complex, wide-scale attack. Thousands of potential jihadists have left for IS’s purported caliphate in Syria and Iraq and more will be recruited locally, stirred by backlash from the attacks. An overreaction is not the solution; in fact it only fuels the fervency. Trump suggests barring Muslims from the USA, world leaders announce that they will only grant refuge to Christian migrants, and the West weeps for those suffering in Europe while ignoring the suffering of millions of asylum seekers and the war-torn remnants of Syria’s populace – yet the radicalization of anti-terror is what causes so many to seek violent justice via jihadism. Action is nonnegotiable; but when overly-thorough security measures threaten personal freedom or when retribution is laced with racism, the path to peace must be tread carefully.
Photo credit: capitalfm.co.ke