Yesterday I stayed up all night waiting for news from friends. What happened in Paris is almost incomprehensible – large scale rapid and sporadic attacks, bombs, and then a hostage and siege situation. I send my thoughts and my love through a screen and feel so helpless.
Time has shifted how terrorism operates, now designed in the West to generate maximum hysteria and misinformation. I spoke about it briefly on Twitter. The attack was similar to the Mumbai Model where terrorists pulsed through the city creating a situation that is hard (perhaps one might even say almost impossible) for police to initially manage. Essentially it is guerilla warfare transposed to a Western urban policing situation where the cops are mainly trained to deal with local small-scale beats and large crowd control focused on protests. Hitting a huge variety of locations sporadically makes it complicated to capture gunmen at the beginning as policing is more designed for follow-up checks rather that interventions. This ensures dominance of the 24 news cycle, social media, and the theatre of watching an ever increasing death toll. After such an attack the number of gunmen vary wildly with different reports, and a general panic sets in for days as people worry about loose gunmen, second stages, and copy-cat attacks.
I spent last night staying away from most feeds, restricting myself to prevent feeling more tight and sick than I already was. Each new piece of information confirmed was a new bit of horror. Last night I furiously debating my fears over what different parties claims of responsibility might mean with regards to the MENA region. I spoke with people who said Friday the 13th was chosen for its symbolism, others that the important thing was it was the date for the France vs. Germany match, prompting speculation that Germany is “next” and that the plan was even designed to kill on a much larger scale but that parts failed. This is part of the play, to make it the topic for days and weeks as we worry about how our lives will slowly change, even those of us who are not in France.
In the coming days there will likely be “reprisal” attacks against those suspected of being Muslim and/or migrants. We have a duty to speak out about them too, on top of mourning the dead like we are now. The attackers – regardless of which group claims ultimate responsibility – want to drive this wedge further down, and to bait far right groups. And it will work, it always does. After the Charlie Hebdo attacks my mother begged me to promise that if someone approached me in the street I would speak Spanish and then run away.
They don’t just use bombs these days – they use our minds against us too. Terrorism tries to make us hate just as much as it tries to make us scared. This must be resisted most of all.
Rushaa Louise Hamid 