Sometimes I struggle to make sense of this world. Lately, this seems to be happening more and more often. As a writer, it’s part of my job to get inside people’s heads, to figure out their motivations and tell their story. Yet I cannot for the life of me imagine the depth of pain and disconnection required to seek out your fellow humans and kill them, indiscriminately, and en masse. To deliberately target places where people meet, play, holiday, learn, work, dance and celebrate, and destroy them.
It goes beyond any ideology I’ve ever heard of, to a place of utter nihilism. It is neither confined nor defined by any particular religion, because it happens everywhere and to all people. And it’s just about the saddest thing, in a world full of miracles, that it continues to happen.
Seriously, 2016. We can be better than this, surely.
#orlando #baghdad #paris #nice #telaviv #istanbul
Helen Glynn Jones 
Again (…) there are no words…
Indeed.
I feel the same. Hubby and I had a conversation this am about why we are more shocked to hear this news than we are of massacres and war happening in other parts of the world. Its not that we care less, it’s just that sadly we’ve been conditioned to hearing of atrocities in these far flung war torn countries all our lives, whereas somewhere like France, for example, is felt to be a relatively safe and stable country in which to live. Whatever is happening in the world to inspire such mindless violence against innocents seems to be coiling up like a tight spring…
Yes, I think that’s it. There are countries which seem to have been at war my whole life, and so the atrocities there seem almost par for the course. Yet they are just as devastating to those involved, and should be given just as much weight as those happening elsewhere. I was also thinking of the US and the gun massacres happening daily there (and that’s not an exaggeration – there were over 370 incidents where four or more people were shot there last year, according to statistics I read). It’s that sense of disconnect again, where people feel so separated from their community that it seems a normal course of action. But yes, it does seem to be building to a head, which then begs the question, why?
I feel the same way Helen, I will never understand the mindless violence and hatred in this world. And it’s so very sad for all the innocent victims who were simply living life … I still want to believe in goodness and hope, but events like this, well they just defy words …
Thanks, Miriam, they really do. And yet we have to keep believing, for if we stop, then they’ve won. But it does get harder with each atrocity, doesn’t it?
It absolutely does, and it shakes you to the core, but you’re right. We have to keep believing in a good world.
A few months ago, my son asked me about the bombing during the Boston Marathon. His teacher had brought it up in class. My heart crumbled a little with the realization that these sort of events are likely going to simply be a part of his life rather than the shock they are for me. He asked me if we could go online and see photographs. I showed him victims. I showed him heroes. He asked if he could see the bomber too. I refused. Why mom? Because I told him, those people don’t deserve to be made famous. When we repeatedly show their faces, we make others, who are equally troubled the idea that they or their causes can get the same amount of quick attention through violence rather than through longer works of goodness and kindness, which in my opinion, don’t get nearly enough newsplay.
Oh, that’s hearbreaking, Allie. I’ve had a similar conversation with my daughter too, that the people to remember are those who died and those who helped. This morning the children’s BBC news reported on Nice, and their language, the way they were trying to report what had happened while at the same time trying to reassure children that things were okay, made me so sad. At the end they showed a link kids could visit if they were ‘upset by anything they saw on the news.’ I think they need one of those for adults too.
I wish they had a link for adults as well.
It’s incomprehensible. It’s tragic. You’re right, we can do better & yet we don’t. 😞
Sense? There is none.
Sad but true.
I can only imagine a shutting down of emotions until a person is like an automaton with one purpose. How sad and terrifying to those of us full of life!
It is sad, really sad. And the majority of people who commit such crimes, all over the world, seem to be young men. Such a waste on so many levels.
Yes, something I’ll never understand.
I don’t understand either, Helen, and it breaks my heart. Makes me angry, but I’m never ultimately sure of what. I know it doesn’t work to respond to anger and rage and hate with more rage, but the anger, and its opposite helplessness, don’t go away. The outcry I keep coming back to in myself is, enough, enough. I also have no idea what drives people to be so cruel – would I even want to know? I can’t fathom the grief of the millions of people around the world who are left behind with the devistation of a thousand crumbled pieces of love, ended lives. The wounds that might heal, the ones which never will. I don’t know what it’s going to take. Some of the tragedies appear to come out of nowhere, and in many other cases people are raising their children to hate and even kill for fun (in many families involved in ISIS for instance): violence and destruction win them their family’s love and cultural approval. If I let it, it could easily put me in despair. I hope, as a species, we learn, and quickly. I don’t know about probable, but it’s possible. But over tens of millennia there has not been a change. Not of any lasting significance, anyway. And words to express what I’m left with run out.
Yes, I think humans have always been this way, sadly. And now the weapons are bigger and more diverse.
Clicking like doesn’t seem an appropriate response but I agree with your sentiments, Helen…
Thanks, Stuart
It is impossible to comprehend. We are living in a world in which it seems atrocities such as these are becoming all too common. If only people could learn to live in harmony. It really saddens me and worries me for the future. And yet I do think we need to take heart from the fact that there still so many wonderful caring people in this world too. Sadly perhaps they are not as news worthy.
I think that’s true, Marjorie – all the good things that happen in the world everyday never make the news, and sometimes it’s easy to forget about. I do still believe there is more good than bad on the planet, but there just seems to be a lot of ‘bad’ so far this year. I believe it was Mr Rogers who said ‘Look for the helpers,’ meaning, the people who are helping in the aftermath of such events. It helps, to know that there are so many.
I think we’re all completely bemused. It’s beyond me to be honest. I just don’t understand WHY. We’re one race. One people. One species.
Amen.
I struggle to wrap my mind around this as well.
I’ve given up trying to understand it, but I’m not going to let fear interfere with my life or relationships with others. I still want to travel, and learn about and respect different cultures, and I want my kids to have that, too. x
Yes, once we let fear take over, they win, don’t they? Xx
I often wonder why is it so that a particular religion has taken responsibility to bring biggest non war casualties across the world ? Including bombing their own religious brothers and sisters… You can look at Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan where it’s rampant. I’m sure some wrong religious ideology is at work which is not human!
It’s a worldwide sadness, really. But my post, while triggered by the events in Nice, was a lament to all such events worldwide, whatever the motivation – I cannot understand any of it.
I often think about it.I read about theories by African writer Ayana hirsi -I guess that’s the name and find it true. Let’s hope these unfortunate events Stop in what is otherwise a peaceful era!