France

It’s awful, it’s horrible, it’s brutal, it’s a crime against all humanity. And it happens every day.

It was a long, long time ago – so long ago it seems most don’t remember already. Don’t get me wrong – I know it’s hard to remember – but can you remember 2400? I don’t think that that should be too hard; it’s a relatively easy number to remember. 2400 was January; specifically, it was the number of people who died from terrorist attacks in January. Don’t believe me? Fair enough, neither would I, so here is a source. 

By now you’ve probably read something about how awful it is that we don’t remember all of the other countries that have this sort of thing all the time, so I won’t start that – perhaps a better question is why we care so much about France?

I think it’s because France is what we would consider an “old” country. Iraq, Iran, Israel, even The US are all relatively new countries. But France, France was conquered by the Romans. It has history.

People trace their lineage back through France. It had musicals written about revolutions, great lines that are often quoted; “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

So we mourn for France, we mourn for the dead because of its age, because of the wars they fought, because of the history, and because they are “white” – and it doesn’t happen all the time. Yet.

But the truth is that this sort of thing is happening more and more often - remember the Paris riots? The Arab Spring? The London bombing? So much happening so often in so many places.

Now we are told that the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for this current attack, and as I write this I see another claim on the internet that the US has just killed a head of the IS. So where does this all end? The IS bomb a country, the US kills a head – but they seem like the Hydra of the myth of old: cut off one head and 2 more grow back.

It is now that I point out, all prejudice aside, that it seems all of these groups are Muslim. Now that doesn’t excuse any other religion. The Christians are responsible for so much death that it’s almost incalculable. The crusades alone are responsible for millions of deaths.

But I’m not changing my Facebook profile pic to the French flag. I’m not French. I’m also not changing it to the Israeli flag, though I thought about it, just to spite people.

New Zealand hasn’t had a terrorist attack, of the modern variety at least, so I can’t really speak to what that would do to our nation. But I’m not sure that the response would be as large as the response to the French attacks have been. We are not an old country; we are not well known in the world and I’m not sure we would get a speech from the President of the US of A quite as moving as the one given recently.

So let’s not get caught up in all of the hype, let’s not change our profile pics in a desperate urge to follow the crowd. Let’s really not use the “peace” symbol with the Eiffel tower in it – because if we know one thing about France in New Zealand it is that they are not anti-nuclear, which by the way is what that symbol really stands for. I do encourage you to pray. Pray for peace, pray for yourself.

But just to keep you up at night here is a question for you: why hasn’t an attack happened on Kiwi soil yet? We have good clean country, great farmland, so-so infrastructure, so-so politics, no real security to speak of, so why not here?

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.

They will live again in freedom in the garden of the Lord
They will walk behind the ploughshare, they will put away the sword.
The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward...