A French Woman in Boston, My Empathy Surprised Americans

So, this is how things happened around me:

I was in my office when I heard of the two bombs close to the finish line of the marathon — unrest in the offices, amazement, people talking about generators that had exploded, people believing it was an accident. Then, in the space of an hour, we learned that there had been injuries and two deaths, and the police had discovered homemade bombs.

Panic, Confusion and the First Hypotheses

Work stopped at the university. Lessons were cancelled and we were asked to go home. Panicked, our minds were taking in the horror of the attack. Everyone was remembering 9/11.

We also heard that there was a bomb in a library. Confusion ensued, though we learned a few hours later that it was probably a fire unrelated to the attacks at the marathon. But everyone was taken over by fear on campus, well aware of the number of libraries around us.

The metro closed after several suspect package scares in various stations and on different metro lines were reported. I was with a French friend and we were thinking about the Islamist terrorist attacks.

By text messages or social media, we quickly heard talk of a trail to extreme right-wing Americans and even Koreans, a suspicion linked to a recent rise in tensions between the U.S. and North Korea. But this last suspicion was quickly abandoned.

“We Will Have One Too: Our Own 9/11”

While walking across the campus to go home, I heard snippets of a conversation between undergrads, who were talking about their memories of 9/11. One of them declared to the others in an almost glorious tone: “Us too, we’ll have one.”

It is, in effect, both an interesting and troubling aspect of the reactions which have followed the event. I also noticed, in class the next morning, the fantasy of an attack that was bigger than it had been, as if the (young) generations needed to claim a trauma for their own.

Almost all of my students — I have 14 — were proud to tell me that they had a boyfriend or girlfriend who had ran in the marathon and that it had been terrible, a terrifying shock, but that, “Thank God,” nothing had happened to them.

My Empathy as a French Woman Surprised Americans

Another interesting aspect: the Americans’ shock at the empathy the French had for them during this kind of trauma and national mourning. I started my class by talking about the atrocity of the events and of the distressing sadness, of the attention and the worries that my family and friends in France had shared with me — an opening which provoked the shock and the surprise of the majority of my American students. They didn’t understand why we also felt concerned and affected by the terrorism; or maybe, more generally, why we had empathy for people who are often satirized as antagonistic.

The Extreme Right Quickly Suspected

I mostly heard talk of a theory about the extreme right, supported by several ideas:

1. April 15 was the deadline for tax returns, an act hated by the ultra-right American.

2. In the state of Massachusetts, it was a public holiday that celebrates patriotism (Patriots’ Day).

3. The Boston marathon is the oldest in the U.S.

4. Boston is a town that ultimately symbolizes liberalism in the American sense of the word: openness and progressivism.

Moreover, it was my family in France who told me that a Saudi suspect was arrested by the police on the evening of the attacks. I hadn’t heard anything of an anti-Muslim misdemeanor appropriate for the ultra-conservative Fox News or New York Post.

“Don’t be a Muslim”

Here, people immediately took care not to make the hasty or hodgepodge conclusions. This comes from the fact that the university area is well educated, something that critics would describe as “politically correct” or “right thinking.”

Simultaneously, on social networks, more involved people were posting an article from The Washington Post entitled: “Please, don’t be a Muslim.” They clearly hoped that the attack would not turn out to be an Islamist act. My Muslim friends, of course, dread the consequences that this could have for themselves and for other Muslims.

Since then, it’s been a waiting game, and we’ve been on the lookout for the smallest information about the event.