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The Paris Terror Attacks
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
Sadly there has been another terror attack in Paris....
0
Comments
I know. I just got home and read about it. Shocking...scary stuff.
Tragic.
My two cents from FB:
Metta to all those suffering.
Wisdom before, is better than compassion after.
You can drive yourself crazy trying to made sense of it all. Who or what is responsible? Is Islam inherently violent? Are religious and political extremists being allowed to flourish? Is this retribution for real or imagined atrocities? Do we go back in time and look at colonialism by France and Europe? How about cold war meddling? Or lets just go back to Cain and Abel and admit that even the people who first invented metaphors knew there was something seriously wrong with people, that brothers could murder brothers over jealousy and anger and hate.
Terrorism doesn't work. Throwing a rock at a hornet's nest doesn't do anything but piss off the hornets. And France, in spite of the surrender jokes, is not a nation you want to piss off. But people busy enjoying causing terror aren't known for logical thinking, are they?
I think it is worthwhile to consider the impetus for such horrendous acts, going back as far or near as you want to. Hopefully that would lead to understanding and wisdom, possibly even compassion. Without some kind of comprehension and acknowledgement, how can we (and the leaders in the world) help prevent such horrors?
And, terrorism does sometimes "work". Look at the assassination of Rabin, which was the death knell of peace in Israel.
It seems to me there's a world of difference between Al Qaeda and ISIS/ISIL. The latter goes after innocents. Al Qaeda associated attacks against Charlie Hebdo were not so. Charlie Hebdo was not an innocent bystander, by a long shot. (And thousands of JE SUIS CHARLIE protesters were just more flies in the Muslim's healing balm, I'm sure.)
More attempts have to be made at trying to see Islam from the inside if the rest of us are to remain innocents in their eyes. I mean, if the Muslim militants see us through the prism of our television offerings, of course they will see us as "capitals of prostitution and obscenity" and worse. The modern-day Muslim militants are analogous to the abortion clinic bomber by their actions, making nightmares out of mere unfortunate circumstances. Taking that analogy just a step further, there HAS TO be a way to get them to see through the clear light of day that there's only one real perpetrator here: The bomber.
I usually have some comment of wisdom to post here. But today, I do not. I've never fully understood this whole scenario; why it happens, where it is leading, or what to do now, or how to deal with it.
Innocent people are dying, it is hard to tell the radical Islamic from the non-radical, as their beliefs aren't that much different. There is fear everywhere, and governments reacting blindly (mostly) to it all.
All I can do is take a deep breath, remember the innocent, and hope that somebody else figures something out. Because I sure can't.
=/
The worst disease to ever afflict mankind. Us and "them".
Here's my confused blog take.
Here in America we regularly have shootings done by home grown deranged individuals. Just like in Paris yesterday, the victims are usually more or less random and, just over the last decade, number in the hundreds. These mass slaughters occur every few months without fail.
What is striking to me is that the wave that those common occurrences cause is so much less than when it is "the other" that is responsible. The only response we get is rambling about gun control that dies down shortly after each such event. Unlike when "foreigners" are involved, nobody is suggesting starting a war, giving unlimited powers to the punitive apparatus or exterminating large groups of people.
Yet in both cases the people who are responsible are angry marginalized individuals, often with mental issues. Our home grown mass murderers also often make grandiose claims with seemingly global pretense about punishing Liberals, Blacks, Christians, Capitalists or whoever the individual's sick mind blames.
Remembering post 9/11 hysteria and blood thirst, I really wish for the public to stop seeking some mythical enemy outside and working itself into a craze over "getting them". Seeing how that worked out in the wake of 9/11, I really wish for us to see these violent outbursts as products not of some global war of civilizations but those of crazies' confused thinking.
Find the individuals responsible, bring them to trial and sentence them according to the law; if they are killed in the process of being captured then so be it. If there are sensible policies that can decrease such tragic occurrences, do introduce them, be that tighter migration restrictions (Europe's case) or more gun control (America's case). But that should be the end of the story - no more holy wars, siege mentality and overdone patriotism. Only a targeted response to what actually happened. Let's not go all crazy because the criminals speak a foreign language, worship a different deity or are brown.
