The Eiffel Tower after its lights were turned off out of respect for the victims of the terror attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015. (Carolyn Cole/Getty Images)
Nous sommes tous des Parisiens once again, only ten short months after the horrible attacks at Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery store in Paris on January 7. On Friday night, North Americans watched in stunned silence as a series of terrorist attacks unfolded on our computer and television screens, their perpetrators seemingly intent on killing as many Parisians as possible, as quickly and indiscriminately as possible. Witnesses described hideous scenes of carnage, especially in the Bataclan, where so many of the young had gone for a Friday night concert by an independent American rock band. When it was over, scores of young people lay dead and the world seemed to have been thrust into a new phase in the struggle christened “the war on terror” by the Bush administration way back in 2001, when the American government embarked on its tragically misguided military response to the September 11 attacks.
Professor Whitney is FASS Associate Dean and teaches the history of France in Carleton’s Department of History.
For the rest of her blog, published for the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, click here.