Last Friday, the news of the massacre in Paris came to my attention while I was at a bar with my co-workers after a late closing shift.
The information that one site of violence was a concert for the group Eagles of Death Metal was brought up in conjunction with mention of a mutual friend.
“Hey, that could have been Gaby. She loves Eagles of Death Metal.”
“Oh yeah, if it had been in Toronto, Gaby would have been there.”
The self-absorbed nature of the conversation dawned on everyone, and the discussion turned to the idea that whenever a world tragedy occurs, people naturally tend to relate it to themselves.
This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. The idea that “that could have been me” is more often than not applied only to one’s friends and family—I and others were concerned at the thought of loved ones abroad in Paris being caught in the crossfire of such a tragedy. Obviously a person’s own experiences are the lens through which they view the world, and as such, many of us in Canada feel a natural inclination toward solidarity with a Western European city such as Paris. We may or may not have visited Paris, but at the very least we have been exposed to the city through media and historical images throughout our lives. Paris presents a landscape that, even if we have never set foot on its streets, is easy to place ourselves in.
The number of victims and unexpected nature of the attacks in Paris brought a visceral and highly sympathetic response from many across Canada and the rest of the world. When you feel a relationship to a city, and the media around you is expressing an outpouring of grief (be it social or news media), it is all too easy to relate yourself to that tragedy.
The idea that your humanity is closely connected to the humanity of those lost in Paris is a noble and positive one. The ease with which you relate to those victims is also noble and positive, and ultimately inspires the energy that the world needs to overcome the kind of evil that perpetrates such acts of terror.
But the real work of healing the world begins when relating one’s humanity to the victims of tragedy stops being easy. It may be that the victims come from a city such as Beirut or Baghdad and a romanticized version of their city or people does not exist in your personal memory. It may be that the victims are from the same conflict zone as the perpetrators themselves.
While displays of solidarity with Paris are well intentioned, there is an undoubtedly ugly side to the world’s reaction to the Paris attacks. Racialized violence against Muslim women in Toronto, the arson of a Peterborough mosque, and petitions to close off our borders to Syrian refugees are some of the uglier ways that Canadians have reacted to the Paris attacks.
Empathy and solidarity in response to global tragedy can only have positive results. Expressing your humanity by way of outreach and inclusion is conducive to global healing. A response to tragedy that is divisive or exclusionary is very much the opposite.
The easy work is expressing solidarity to things, places, and people we know—or at least think we know. The harder but equally essential work is expressing solidarity with those people and places we may not know. “That could be me” does not stop at that which we recognize. To heal a humanity that is suffering across the globe, it’s time to take the step to acknowledge that it could have been one of our friends at any site of unprovoked attack.
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