Smoke On The Water

In the past year I flew to Berlin with friends who were taking part in a marathon. To be honest, I previously thought of it as just another boring sporting event. It turned out that it was not simply a sport, but actually a holiday. And they, of course, were going to do a little traveling in Germany after the race. For them, it was not just one day, but a whole adventure.

I noted that same sort of euphoria in the hostel opposite my apartment. There, these marathoners were a whole crowd and it looked like Saint Patrick’s Day, only without the alcohol.

So, you travel around the city and you think: Well, so some people are running. You are still annoyed that for their sake, the roads are closed. This year, there was a crush into the Metro: All of Berlin was blocked, and the crowds poured into the subway.

But when you understand a little about why they are all so positive, how they come together from various countries, and that they have spent the whole year preparing for this, then you become more tolerant. This is not soccer, where there is a lot of aggression and competition.

And so I imagine all these nice people, whose families came to support them and whose friends flew in with them from other cities.

And a friend of mine, a Boston journalist, Dima Fingy, wrote on Facebook: “I was on the parallel street, Newbury, when it exploded. I did not hear the explosions; I saw smoke and crying people coming from the direction of Boylston––the finish line for the marathon. The police reacted very quickly. They began to direct a flow of people alongside the ambulances and SWAT teams. It’s not the best feeling, when you realize that you are somewhere in the epicenter. And that in another minute, there could be another explosion somewhere around here.”

You have a good idea of how everything started off so well. And then––smoke, fear, shock, police, ambulances.

Two brothers, who came to support a friend in the race, each lost a leg. An eight-year-old boy died. A nine-year-old girl, a seven-year-old boy, a twelve-year-old and one other child, just two years old, were taken to the hospital with trauma.

Most of the victims had leg injuries, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.

Even to write of this is painful. Every letter is difficult––words stop being simply words, and become a terrifying, serious idea.

It isn’t even important who did this, and why. Whether Islamists or anti-tax activists (according to a working theory today)––that’s only important for the investigators. But for us, ordinary people, it’s just someone who could kill innocent citizens, children, just because they don’t distinguish between good and evil. They are sick. They are not warriors, not soldiers, not activists––they are simply the same kind of sociopaths as maniac serial killers.

But to be honest, it is even scarier when people meet such a tragedy with a sort of schadenfreude.

When the spectacular terrorist attacks occurred in the U.S. on 9/11, one Russian broadcaster said directly, via television, that North America deserved it. Well, they had struck against Yugoslavia, and they were generally insolent. And what is frightening is that many supported him, that they considered such a punishment well earned.

After the earthquake in China, Sharon Stone told the whole country that it was “karma,” that the Chinese were insulting to her friend the Dalai Lama and were generally unfriendly, so they deserved it.

These statements are almost as horrible as the terrorism, because they find it a justification.

You know, I am not a sentimentalist, not religious, not righteous, but there are situations that clearly show which side of the border between good and evil you are on.

If you can talk about karma, or retribution, or international politics, over the dead body of a child––that means that there is simply no human characteristic in you and you are also dangerous, and cruel, and sick.

This is a special form of cynicism, even more insane than the “good intentions” of the terrorists––it injects society with the idea that even crimes have a respectable cause.

Only the victims are never to blame. We must accept this as an axiom and forget about the possibility of discussion on that theme.

The innocent citizen, who happens to suffer because of someone’s interests, is not some cog in the system, he is not expendable. This is a person, who loved someone, who liked to watch “Modern Family,” who planned a trip to the mountains with his children and who loved cream-filled donuts.

He is the same as us, and if we reject the high value of his life, even if it is perhaps unremarkable, then we have already divided people into those who can be killed, and those who should not be killed.

Which side are we on? It is a Dostoyevskian question: Can we be done away with, or is our life unique and priceless?

Indeed, this is the difference between criminals and normal people––for the latter, there is not and cannot be any kind of justification for murder. No explanation, no historical context.

It is impossible to evaluate someone’s tragic death as a political embarrassment. Behind each of them stands a personal history, the pain and horror of the people who have lost a loved one.

Tragedy has no citizenship, nationality or religion. Anyone who does not agree with that should be afraid of themselves.