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| What's wrong with this picture? |
Look closely. There is an office chair in the street.
The cops either don't seem to want to be photographed, or don't seem inclined to take any next steps, decisive or otherwise. Or they don't know which next steps to take.
A bike parked, or abandoned, in the middle of the crosswalk -- its rider, apparently, just stopped and climbed off -- reflecting either whimsy or chaos.
... An office chair, in the middle of the street.
Something has happened here, is still happening ...
It's a great picture.
Tragically,
what happened in the center of
Paris, is not at all whimsical.
Charlie Hebdo may be whimsical ... a French
Onion, if you will ... a satirical humor publication, today,
in the minds of extremists armed with Kalashnikovs and bottle rockets, twistedly perceived to be "paying the price" for its satire, humor ...
There's nothing funny.
Then,
lights can switch off in
Notre Dame ... the
Eiffel Tower goes dark, the
Bastille gets stormed, its streets clogged with
dialogue ... at least there's talking.
What's missing across much of Europe, outside of Germany, it seems, where PEGIDA --
Patriotische Europäer Gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes (
Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West) and its opposing movements have grown vocal -- is a sense of engagement. A willingness,
inclination, to take next steps ... and a lack of preparedness and security about doing so.
In too many European quarters (if you want to speak about "
white privilege"), there is a strong unease that 'something is happening' - but this weird, fervent hope that it might go away if left alone ... ignored, ridiculed or excluded.
The
banlieues are teeming with crime and poverty.
"We" are afraid to go into the
banlieues. Perhaps as a solution, the
banlieues should be invited to "us". I propose, as a tentative outreach toward solution, instead of derision, frustrations and more violence, a simple
détente:
a peaceful series of
salons, to which all religions, social strata and colors, by invitation and
wholly welcome, arrive.
Dinner is served. You've got champagne and Weißbier ... Red Bull and escargot ... Döner Kebabs with chantilly! Fear and hatred, pride and prejudice, war and peace, at table together ... Sharing apéritifs with beliefs, ideologies ... cultures, menus, ideas ... art and humor -- what "works" and what doesn't, and why --
Sharing dialogue, human connection, eye contact ... the necessary first steps toward understanding.
Simplistic perhaps. A utopian wet dream. A fantasy ... but something's got to start somewhere.
