With the news release earlier this week surrounding yet another terrorist attack in a major global city, people around the world may be asking themselves how much more this fear and terror can escalate before we become an entirely security-dependent international society. What I’m referring to are the attacks in Belgium on Tuesday by the notorious Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which desimated the capitol city’s Zaventem airport as well as the Maelbeek subway system. At least 30 people have been killed in these attacks and some 250 were injured. At least one of the explosions was a result of a suicide bombming while the others were explosions hidden in suitcases and bags. As of today, a few suspects are in consideration who are believed to be associated with the November 13th, 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris.
How does this influence us here at DU? Well, we’re all affected in different ways. Some of us studied abroad in Paris last fall during the Paris attacks, some of us have family and friends who live in these areas and who have been greatly influcence by the fear and loss of community members. And some of them, like myself, have applied and been accepted to study abroad in Belgium this coming school year. I am currently in the process of applying to a college in Brussels, the very city where these attacks just took place, and I find I’m asking myself questions. How will my experience change now that the city is on even higher alert? What will I face when I go? Am I afraid to be caught up in another attack in the future?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, however I do know that I am still planning to get to Brussels in the fall and make the most of my experience. Am I afraid? A little. I’ve never truly been in the line of fire any time during my life, which is most likely thanks to my status as a US citizen where war is either too far in my past to mean much to me like during 9/11 or too far away to really touch me, like in Paris and Brussels. However, I do think that it is important to continue our lives, as unabated and courageously as we have always done.
Terrorist groups, at least in my view, attempt these acts of violence to scare and discourage a population from prevailing in the face of adversity. They obviously have some message they’re trying to send and they see killing people as the way to do it. Yet, I think that we cannot let them discourage us. If I choose to back out of my program, to not experience Belgian life and culture for all it has to offer, I and people like myself are succumbing to the fear and letting it win. Given the timeline of attacks between Paris and Belgium, I’m concerned about where ISIS might choose to attack next, because they clearly are not done. But they are just one of the many groups in a long line of groups and organizations throughout history that have attempted to instill fear by blowing things up. I can only hope that until the inernational and national governments figure out an end, we don’t stop exploring, traveling and experiencing new adventures because without those experiences, we cannot learn: about compassion and resiliance, about determination and about accepting others for their differences.