I am not some serene creature who can’t understand revenge. In my everyday life, in low-stakes situations, I can relate to the urge to get back at someone.
But when it comes to unthinkable violence – to these moments in Beirut or Paris that make us question the goodness of humanity – talk of revenge makes me question that goodness, too.
My disinterest in this type of revenge doesn’t come at a remove. I was in a high school in lower Manhattan when two planes hit the World Trade Center on 9/11. My classmates and I saw people jump from the tower windows through our own, felt our own building shake as the ones down the block each ruptured and fell.
We watched our teachers’ faces contort as they screamed. When the lights went out, we fumbled down stairwells, we ran up a highway, we stopped being young. We also breathed toxins that lingered in the air after the attacks and many of us, myself included, now have cancer and PTSD as a result.
[For more of this story, written by Michele Lent Hirsch, go to http://www.theguardian.com/com...esponse-september-11]
Comments (0)