We Will Always Have Paris

On the morning of Sept. 11, I was about 45 minutes outside of Anchorage when the captain of my Cathay Pacific flight announced the news that a series of terrible terrorist attacks had struck New York City and Washington, D.C. The news sent an audible shudder throughout the cabin. The flight headed back to Alaska as part of the “no fly” restrictions that were imposed. During the return about 10 passengers approached me, as a New Yorker (though I live in Jersey City) and expressed solidarity with New York.

Never in my life did I feel more proud of New York City as the people who came up to me on the jet and later on during the four days we were grounded in Anchorage came from all over the world, many of them saying that they’d felt personally attacked by an attack on New York, because they all had their personal memories of their New York. That message came from passengers from Hong Kong to London.

In that moment it became clear to me that each person, no matter where they’re from or where they were born, owns a little piece of everywhere. Within us we all have a Moscow, a Baghdad, a Jerusalem, a New York, and especially today, a Paris. We were all attacked last week when murderous thugs attacked Paris, because Paris belongs to all of us.

Today, Paris truly is, as French President François Hollande so perfectly put it, “the capital of the world.” And like a true world capital it attracted presidents, prime ministers and combatants who put aside their differences for a day to line up with 1.6 million others on the aptly named Rue Voltaire behind a banner of decency, press freedom and freedom from thuggish terror wearing robes of religion. It’s really shameful that we weren’t represented there by our leaders.

Hollande led a group that included German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Senegalese President Macky Sall, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Jordan’s King Abdullah as well as two unlikely pairs: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.

The 1.6 million person march in Paris on Sunday was the largest in the history of France, a fiercely democratic nation with a long history of demonstrations. Across France some 3.7 million people marched in demonstrations of solidarity. This was no memorial service; it was more aggressive than that. This solidarity spoke clearly to the point: intolerance will no longer be tolerated.

An in your face aggressive defense of those Enlightenment values of rational secular government, social contracts, speech freedoms and freedom from religion as well as freedom of religion is needed right now and maybe this tragedy and the subsequent solidarity will inspire that defense. It was the Paris of Voltaire that cradled those values.

On Saturday, the day before the demonstration, Nigerian terrorists cloaked in religion sent a 10 year old girl they’d kidnapped and shackled into a suicide vest into a market killing 19 people on behalf of Boko Haram. Where does it end?

The terrorists in Paris, claiming allegiance to Al Qaeda, murdered 17 people in cold blood, but they have not murdered freedom of expression in France and the Western World of values that Paris now represents.

The freedom of expression that these rabid thugs vandalized in blood is a right with many branches that include press, speech, comedy, art, politics, religion, culture and travel. Hopefully writers will write with more commitment, cartoonists will lampoon more outrageously and travelers will continue to travel in freedom. We must not be bullied away from Paris, Egypt or Israel.

To allow a brute to block the way between you and something as exceptionally beautiful as Paris, is to turn away from something that belongs to you, something that’s part of you, a wonderful part of you. So here’s to Paris where we will continue to parade its broad boulevards and to gaze on the spot-lit Arc de’ Triomphe at night and to dine on sidewalk cafes come spring.

The mignons of terror may enjoy the flow of blood and tears that result from their grotesque acts, but we will always have Paris. Always!