The Entire World Is a Crime Scene

It is now 6 p.m. on Tuesday. It is important to say this because every minute it could become public what the attacks in Boston were about. Right now we do not know anything yet. The U.S. security authorities do not seem to know anything yet. Judging from the very simple detonator, some security experts assume that this was not the work of “professional terrorists.” So they do not believe it was al-Qaida or a similar group but rather domestic criminals.

If you go to The Boston Globe’s website and click on “Watch the Explosion,” you will see what happened when the first bomb detonated along the marathon route. You see a cloud of dust and how some runners turn around when they hear the bang, but also how they keep running afterward. It is this picture that I will keep of the attack in Boston. I have recognized our species in it. We are curious. We turn around. We see what happens. But we are also stubborn. We adhere to what we had resolved to do. Even an explosion does not stop us. We see our plan through. No matter what happens.

The runners who ran past the place of explosion may have turned around and gone back later, after they had reached their goal, their time had been taken, and they had caught their breath. Maybe some also tried to help the wounded. But on this very short video, you can only see how they continue to run. It is not bad. It is interesting. Not because it is extraordinary. It is interesting because it is the most ordinary thing in the world that we simply continue on. We, people who have been spared catastrophes, think that an explosion, an explosion would throw us off course! Apparently not, if it is as weak as the first one in Boston.

All in all, there are three dead and 140 injured in Boston now. The inner city is blocked off like a crime scene. Media commentators are wondering why police do not have a suspect yet. Everything should go very fast. Superhumanly fast. Everything should be as if nothing had happened again. The blockades of the crime scene should disappear. The culprits should be arrested and put behind bars. I am very much in favor of that. But I also know that this helps one overcome the shock.

It is the shock of suddenly being reminded that we all live at a crime scene, that this shock enlightens us for a short moment, but that we will then keep on running. We do not know what to do with this knowledge. We have a guilty conscience, even though we have not done anything. No, we have a guilty conscience because we do not know what we could do. We do not know how to react correctly to this terror, nevermind knowing what we could do to prevent it. We suspect that such attacks — no matter if perpetrated by one or several crazies, by religious fundamentalists or political fanatics — are simply part of being a large, complex society. We refuse to be swayed by this suspicion. We are looking for reasons in the hope that they will reveal ways to eliminate such deeds in the future. Until then we leave this to the police.

And when the TV reports such an attack again, we are shocked time and time again. This shock is quickly replaced by the next one. This time it is an earthquake in Iran with, they say, dozens of deaths. But we feel less responsible for that. It is plate tectonics, not societal change. So we switch back to Boston. Where they still say, “Still no arrests after deadly blasts.” Where we continue to read and learn of people who fled from the explosions and of others who helped the injured as best as they could or who lent a hand to security forces by removing the barriers separating the spectators from the runners. Only when that was done, the ambulances, police and firefighters could reach the crime scenes.

You read that and think again: Would you have continued to run? Would you have turned around? Would you have helped? Would fear have paralyzed you? Would you have shouted hysterically, or would you have been able to be of use? Man can be a helper to man. Not just when it is your turn to be involved in a catastrophe. You see it best at times when man is a wolf to man.