[ Originally posted on Facebook 18 November 2015 in the wake of a series of terror attacks in Paris on 13 November that left over 120 dead ]
I have [now ‘had’] the honour to work for an organisation (UNHCR, the UN refugee agency), many of whose staff are on the front lines in some of the world’s most difficult places—places where conflict, terrorism, atrocity and personal trauma on a scale almost inconceivable are daily occurrence.
So to a conversation in the office today about how what’s happening in Europe will change things.
One of our number—who has extensive experience at the shitty sharp end—said, “Oh, it’ll be just like when we were in xxxx—there’s an explosion, a shooting, a bombing or some other terrible thing, everyone pauses for a moment, and then life goes on.”
“xxxx” might be Afghanistan, it might be Colombia, Central African Republic, Lebanon, Kenya, or Myanmar; it might be Mali, Pakistan, Nigeria, Syria, Ukraine, Somalia, Iraq, South Sudan, or Yemen; it might be Turkey. It might be so many other places.
What we in Europe (and USA, Australia, Canada, Japan etc.) see as the unimaginable is often no more than daily reality for so many others around the world.
The developed world’s myth since WWII is that the authorities can and will keep us all safe.
Never has this been more untrue.
So welcome, we lucky denizens of the “developed” world, to our new reality—a reality that so many of our brothers and sisters elsewhere know only too well and live with daily . . .