At a time like this, it would be reasonable to feel anger or want to seek immediate and violent revenge. In November, after the attacks in Paris, I did feel very angry. But these attacks in France have propelled me into a sort of modified grieving sequence: after Charlie Hebdo, I was shocked and frightened. I had just moved to France, and the idea of "terrorism" only existed for me in the confines of the memories of 9/11 and the unending news of suicide bombers in the Middle East. France was supposed to be an enlightened center of dispassionate European culture, but that wry epitome of French façon d'être was suddenly torn asunder, leaving us all wondering at the disproportionately violent response to pen and paper.
When France was targeted in November, I unwittingly moved to the next step of my grieving. This heartless, wide-scale attack left me angry and shaking. I actively sought out a face to blame. I looked around me in the streets of Lyon and deliberately feared and secretly loathed those who didn't look like Westerners. I'm ashamed of my reaction. I don't understand or agree with some of the ideologies brought by those people I saw as "different" from myself, but I acknowledge and embrace that the grand majority of people, no matter the religion or ethnicity, or any other characterization, just want peace and acceptance. We all just want to go about our days with minimal interruption and no conflict.
Now, only a day after Nice has been so cruelly attacked, all I can feel is pain and sorrow. The vitriol has deserted me. I sit writing this in the verdant cocoon of my home in New York, but I long to be in France, to wrap my arms around the whole country and whisper, "je t'aime, je t'aime" over and over to every passerby. I don't want to point fingers or decry the perpetrators. I just want a chance to heal.
I fear this wound is going to fester. Since I've been living in France, I've felt a little removed from all the gun violence happening across the US. Maybe this is my own perception, but it feels that in the three weeks that I've been back in the US, the violence and racial tension have only exponentially increased. When one person is killed, no matter the circumstance, we all die a little.
This unending cycle of mass violence, followed by blaring media coverage, followed by promises to bring the criminals to justice (whatever that means with a faceless target and yearning for martyrdom) is ripping humanity to shreds. I can't stop myself from opening US and French Google news every hour or so, succumbing to a sick, voyeuristic need to know every detail. I search for the answers, read the op-eds, listen to the apologists, the fanatics, the sensationalists. It's too much.
After the most recent attacks prior to Nice, my Facebook feed had been littered with profile picture solidarity. Waves of French, Belgian, Turkish, rainbow flags as I surfed, doing little more than showing me that people watch the news. I understand the desire to show support for victims, but I fear that people think changing a profile picture does a damn thing. But I must stop myself, for what else can we do? There is no enemy we can solidly put a finger on before it slithers away. Warfare doesn't occur in trenches or battle lines anymore. The "war on terror" is a war on an abstraction. So what can we do, sitting dejectedly in front of our glowing screens, endlessly horrified at the pain inflicted on people who look just like us. Violence around the world has become reality TV. It's become normalized, even expected. Now, 24 hours after the attack in Nice, I've seen only two maybe three picture tributes to the French and the Niçois. We now live in a world where this sort of thing just happens.
I ache for France, a country and culture I've come to adore. Truly in this case, absence has made the heart grow fonder. I weep for my adoptive home, but I'm determined to cling to the positive throughout my mourning. Being around the excitement in Lyon as it hosted games of the Euro Cup in June, and then watching France come so close to winning the Cup inspired me from afar. I felt so much pride and joy for a country that has been wrought again and again. "Fier d'être bleu" (proud to be blue) was trending about the French soccer team, and I would add my own: je suis fière d'être (presque) française! When I return to France this fall, I want to wrap myself in the blue, white, and red and belt the Marseillaise out my window... even though displays of patriotism are super un-French!
In any case, be good to each other. We can all heal together. Je vous aime.
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