Wednesday, 23 March 2016

My reflection on the terrorist attacks in Brussels

Hello, bonjour. I'm sure you would have seen the terrible scenes on the news about the horrific terrorist attacks in Brussels in Belgium yesterday. I was at the office working when I first became aware of the news and I was just mortified when the extent and scale of the attacks became clear. I have lived through a lot of terrorism in Europe: most recently there were the attacks in Cologne, then there was Paris - twice last year in fact. And going back further, there were the 7/7 attacks in London back in 2005 which I lived through as a Londoner and going back even further I lived through the April 1999 nail bombs. On one hand, yes I've been there and went through the same emotions before, but on the other hand, it doesn't make it any easier each time it happens. It is that same sickening feeling in my heart.
One of my favourite photos taken when I was in Brussels.

I have lived and worked in Belgium when I did I stint on Belgian TV in Liege. I took advantage of the fact that I had a base in Liege and traveled widely all over Belgium - it is not a big country and I got to know it incredibly well. I love Belgium so much - it is a quirky country, extremely beautiful. We joke that it is a bilingual country that is unofficially trilingual: there's French and Flemish-Dutch as the two official languages, then there's English which the two groups use to communicate with each other. Belgium is multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and I fell in love with it whilst working there. The capital Brussels is such a gorgeous, charming city. We already had some inkling that trouble was brewing in Brussels after some false alarms last year, when the city went into shut down and the worst did happen.

I went through so many emotions as I read the news: the anger, the rage, the feeling of 'oh no not again'. Then my concern turned to my Belgian friends and I was contacting them via Facebook - to check if they were okay and if their friends and family were affected. One of my friends said her sister was at Maelbeek station when the bomb went off, but she was otherwise okay if not frightened. It was like dejavu as I went through this whole thing last year with my French friends in Paris, when the two attacks happened. I mostly just feel anger now - there may be other emotions that I may feel in due course, perhaps there is some fear, but mostly just anger. Raw anger. People react differently when shit like that happens, I don't know what to do with this anger, I don't know why I am feeling it and I thought that perhaps in writing it down, I can explain it - but I can't. I have been so very busy with work of late that I've not really had the chance to make sense of my feelings. I just need some more time to calm down and think things through.
I love Brussels. J'aime Bruxelles.

Anyway, I'll blog more about it over the Easter weekend when we will all know a bit more about who was behind the attacks in Brussels and I'll do a longer piece to try to share my understanding of the situation as someone who has worked in Belgium and understands Belgian society quite well. But for now, stay safe everyone and let's send our love to the people of Brussels who must be feeling so much pain right now. Thank you for reading, merci bien, dank je wel.


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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous28 March 2016 at 02:11

    Hi Limpeh, why do you think the Brussels / Paris attacks attracted more international attention than the Ankara / Istanbul / Jakarta attacks?

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    1. Limpeh Foreign Talent28 March 2016 at 02:32

      Hi Abi, well let's put it this way.

      People expect Brussels and Paris to be fairly safe, they do not expect Turkey or Indonesia to be as safe. When I was working in Istanbul, a bomb went off in the central area of Istanbul - it was related to the PKK, Kurdish separatists and I can't recall the details, but incidents like that do happen in Istanbul all the time and the Turks are almost used to it by now. It doesn't make it any less horrific when a bomb goes off like that, but people will say, "oh yeah but that kinda thing happens all the time there anyway". The fact is Brussels has never experienced a terrorist attack on this scale before, so it did come as a shock. Everything is relative to what people's expectations are.

      The other issue is that in Turkey and Indonesia, it is a case of Muslims killing Muslims - the non-Muslim world turns and looks the other way when that happens. But when it is Muslims killing Christians, then it suddenly makes people feel a lot more frightened and threatened. There was another bombing in Pakistan today but it was IS targeting Christians celebrating Easter in Pakistan - let's see if the world will react to the plight to Christians living in Pakistan.

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