Thoughts beyond Paris.

Finally, words. 

When I first caught wind of the atrocities taking place in Paris, I was - for all intents and purposes - a dumbfounded, useless stare. In recent years, I’ve maintained a fair amount of distance from detailed accounts of world events. Not because I don’t care, but because my empathic character renders me quite useless (i.e detrimental to any positive social impact) when I’m faced with the degree of overwhelming odds that these events present these days. 

I will take full responsibility for my ignorance and social conditioning as I admit that it was these attacks that pulled at my panic strings with an intensity that had not been felt thus far, in the midst of all the violence taking place across our globe. Perhaps it was because it was Paris, the romanticized honeymoon destination, where couples daintily dine on croissants and other glutenous carbs without gaining weight. Perhaps it was due to that visit to Quebec when I was 17, and the french displayed a culture I could relate to. Perhaps it was because my French stereotype is white, and I am also. Whatever the reason, or blend of reasons, I was struck in a way that differentiated from the numbness.

But initially, the blow knocked me into Paralysis. Of course, I’d been well-enough informed on the conditions in Syria, the past years’ uprisings in Egypt, and our years of occupation in Iraq/Afghanistan to feel the generally dire tones of our political and global climate. However, this knocked me into another level of helplessness. Again, I claim and own my human flaw; we feel most strongly about what we are most able to identify with. 

So, that was my split-second, knee-jerk reaction. What I did not do, was react. Emotional desires aside, I’ve also been quite busy with immediate personal tasks the last couple of days, so I don’t know where that time would have presented itself. Nevertheless, had I had the time, I still think I would have refrained at least this long. 

In the hours that followed, I heard about all of the topics of controversy popping up: who should go to war with who, whether or not refugees should be turned away, who knew what before the events took place and how it could of could not have been prevented. the media of course, became awash with threads and commentary. I had no desire to be another voice in the fray, exuding frantic, fearful, impulsive, ego-centric, defensive, idealistic (etc) energy. 

Of course, as an individual drawn towards words as primary way of expressing my experience of this life and universe, I knew I would eventually succumb to participation in such a wide-spread forum. It was not until today, that I finally began to explore further into the conversations that have developed, and to really determine where I feel that I could contribute a voice from a place of compassion, that does not inadvertently add to the argumentative nature filling the soundwaves. 

I am not interested in discussing war. I hear that’s a possibility. Maybe it will be “nobly” named the “war on terror II” or whatever. Not interested. 110% against pitting violence with more violence. The more nuanced subject of refugee immigration is what claws at my throat and my fingertips. 

To welcome foreigners or to barricade, that is the question. 

When I was a teen, probably years before I should have been, I took to gallivanting around town at all hours of the night. First, of course, my parents would try to punish with grounding. That never seemed to pan out to any success, and when I was very apparently beyond controlling, my parents still offered their sound opinion: It’s dangerous out there. I don’t like you walking alone. I would always retort along the lines: “It’s dangerous everywhere. Anything could happen to me, at any time.” 

Sure, we all have certain precautionary measures that we take to “ensure” our safety. But safety is never ensured. Shortly after hearing the news, Leo and I were talking and he shared that one of the most immediately relevant points of view he’d read was talking about how Paris just passed rigorous surveillance laws and how those did not stop the people they were aimed at stopping. 

Fear is only an effective weapon against ourselves. 

Living from a place of fear not only creates ineffective “solutions”, but it perpetuates the very negativity and environment of hostility that are the breeding grounds of the terrors we so claim to protest. 

A particularly heated thread developed on Leo’s news feed, by which reading was the partial inspiration for expediting my thoughts. Leo had shared a very thoughtful and personal anecdote about his familial experience with immigration, as the son of Cold-War era, Cuban refugees. 

I am the son of immigrants. My parents and grandparents fled communist Cuba at the height of the Cold War.

I am alive, because America let my blood onto its soil. It is here that my parents met. It is here I was born.

America was a different place then. The spooks we feared were the Russians. It was the Red Scare, McCarthyism, the age of Mutual Assured Destruction.

When Castro opened his prisons and the Mariel Boat Lift sent the dregs of Cuban prisons to our shores, should we have been turned away then? Should we have closed the doors to those political refugees for fear of how many Soviet sympathizers or Communist moles might have entered the country?

The world has never been free of religious or political war. There have always been ideological threats. If your blood comes from a distant shore, at some point it too was a risk and a threat. At some point, we were also a burden.

I dare you to tell me WHY your family and my family were better or deserved more. I dare you to tell me what greater threat these people today pose that we did not. Tell me why it was ok when it was us on these shores and why its not ok when its someone else's family and blood.

In a response, it was mentioned that he would of course, have a biased view that was more forgiving towards refugees because of his family’s history and that, had he been from a family who, say, suffered loss at the hands of an immigrant, his opinion would undoubtedly be different. This particular argument however, is aimed at justifying the option of closing our borders to refugees. Now, while I have no immediate reference to either side, and I am sure that emotions run heavy on both, I have anecdotal references that support selfless, fearless forgiveness and trust as a viable option. Relatively local example: Tony Wheat is Seattle’s longest incarcerated inmate. Wheat was convicted of murder in 1965. Thirty years later, the mother of the man he killed requested to sit down and meet him. To forgive him. This may seem like a relatively trivial example, but I see it as a macrocosm of larger decisions we are faced with every day. 

“Do I choose to stand up and relate to my life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?” 

We assume that we are more safe walking home in the daytime than in the middle of the night. We believe that by locking our doors, we are out of harm’s way. The other day, in the middle of a very busy and affluent part of downtown Portland, my car window was shattered, my backpack stolen. Again, trivial example. Again, macrocosm of a greater pattern. 

As much as I hate it, terror happens. Terror happens regardless of the time of day or the barriers built. 

I still park my car downtown. 

Terror can issue its advances on land, property and body. But I will not let it issue its advances on my soul. The most beautiful and healing aspects of the human experience are found in our capacity for compassion and selflessness. To let fear take the reigns and diminish these capacities is to let terror truly win. 

I do feel fear. Great fear. I fear for the livelihood of my generation. I fear whether or not there will even be a generation after ours. However, I refuse to let this fear take the most valuable “thing” I have control over: my ability to love. 

Also, if we really want to split hairs about where the majority of my fear is coming from, it is not from the wars or the genocides that I experience in the visceral realm of the media. It is not from any single foreign act or threat. It is from the pervading, toxic disposition that we default to, that has continued to perpetuate this vicious cycle of violence. I am more fearful of the erratic behavior of my own government than of any potential risk of immigrants on our soil. After all, as my friend Dean pointed out “we know well what we ourselves are capable of and did to the American Indians”. All humanity has exhibited great power to do harm. The only greater power is our power to open up in the midst of that harm.

I am not interested in starting another verbal banter. I’ve read a few, and they were more than plenty. Loved ones are turning hatred towards one another as we make arguments based off of blanket assumptions. In time where we need more love than ever, we are slaughtering it, a heartbeat a minute. All that these arguments do are posit stats, extrapolate facts and exploit others’ stories for the sake of our point. When it comes down to it, we can never argue what needs to be felt. You get impatient with an elderly person until, in your own old age, you begin to lose abilities. You make ill-informed opinions about a gay person until you find out that your highly successful, most favored child is gay. You clump refugees into stereotypes until you are next to a cold child in tattered clothes, asking why she can no longer sleep in her home. 

Question your assumptions, combat your fear and wield your compassion. 

I love you all.