When Alberta woke up Tuesday morning to reports of the mass casualties and injuries of the terrorist attacks at the Brussels Airport and subway system, the worst fears a parent could imagine visited at least two St. Albert families.
Their daughters Kate Farlinger and Bianca Barry, both in Europe on school-related programs, had agreed to meet in Belgium and were staying only a few kilometres from the places where at least 31 died and 270 were injured as suicide bombers unleashed their horror. One can only imagine the relief the Farlinger and Barry families felt, when they heard the young women were safe.
Unharmed perhaps, but if the front-page interview the Gazette conducted with them is any indication, they are not likely to be unchanged. They have seen the face of terror. The pair planned to enjoy a stay at a hostel in La Grande Place in Brussels, a typically busy cobblestone square surrounded by chocolate and waffle stores and restaurants that serve beer and mussels to tourists. After the attack, the city went into a virtual lockdown and the streets emptied. Soldiers with automatic weapons patrolled the square. The joy was gone and likely forever tainted, much as it has been in Paris following the deadly attacks last fall. Or in New York, which still bears the sad scars of Sept. 11, 2001, though that was already so long ago.
World leaders, including our own Justin Trudeau, have rightly condemned the attacks. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has made the comment that we are at war. Indeed, not only in Europe and North America where such horrific attacks grab the intense scrutiny of the media, but also in Turkey, the Middle East, Russia, in Africa and Indonesia and in fact anywhere where disaffected young people are willing to kill themselves and others in the name of their cause.
The Islamic State quickly claimed responsibility for the Brussels attack, just as it had in Paris. The fears generated by the group serves its bloodthirsty purposes so well. But are these ISIL-inspired murderers, almost always dismissed as disenfranchised youth, weak-minded religious fanatics or immature and frustrated losers so simple to understand? A closer examination of the backgrounds of the attackers in this latest massacre indicates they come from a seedy area of northwest Brussels where the unemployment rate is as high as 40 per cent. Where immigrants from Turkey and Morocco are often at a disadvantage because while they speak French and Arabic, they lack fluency in Flemish, Dutch and sometimes English. They live in a country where in 2012, the Belgium government banned burkas and niqabs in public spaces. It is a country of us and them.
An old theory studied by political science students suggests that the harder you push against any group, the harder it will push back. While increased national security, military action and declarations of war are unquestionably necessary to protect public safety in the short term, unless all terrorists and potential terrorists are wiped out, force alone will ultimately fail in bringing a lasting peace. In fact, it may only serve the interests of killers who don’t care who dies. Understanding and changing the causes of this destructive hatred, though likely the more challenging war to wage, should be the ultimate goal.
