We are only two weeks into 2015, and the world has already been rocked by several stories of rampant terrorism. The Charlie Hebdo massacre definitely received the most media coverage, but lesser-known atrocities have taken place as well. In fact, on the same day as the attack in Paris, 37 people were killed in a terrorist attack in Yemen. On January 3, more than 2,000 men, women and children were slaughtered when Boko Haram militants attacked the town of Baga, Nigeria, and numerous other attacks have been reported in the Middle East.
Omid Safi, the director of the Islamic Studies Center at Duke University, recently wrote the following: “Let us take the time to bury the dead, to mourn, and to grieve. Let us mourn that we have created a world in which such violence seems to be everyday. We mourn the eruption of violence. We mourn the fact that our children are growing up in a world where violence is so banal.”
On January 9, I sat in my living room in Minnesota, sipping coffee while watching coverage of the two hostage situations in Paris. I thought to myself, how horrifying. I can’t imagine how scared the students arriving for study abroad must be. I am ashamed that this was the thought at the forefront of my mind, but my self-disgust prompted me to think about how we respond to acts of terror. If something does not affect us directly, it is all too easy to think about a crisis for a quick minute or two before moving on with our lives. Meanwhile, families of terror attack victims are distraught after their loved ones were senselessly ripped from the world and citizens of the affected country are intensely fearful for the safety of their own families.
Events like 9/11 and the Boston bombings shocked America and sparked intense feelings of fear around the country. We called for government action and huddled close with our loved ones, feeling grateful to have them in our arms. Think about the terror you felt when you heard about these attacks, and then consider this: in many parts of the world, civilians feel like this all the time. They feel powerless and targeted, and while the U.S. government is making efforts to improve life in these areas, the majority of the American public only seems to truly care when something makes for a breaking news story. We go through a whirlwind of emotions, formulate an opinion on the potential causes of something so horrific, and move on with our busy lives.
Reporters and journalists focus on the attackers themselves: their religious ties and personal histories, and how these might have fostered an attitude of violence. But, perhaps, we can think of these tragedies differently. Everyone knew the names and backgrounds of the Tsarnaev brothers who set off the bomb during the Boston Marathon, but how many victims can you name? John Kerry made a very interesting point recently, when he stated that terror is often “a larger confrontation, not between civilizations, but between civilization itself and those who are opposed to a civilized world.”
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