Irrational acts, an irrational response
By Yael Bizouati

The day before the terrorist attacks, I was on the phone with a friend who was inquiring about safety in New York. Was it safe to ride the subways alone at night, she wanted to know. Was it safe to walk alone several blocks by myself after night classes? I answered that I never felt as safe in any other parts of the globe, and, curiously enough, that I even felt safer than in my hometown, Toulouse, France.

After the attacks, I no longer feel that way. Like many others, I don’t feel safe because I don’t know what’s going to happen next. But I also don’t feel safe because of the rising and omnipresent patriotism here, in New York, and elsewhere in America. As a foreign student, that makes me nervous.

Three days after the attacks, I rode the subway and was pushed, and cursed at because I look "middle-eastern." As a matter of fact, I’m French, and Jewish, even though since last week I’ve never felt so much a New Yorker, and even beyond that, so much a part of humanity.

But I’m afraid because sadly in history, patriotism too often travels along with its crippled, nationalism. These were acts of irrationality. Do we want to also respond with, irrationality? Is that the world I want to live in? Is that the world I want to raise my child in? I’m afraid for all these reasons, and I’m distressed to see that the world let the world come to this.

I’m also angry. Angry at these acts, angry with "them." But also angry when I see the front page of the tabloid newspapers and read headlines like, "Crusade," or "Wanted dead or alive." Of course these acts will have to be punished, but I’m angry to see words calling to more hatred, and taking us hundreds of years back.

I’m also tired of hearing that we are a "free" country, a "free" society. That "they" won’t take away our "freedom." I believe that freedom is the ability to make choices with a full understanding and reflections on the situation. I just don’t think we are there yet.

 

Yael Bizouati is a graduate student in the journalism department at NYU.