I would like to add that we should be mindful of ALL innocent deaths, and one might as well say ALL deaths innocent or otherwise. This includes the innocent Muslim children who have died, those who have fled their homeland due to fear and those killed in the crossfire.
First, may I take this moment to remind us all that people everywhere are just people. We are all conditioned by our childhoods, what we are taught and what we experience. It is unfair to claim all Muslims are bad. They aren't. As a disclaimer, I realize that the Jihad code is inherent to all Muslims, but would remind everybody that the predominant amount of lay Muslims have a very different interpretation of that code than the radicals.
Second, until we evolve, as a species, to the point where self-governance is a reality, democracy is the best we have (in my opinion). But that brings into question the belief that majority rules. I have no answer for the following question, it is one for you to consider and meditate upon; if majority rules, then when, and if, Muslims obtain the majority status, is it not then acceptable to give them a certain measure of rule?
I must admit, I am a bit conflicted over this issue myself. But it is something to be mindful of.
Ponder and meditate.
I see terrorism as just one of the nuttier extremes of the human condition where a lack of empathy, sympathy, tenderness and compassion for anyone outside of ones tribe eventually manifests as what appears to be a love of evil.
My own practice when faced with such extreme examples of human idiocy, is to face where any of our own seeds of ignorance, could potentially take any of us.
Strange about mistakes ... the more I look into them, there more I am convinced for any onlooker there is only one response that makes much practical sense: "Don't YOU do that!"
One of my biggest fears is that a misguided backlash against Muslims (and pretty much anyone from the Middle East) will help push into power reactionaries and fascists like Marion Maréchal-Le Pen (the kinder, gentler face of fascism in France). In close races, the Front National party in France is set to make big gains in the next election. And with the tragedy in Paris, others like Maréchal-Le Pen will undoubtedly utilize a combination of nationalism, racism, and anti-immigrant sentiments to further bolster the rising tide of fascism in Europe, as well as in the US. (I'm sure Trump will have plenty to say about it in the coming days in his pop-fascistic sound bites.) I hope that I'm wrong.
I'm also curious as to where all the sympathy (and news coverage) is for Lebanon, which suffered its own terrorist attack Thursday at the hands of IS. The West isn't the only victim of this kind of violence. As someone noted in relation to one recent terrorist attack in Kenya, "One is so much less likely to hear about atrocities in predominantly non-white countries. Especially poor ones." I think that's true. I also think that, when we do hear about it, it's often framed in a much different/less sympathetic way, as the coverage of the bombing in Beirut illustrates.
Targeted assassinations can certainly derail peace plans. But terror for it's own sake, the targeting of innocent civilians just to cause suffering, has never benefited the perpetrators. This isn't an assassination, but comparable to the killings back and forth between Israel and Palestinians since then. Such killings are never going to help either side.
Now in the USA, the Republican presidential candidates will each try to outdo the other in the "we're going to destroy ISIS if elected". Like we tried to do with the Taliban or Al Qaeda for the last decade's war on terrorism. We destroyed our economy and threw trillions of dollars at the war machine, and last time I checked, both were still going strong. And if the Democratic candidates don't do the same, the entire election will be about "My opponent is soft on terror. Only I can keep us safe". Remember how ISIS was sneaking across the Mexican border with Ebola infections and going to kill us all in our sleep panic that caused Republicans to sweep the last elections?
The sad fact I believe is, there's always an excuse for violence. Even though ISIS has killed a hundred Muslims for every non-Muslim, the Western world doesn't really give a damn. And just because our drones, say, kill a hundred innocent people for every guilty target, people don't really care. Cain and Abel, fighting over who God loves best. Makes me want to cry.
The unknown is precisely that "The Unknown" ... Who really knows for sure what will arise from the wake created by the anxious mind....
"Those who fear they shall suffer, already suffer what they fear!"
