Once again, a mass killing shook our world. Last night somebody drove an articulated truck into a mass of people at the strand promenade in Nice and killed more than 84 people, left 200 injured and some of them still in critical condition. This is a terrible event and it really shocked us. France has declared 3 days of mourning, the USA has topped that and will mourn for the people in France for 4 days and political leaders from all over the world declare their sympathy and solidarity with the people in Nice.
Can anybody remember a similar reaction when just 12 days earlier, 0n 03 July, 292 people were killed by an ISIS truck bomb in Baghdad and 200 got injured? I didn’t read anything about state mournings in the western world. Saying this is NOT criticising France or the US about the reaction to the attack in Nice, but why is it that we measure death so dramatically different?
The driver of the truck was shot by the police, so we will never find out what really was behind this terrible act. But we learned that he rented the truck 2 days earlier and that oddly he had non-working fake guns and fake hand grenades in the back of the truck. We also hear that allegedly he shot on people while he was driving into the viewers of a 14 July fireworks on Bastille Day in Nice, but since the police shot at the truck, it remains to be seen if it was the attackers shots or the police shots that the people heard.
Well BEFORE anything was known about the driver, social media channels and comment-enabled news sites like TheJournal.ie were full of comments from people about these terrible Muslims attacking us. That was BEFORE ANYTHING was known about the attacker. We are very fast making assumptions!?
Unfortunately, however, it turned out that the attacker is indeed from Tunisia and with the name Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, we can also assume that he most likely is Muslim. But French police has confirmed that he was not known to or on the watch list of French intelligence services, but was known to the police in connection with crimes like theft and violence,
No terror organisation claimed responsibility, so it is possible that this was the act of a deranged individual, but because he is most likely Muslim, many still blame the religion.
Nothing justifies killing people but it shouldn’t matter if this is a white deranged person, a black deranged person, a Muslim deranged person, a Christian deranged person or a group of deranged people. It also doesn’t matter if this is the police in the US, who seem to be on a rampage against every black American at the moment or if it is a Tunisian who lives in Nice who indiscriminately kills harmlesss life-enjoying people on what was meant to be a nice night out.
The reaction of many people on Facebook was “when will it stop” or “where is it all going to end” and as brutal as it sounds, but the tough truth is that it will NOT stop!! Since mankind exists, innocent people have been killed by deranged people and that will continue. Does that mean we have to accept it? No! But don’t ask nonsensical questions because the answer will depress you more.
I read another comment where someone suggested that the only way to stop the world from having gone crazy is that every single country needs to close its borders to stop “crazy religious people” from doing their terrorism. The American police that is killing innocent black people or crazy people that do mass shootings in Norway or the USA or anywhere else will NOT be hindered by that. A person that lives for many years in France (independent from his nationality) will also not be influenced by that. Do people even think for a second when they splurge out cr*p?
But governments are not much better it seems! The French government, who had decided to step down the “state of emergency” at the end of July has decided to continue it for another 3 month. Because ONE deranged person did a horrible thing? France also has decided to call in reserve soldiers and to increase the control of the borders. What is that for? This guy in Nice didn’t cross any border! He rented a truck in neighbouring town! How do reserve soldiers and stronger border controls help against that? A state of Emergency is TOTALLY and utterly in effective against this type of attack.
So why do countries things like that? Because they are as helpless as everybody else (but they need to be seen to do SOMETHING). The bottom line is that there is NO defence against attacks of that kind. And while this is a truly tough fact to accept, there is no other option than to accept it.
Is there ANY chance to stop it? It will sound VERY hippy, but the ONLY way to stop attacks and conflicts and killings and terrorism is with LOVE. Very hippy, I know! But only love and acceptance and showing that nothing will be achieved with force and killing has the slightest chance to stop madness.
