Attacks like the one in Brussels Tuesday morning make us angry, and we should be angry. There is indignation that follows mass murder at the hands of terrorists. There is understandable loathing for those who condemn bystanders to a needless, horrific death.
When the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant claimed the Brussels attacks, there was little surprise. Reactions on social media ranged from sympathetic to accusatory, and it’s hard to tell people not to be angry.
The truth is, we are tired of buying funeral flowers and shaking our heads abjectly when we hear the news there has been another attack. Another, because terrorism is now something that happens routinely. The shock that accompanied the attacks in Paris in 2015, Brussels in 2014, London in 2013, Norway in 2011, New York in 2001 and countless others still strikes a raw nerve in the core of our humanity. Today, like so many days before, we are not just Americans— we are global citizens staring into the heart of injustice.
As we move forward, we must direct those feelings towards the deserving individuals and groups. Hatred and anger must only be for the murderers and those who wish to do harm.
We cannot do as we have done before, ascribing blame to those who have nothing to do with terror, those who are just as afraid of terrorist groups as we are. We, not as Mississippians or even Americans, but as humans, must understand the difference.
It’s easy to find a scapegoat while we sit, impotently, thousands of miles from the threat. We want to find someone — anyone— to blame. But we cannot fight terror with terror. We can not confuse the just fear and hatred of the Islamic State with fear and hatred of Muslims.
In the coming days, there will innumerable moments of silence and memorials for the lives so cruelly stolen from us. Many European groups will come together to embrace their Muslim brothers and sisters, who not only lost their fellow European citizens, but also feel the sting of injustice as blood-hungry men starving for misguided justice use their God to justify destruction. Just as Europe joins together to mourn while respecting, and not condemning, their Muslim citizens, so should we.
We have sympathy for the dead, the dying and, perhaps more so than the others, those who must go on.
