Much of my words from
the original submission were edited to fit the readers of this publication.
You'll find the story, as it was written, below under it's original title:
'Cries Of War'.
A link to the published story in San Antonio's independent online publication, Rivard Report can be found HERE.
CRIES OF WAR
It’s
now been a week since the attacks on Paris, the place my San Antonian husband
has called home for the past 12 years. A place I more recently named my home.
The
news has been alight with action film-esqe captures of the attackers alleged to
have caused the horrific tragedy so recently passed. The rash President of the
Republique, like the Bush who burned before him, speaks words familiar. Sends bombs.
Wages war.
But
there are no celebrations here. Unmoved, Parisians react with ambivalence.
They’re
not naïve enough to think the captures of these criminals will change anything.
It certainty won’t bring back the lives lost, nor prevent similar horrors from
occurring. Nor are they naïve enough to think small men with big bombs will fix
their problems either.
So
they lay flowers, light candles, and quietly, with sorrow and defiance in their
eyes, celebrate life again. As they always have and always will. Their
solidarity stated in unity from freshly painted walls throughout the city
“Fluctuat Nec Mergitur” it reads, “tossed by the waves but not sunk”.
But the world does not
follow suit. The media sensationalises. And on the walls of a world in which
people hide their faces behind photos hued in red, white and blue, a different
reaction ensues, fuelled by the very impulse of ignorance and hatred, which
reaped death on these streets.
They blame Refugees (those
who flee their home country due to heinous acts of terror) and Muslims (1.57
billion people who couldn't possibly "all be terrorists" or
"we" would all be very extinct) for these acts of terror, and in
their reactive generalizations, they support the very fear, hatred and violence
they attempt to condemn. Ignorantly, they promote the next tragedy. Ignorantly,
they feed the anger resting inside the dormant souls of those who commit crimes
like these.
Directly
disrespecting the lives lost, they use a tragedy they don’t understand as a
platform for their heightened racism and dehumanization. Conclusive chatter
which insults the very beliefs the majority of the lives lost here fought for
and believed in.
“WAR” the close-minded shout, with sinful wrath burning in their bellies, suffocating their souls.
“WAR”
they cry again, forgetting, these tragedies, though horrific, are reactions
amplified and provoked by the wars we as a Western world wage.
Forgetting
that if one allows their heart to fill with hatred and their soul to fill with
wrath, one becomes no better, nor worse, than those who seek to destroy the
peace and freedom these cries of “WAR” claim to protect.
That
they have learned to think like those they so venomously hate.
For
they’ve fed from the same fires of terror, death and darkness.
For they have become very much the same.
For they have become very much the same.
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