Friday the 13th

Today a young girl was lost to extremism. Her father was killed by a war she wasn’t a part of. Murdered by men she did not know. Murdered by men that did not know her father. Killers motivated by an ideology she did not understand. Attacked while merely living her life, while letting others live theirs. The girl hates these foreigners. All of them. They are all the same. None of them seem to care for the death of her father. Their voices remain silent. She will want retribution. She will get her revenge. Her thoughts are dark and unforgiving.

This happened in Paris. This happened in Iraq. This is happening in Syria. Ahmed house was bombed by the US Airforce and killed Guillaume’s father at the Bataclan. We create extremists and terrorists who create terrorists and extremists. In our fear of Islam we bully teenagers into exile in their own country. After which they search for a home elsewhere. The wrong place. An evil place. But no person is better than another. We are all susceptible to the same things. Now, we want to answer blood with blood. That’s a reaction. Not an answer. It will lead to the same pain, over and over again, on both sides. Go to war with whom? Go to war with what? An eye for an eye will make sure we can’t see clearly. Anger and rage gives us short term fulfillment but will not keep us safe from this happening again.

So how do we fight this? How do you kill a terrorist? How do you really kill a man that is willing to die for his cause? More importantly, how do you kill his cause?

Let Marcellus Wallace explain what I want to do and Rocky Balbao what we should do. “So what now? Let me tell you what now. I want the assholes that are responsible for this to spend the rest of their lives in agonizing pain. Get me a couple of hard, pipe hitting guys with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch to go medieval on their asses.”

But that won’t solve shit. Because it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that!

The world met some cowards that stopped moving forward on Friday November the 13th 2015. They took some of us with them but we keep moving forward.