~ 15th century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne ~
What boggles my mind is the number of people saying to make sure we close up our borders to keep "those people" from coming here. No compassion for the fact that the people who are running are running from attacks on the level of Paris' that happen every day in their countries. We accept that it happens other places (Syria, Iraq, Lebanon)but are shocked when it happens to us. Our human counterparts around the world suffer this kind of horror every single day. But there are no lights on for them.
May all sentient being have happiness and the causes of happiness
May they be free from suffering and the causes of suffering
May they never be apart from the sublime bliss that is free from suffering
May they remain in a state of equanimity and practice virtue forever more.
Everyone is wishing for peace. But it starts with you.
I don't know for sure, but I think it was my son (who had an amazing knowledge and love of history) who told me that the CIA, and so on, were responsible from way back when, for messing with certain countries / factions in the middle east, which I find very easy to believe. I feel that it has led to the present day insanity and violence.
It's very much akin to something from my first office job here in California (a very long time ago) that sticks in my mind even on the rare occasions like this. There was the usual office rumors, friction and politics, but our boss was really cool. Anyway, I had the misfortune to hear about one girl being set up by another and it unfolded right before my very eyes, how this conniving girl told the target girl something that they KNEW would make her blood boil, and the innocent girl, up and slapped the conniver hard across the face, and innocent girl got all red in the face, knew she was in deep doo-doo, and walked quickly out the door, and of course SHE's the one who got canned over it. I think it's a very good likening to what's been going on in world politics.
The mind clouded by ignorance, allows hatred safe passage....
Not only do Isis members 'hate' themselves, they must (with a vengeance) also hate what Islam stands for and Muslim people...
Like others have already mentioned, the innocent refugees have become the meat in the sandwich created by the extremists groups and these groups can be liken to slices of mouldy bread (The likes of Isis and the nationalist/fascist groups resurfacing in the West)
t's interesting that this appears to be a problem that is inherent to theistic religions. The whole God - zealous believers - normal laypeople - nonbelievers hierarchy is pretty problematic, especially since the belief systems are quite all-encompassing and black-and-white. You either have faith (in God/Jesus/Allah/whatever) or you don't. You believe or you don't. You join our side or you don't.
While thankfully most followers of these faith traditions probably just make off-hand comments in the company of their like-belief friends, the paradigm is already there for extremist groups to use.
Thoughts and prayers out to all the victims and their families and friends. Prayers for all the victims of war and hatred.
'Tit for tat! You kill my dog I kill your cat!' has never worked and never will.
Peace to all
So true. You reminded me of a post I had written on another forum many years ago and went looking for it. Here's the paragraph that jumped out at me:
Thanks everyone
I am so inspired at some of the understanding and compassionate reasoning expressed in this thread. Bravo everyone.
I honestly feel the capacity to generate metta and bodhicitta is our hope, capacity and potential solution. We
Paris. We 
All. We have a simple solution. 
My sisters flight back from holiday has probably been effected by heightened security and a situation at Gatwick airport that I have been emailing her info about.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-34821392
We are the solution ... or we can be. Peace starts internally and effects the fabric of our being on this planet. Well said @karasti
Terrorism is usually about politics, seldom about religion.
Don't be fooled because people waving the flag of war try to claim it's about their religion. It's actually about my tribe against yours, and religion is only one element in what makes up our tribal identity. It happens to at times be a very handy flag to rally around, that's all. It's actually about a much broader tribal identity. The hook can be some leader, instead, or a political system, or even ethnicity and whose great-grandfathers were born where. ISIS isn't actually about Islam. It's about people trying to violently carve out a bit of tribal land when every bit of land is already claimed by someone.
that's kind of what i mean - people using religion to achieve political ends.
The sad humor in it is that if we worked as a single tribe we'd have more land and resources than we know what to do with.
And now the bombing has started. No doubt we (US) will join in soon. I don't know what can realistically be done instead. But it would be helpful if we weren't constantly contributing to creating ISIS and other groups that we then eventually have to fight and put out those fires and start the cycle all over again. Humanity can be so depressing.
