I've been unusually silent these past few days because of the overwhelming noise blasting in my head. The shock of the attacks in Paris have left me reduced to a state I am admittedly not used to: speechless.
What's even harder to handle is the aftermath, as often is the case during such events. The rage. Mine, which as I say has rendered me uncharacteristically speechless. And that of many others, who seem to have taken hold of their fear, cloaked it in anger, and labelled it as righteousness.
I have been silently observing as that raw fear masked as righteousness drowns the internet with unbridled, uncensored hatred. Not your normal dime store variety either, but full-out, "let's cut the PC crap" actual memes recalling our success in Hiroshima.
Fear, as I see it, being used as an excuse to finally be allowed to vilify, categorize, demean, hate, where before that rage was begrudgingly held back.
I'm not alluding to retaliation. Unlike after 9/11 - where I was without a doubt sure attacking Iraq was not the right response - age and motherhood have now made me more aware of how little I know. I don't know what the right answer is and, this time, I am not going to claim to. But that's not what this is about for me right now.
What it is about - what I do know, with every fiber of my being - is that it is wrong to allow our fear to take control of us and close the borders to those souls who are fleeing from the same fuckers we hold with such contempt. For so many reasons, not the least of which because accepting them is precisely the game play that those fuckers are not expecting.
I am writing this as Samina naps behind me in the car. And as I watch her peaceful breathing, I realize that I cannot look at my sleeping child and differentiate between her rights, her safety, her potential and that of that lifeless, 3-year-old body lying face down in the sand. These events have only made me realize, more painfully than ever, that her Fate is out of my hands. That there is one thing and one thing only separating her Fate from that baby's Fate: pure, arbitrary Luck of the draw.
Sometimes you have to open your heart, even when your entire body wants to hate. Sometimes you have to find the Empathy that lies within you and force yourself to imagine a life lived by someone else, someone so similar to you, yet so far away. Even if it goes against everything you think right now, I ask you to just close your eyes and imagine fleeing from your house, your job, your country. See yourself crossing seas on a rubber raft, hiking mile after mile to get to some promised land. And getting there and being turned away. Breathe in that desperation. What would it mean for you and your family?
We have to call upon our Empathy in this moment to lead us. We have to use our Empathy to, first and foremost, seed out the prejudice that lies within ourselves, before we can profess to know what the answers are. Because - and let's never forget this - in the end, Empathy is the one thing that can set us apart from the terrorists.
