– by Jean-Christophe Le Toquin –
If I was a philosopher, I would have the humility to say that I know nothing about the Paris attacks on 13th November. But I rather just see myself as a witness and I want to share what I think.
As hundreds of thousands of people in the Paris area, I live not too far away from the locations of the attacks. I have been there before, I know some people who have been injured or even died, and I have friends and relatives who suffer the loss of close friends and colleagues in a much more direct way than I do.
If I dare say something about the Paris attacks, it’s not because I have witnessed their horrible reality, even less because I would have some special intelligence on the terrorists and their chain of commandment.
What I know is that there is no single motivation in the mind of the attackers, and therefore there is no single and simple solution to the problem.
I know that these attacks are against all the people, all of us. And the response shall come from all of us.
How shall all of us respond? Shall we go further to Syria and Irak to defeat military these people? Certainly, but we are not all soldiers. Shall we go after these criminals in Europe, arrest and prosecute them? Certainly, but we are not all policemen. Shall we go to music concerts, sport matches and have drinks with our friends in cafés and restaurants? Of course, as much as our resources allow us to do that. Will it be enough if we do all of that? As you may expect, the response is negative.
The assassins who blow up themselves are sometimes described as illiterate, but the question whether they understand the Coran or not, or whether they got a decent education, is not the point. The point is that the attackers are people manipulated by criminals above them. Eradicate these manipulated attackers, and more manipulated terrorists will stand up.
I find there is an interesting parallel between manipulated terrorists and victims of fraud: in my previous job, I started a project to help victims of romance scam and lottery scams, and I failed. I remember a very well educated Danish old man, who had a good career in finance, and who had lost all his life’s savings in a lottery scam. The Danish police, my outside counsel and I could not do anything to make him understand the reality of his situation. He had been manipulated and could not disconnect mentally from his manipulators. And all victims are like him. If we could not cure and help a reasonable old man with the same background as ourselves, how can we rescue young people who have been convinced that they belong to a different world than ours?
So, is there anything which can be done? And who can play a role?
Yes, we can do something, and yes we all have a role to play. Absolutely all of us. And we can start now.
I suggest we change and adapt our own behaviour. We should view things through a collaborative effort, and make enlightened decisions based on the convergence of various views and disciplines.
I believe we have failed so far to rescue victims of scams because we have not been able to combine together a comprehensive response by combining expertise and data from law enforcement medical care and banking and internet industry. We will fail against manipulated terrorists if we stay isolated in the way we think.
It is time that each of us in our daily life, at home, at work, in the street, makes the effort to be more open to others’ point of view, and reject as suspicious any decision that comes from just one point of view.
The more we will combat dominating views, the more we will team up with others and work collaboratively, the better we will strengthen our society, and the quicker we will defeat manipulated attackers. They are a few people with just one efficient but narrow way of thinking. We will be many, united by the strength of our diversity.