The West is really between a rock and a hard place in it's relationship with the Middle East. It can't be simply ignored - our economies are utterly dependant on oil from the region. And there really hasn't been any clear choice with regards of whom to support in the power struggles there. There aren't exactly a lot of groups that seem level-headed and moderate. Gaddafi and Hussein were terrible dictators to be sure, but now that they're gone power vacuums have put everything in a complex state of affairs.
What should the West do in the Syrian situation? There are no easy answers.
Problem comes from ideology which removes natural conscience. Religion is the most powerful ideology, so when those two meet together, we see what we saw.
Islam, because of it's early history, is that kind of a religion.
Yes - there are a shitload of socio-historical factors that lead to events such as these. My point though is that such paradigms of belief (us vs them) tend to be fostered within thesitic faith groups. Whether or not the believers wage battles explicitly based on religion, being socialized in a group which promotes black-and-white, "us vs the world" thinking doesn't seem to do any favours.
I'm also talking about the bigoted reactions from other parts of the world re: refugees and Muslims.
Perhaps it is what we do that makes sense.
This is where the Mahayana Response Team kicks in ...
In an old Zen story, a student comes
to visit his dying teacher. The student asks:
"What is the teaching of your entire lifetime?"
The teacher replies: "An appropriate response."
Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them all;
Greed, hatred, and ignorance rise endlessly, I vow to end them all;
Dharmas are boundless, I vow to learn them all;
The Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to embody it."
iz plan
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kshitigarbha
I read this evening about a fellow who died saving many lives during a terrorist attack in Beirut, Lebanon. He could have chosen to save himself, but he chose to save others instead. I believe the article was in the Nov 16, Washington Post online.
As we honor the victims of Beirut and Paris, we must also honor the heroes who saved lives, some at the cost of their own lives.
Peace to all
Lee Kuan Yew: to stop terrorism, go after the queen bees (preachers)
Singapore’s former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew recognized the root cause of ISIS back in 2003.
When Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek interviewed him regarding al Qaeda and Islamic extremism in Iraq, he warned, “In killing terrorists, you will only kill the worker bees. The queen bees are the preachers, who teach a deviant form of Islam in schools and Islamic centers, who capture and twist the minds of the young.”
Indeed Lee Kuan Yew also points the finger at Saudi Arabia for the cause of terrorism in Asia.
Saudi-funded madrassas radicalized Asian Muslims
According to Lee, Muslims in Southeast Asia were traditionally moderate and tolerant. But in the 40-odd years since the oil crisis and petrodollars became a windfall in the Muslim world, Saudi extremists have been proselytizing, building mosques and madrassas that preach Wahhabism.
As a result, this extreme version that Lee characterized as a “venomous religion” have radicalized Southeast Asian Muslims, and pitched to Muslims throughout the world that the gold standard for being a good Muslim is Saudi Arabia.
Lee concurs. In a prescient 2002 speech for Singapore’s National Day, he argues the big divide is no longer between communist and democratic countries, or between the West and the East.
“Now it is between Muslim terrorists versus the U.S., Israel, and their supporters. A secondary battle is between militant Islam and non-militant modernist Islam.” He doesn’t believe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or U.S. action in Afghanistan and Iraq are the cause of Islamic terrorism, and that terrorism would continue even if the Middle East problem were solved.
Lee continued that in Southeast Asia “Malaysia and Indonesia have to face the challenge of militant Islamists, those who go for militant jihad and want to implement Shariah law so that Muslims will be strict in dress code, in food, in prayer, in punishment for crimes. Fortunately the majority of Muslims seek their way forward through trade, investments, knowledge, management, science and technology.”
Thus, Asian Muslims could stand up and delegitimize the Wahhabi brand of Islam, and go after the queen bees to stop terrorism in Asia.
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/lee-kuan-yew-on-islamic-terrorists/
HHDL has commented:
Humans have created this problem, now they seek God's help to stop it? Puh-leeese...
