Hellobee Boards

@SugarplumsMom: that is heart wrenching. I cannot even imagine and I'm so thankful I don't have to.

@SugarplumsMom: I read that last night and it broke my heart all over again. Such a senseless loss for everyone - not just those who lost their lives, but also the survivors who will have to live with what they experienced for the rest of their lives.

This all just feels surreal. I was living in London when the 2005 bombings took place and this is bringing back so many memories. The fear, the worry, the constant looking over your shoulder etc. It makes me so sad that this is the world we live in

@FannyMae: you strike a good point, I also thought that was strange that they were carrying passports.

@yoursilverlining: I read a couple of them were born in Belgium and were carrying fake passports. Just to make people angry and scared about the refugees. You are spot on in saying this is exactly what they want. It is. They want war.

It makes me super sad that this is being used as fuel to try and stop refugees from entering safe countries. I see all over my facebook people who are bitching about our new Canadian Government allowing more refugees in. It's kind of infuriating.

I want those people to be safe. It IS a scary time, it's scary for me and I'm in Canada. I can't even begin to imagine how scary it would be being from Syria and either living there or trying to escape. Or coming to a country where a ton of people are going to side eye me and wonder if I'm a terrorist. My heart aches for them.

@agold: Just to clear things up, what DID you mean by not being surprised that some of the attackers came in with the group of refugees? It did sound like you were saying you disagree with allowing refugees to come into safer countries because of a generalization that they are mostly military aged men with a violent agenda, which just isn't true. Refugees are escaping that very violence and certain death.

FYI - I'm on an incognito screen name. I'd like to use my usual one to stick with mommy advice and not get into political and moral debates.

ETA: @agold: didn't mean to single you out or make you feel defensive about your comments. This should be a safe space to be honest with your opinion.

@.twist.: One of my other Canadian FB friends posted this blog post, which I thought was great – especially the bit about putting American violence into perspective when we talk about barring “violent people” from Canadian (and any nation’s) borders.
https://stephentobias.wordpress.com/

I see similar things to what you're seeing on my FB feed - how we can't accept Syrian refugees because of what happened in Paris. Um, do those people also feel that we should bar French citizens as well, since those seem to be the responsible party? Or, this terrorist attack being used as political fuel regarding (getting rid of) gun regulations here. Vultures.

@yoursilverlining: I think we should just build a big giant wall. We can call it, Wall in the North , and not let anyone in or out. PROBLEM SOLVED. There are no bad people beyond the wall. I've heard Canadians are nice.

@Maysprout: I read an article (linked below) that I found very eye opening, about how a lot of the frustrated young men you're speaking of come from 1st world countries, have money and education. They are politically inclined and are recruited easily because of all these factors. Here is the transcript article on why radicalization happens and how we often have the "who" of it wrong. A couple paragraphs:

And finally, there is much evidence that those who join jihadi groups are anything but poorly integrated, at least in the conventional sense of looking at integration. A survey of British jihadis by researchers at Queen Mary College in London found that support for jihadism is unrelated to ‘social inequalities or poor education’; rather, those drawn to jihadist groups were 18- to 20-year-olds from wealthy families who spoke English at home and were educated to a high, often university, level. Or, as the study out it, ‘Youth, wealth, and being in education… were risk factors’. Insofar as they are alienated, it is not because wannabe jihadis are poorly integrated, in the conventional way we think of integration, or because they because they are poor or lack resources.
Analysing jihadists of a decade ago, Marc Sageman similarly challenged the idea that ‘terrorism comes from poverty, broken families, ignorance, immaturity, lack of family or occupational responsibilities, weak minds susceptible to brainwashing – the sociopath, the criminals, the religious fanatic.’ His database suggested, to the contrary, that terrorists are among the ‘best and brightest’ from ‘caring, middle class families’ who ‘can speak, four, five, six languages’, and ‘three-quarters of whom were ‘professionals or semi-professionals’, ‘engineers, architects… scientists.’

ETA: oops link! https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2015/10/07/radiclization-is-not-so-simple/

@Maysprout: I could definitely see online engagement being a big one. These young, educated and well-to-do kids are more likely to be politically inclined than their poorer, more uneducated peers. They have the resources to seek out communities online and join them. I'm sure there are other way, but I can see this being a big factor.

@.twist.: Thank you for sharing that article. Fascinating and rooted in sociology and anthropology. The last three paragraphs are a good summary.

@Maysprout: Part of the problem is that France still has enormous race problems. 10% of the population is Muslim and there is a sentiment among a non negligible part of the Muslim population of not belonging and being rejected by their country, even those who are 2nd, 3rd or more generation French citizens (and from what I understand, the sentiment is similar in Belgium). No official stats are kept, but unemployment is high in France and thought to be in the 20% among Muslim-origin young people. I'm making some somewhat broad statements, but some of these young men have turned to radicalism in their search to find belonging, or perhaps in retaliation to a country that has rejected them. The New Yorker recently ran a good article that touched on some of this. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-other-france

Also, reports in the French press say that the Syrian passport that was found was a fake.

@MrsSCB: Oh good lord. These guys weren't refugees. Whyyyy.

@MrsSCB: Unfortunately Texas is not alone. Governors of Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Michigan, Alabama, and Arkansas have already rushed to deny entry to refugees from Syria, following the Paris attacks.

@MrsSCB: A Mosque was deliberately set aflame Saturday night in Ontario. It's everywhere.

@MrsSCB: oh wow He should be ashamed of himself.

So much IGNORANCE.

@lamariniere: I've never lived there but we do visit regularly. But I've gotten the feeling that the part that feels rejected by their country is sort of like the Mormons or southern baptists in the US that have a lot of rigid, sexist views and have to keep themselves isolated to maintain that sort of dogma.

@lamariniere: that makes sense. I had a bad experience at a middle eastern restaurant in Brussels where I was basically told to get out so it left an impression of a more hard core group in Europe. Ive never had anything close to that experience in the U S.
But it does seem like all communities in general are a lot more insulated over there. I think my children are the first in probably 100s of years that have been out bred from a gene pool outside of a hundred mile radius on my husbands side. And that type of insulation is hard to break.