I think it's simple to sit back and say "well, obviously, they need to do this because I read an article and it makes logical sense to me." It's another thing entirely to put ideas into practice in dictatorships. Also, as is pointed out in the video that makes the rounds routinely, "Muslim" is a pretty bit umbrella. Just like Christianity has different branches from the outgrageous and extreme to the simple (and sometimes extremely simple) so does Islam. There isn't one central leader, central board of directions of all of Islam to bring people together under it. People in Turkey view their Islam very differently than people in Pakistan. So how do people in Turkey take control of Islam in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia? They can only control their own Islam, just like we can only control our own Buddhism. Our being Buddhist does not control the murderous monks in Myanmar. Our denouncing them pretty much preaches to the choir that Buddhism isn't this way, Buddhism is peaceful. But to those experiencing otherwise, our denouncing means little because it does not give us the power or resources to stop the abuse.
Terrorism succeeds because of poverty, not because of radical preachers. these preachers succeed cuz they can somehow invoke anger,hate etc. by repeatedly pointing to poverty, exploitation.
That makes sense - to a certain degree, I believe that's true (...succeeds because of poverty) - anywhere you have people who've been disenfranchised and had their what I call natural, normal 'powers' corralled / pinched away bit by bit or wholesale, it's going to cause a backlash and then of course the backlash against the backlash (militarization).
Terrorism succeeds because of propaganda, division and fear.
They purport to be responsible, directly, for every attempt or attack, even though they may not have sanctioned, funded or planned it at all; This makes them appear a lot more widespread and powerful than they really are;
They WANT everyone to be suspicious of any man with an olive-coloured skin, or any woman wearing a niqab or veil;
They want you to be fearful, watchful, paranoid and suspicious.
That is the basis of their campaign.
if they can get you to fear, hate and suspect EVERY Muslim, this is precisely the division they're aiming for.
Terrorism is just anyone's adversarial relationship with anyone.
My response to it today is organizing my basement to offer incoming Syrian refugees a place to live.
I wish that I had the space, but I am in touch with the state refugee resettlement program to see what can be done from where I am. Thankfully I live in one of the few states where our governor isn't blowing smoke pretending like he can refuse them. He actually told people if they don't want refugees in our state, they can leave.
Canada's new government is trying to bring in 25,000 refugees before the end of this year but there is a lot of public fear going on about it.
I am not sure if I can remember any decade that Canada didn't have a new influx of refugees being met with the exact same fear mongering that the last group faced.
Gassho
London's next mayor is likely to be a Moslem because he is the best candidate
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadiq_Khan
Whatever you are being indoctrinated and media bombed to believe ...
Islam means Peace
@how the crazy thing about the US is, we take in 70-90,000 refugees every single year. We have already taken in 2,000 Syrians. The past few years, our highest refugee group has been Muslim Iraqis. But because the news is reporting on it and the...people... running for president are talking about it, they are NOW suddenly worried about refugees. I had a lady tell me today that I was ignorant and that they are bringing Sharia Law to the US so that they can kill our children. On the one hand I feel for them, living with that kind of fear has to be paralyzing. On the other hand, I want to slap the ignorance out of them. The more devout their Christian faith, the more insistent they are that we not accept people. The same lady (who sends gift boxes to Central American children) said that the children from the middle east are deceptions of satan, and we are being deceived to let them into our country. That we cannot allow people in from countries where the anti-Christ will arise from. The ignorance is astounding and very sad. I don't know how to combat it, I just keep meditating and looking for ways to help.
I am sick and tired of Islamic fundamentalism, it's not a new problem but one dating back to the 7th century. If ISIS is bombed back into the stone age I won't shed a tear, it's where they belong.
Vive la liberté
We said the same thing about the Al Queda. It hasn't worked so well. Hard to bomb places back to the stone age when so many of them haven't come out of is as societies yet. The thing with ISIS and probably anything coming after them, is they don't need large groups and training camps. They can gather people around the world very quickly with technology how it is. There will always be something to take their place. We may still have to combat them in some way, and we are. But, going forward answering to how western countries are contributing to the rise of extremists today is going to have to be part of the plan. But so far we are too egotistic to go there.
I know why I don't enjoy talking politics...it's most distasteful because there's just too much secrecy in government - you name which one, doesn't matter. I guess we (I) have to sit and remain calm while contemplating my navel while the bombs are bursting all around.