‘Je suis le monde, nous sommes le monde’

I woke up on Saturday morning, Nov. 14, and went about my usual routine as though it were just another day. I prayed, stretched, and checked my Facebook account for notifications and messages, and there it was on my news feed. Halfway across the world—in Paris, specifically—it was not just another day or night for the people, and even more so, it was no more day or night for the ones who were brutally killed by terrorists in the restaurants, concert hall and stadium.

It was horrifying news, and all I could do at that moment was close my eyes and pray—for the families who have lost their loved ones, for the souls of those who have passed, for the hearts of those who have killed, and for humanity and the world.

What has happened to us? I asked myself. Why have people succumbed to violence and senselessness? Perhaps all this evil exists for good to arise, but must we always sacrifice for us to awaken? Must hundreds of lives be taken for us to realize that one side of the scale is weighed down and we must now work to achieve balance, peace and unity?

I do not know the answers, and perhaps no one really does. But I think there is no justification for such evil deeds, and to tell the families who have lost someone that this had to happen so that good can happen later will not take away their pain. It will not take away the fact that all the baby clothes they kept for their daughter’s unborn child will not be used again; that the gifts they had bought for their father’s birthday will never be opened by the person for whom they were meant, or that this Christmas and
next year and the year after will have one (or more) person missing.

I can only imagine how painful it is to be in the place of the ones who survived, and how painful it is to know that there is nothing that can be done to bring back the ones who have passed, but remembering them. Again, for the deaths of these people there is no validation, and if one says that religion is to blame for such an act, then we are blaming the wrong thing. It is not religion that starts wars but the choice that people make to succumb to evil.

What of people like myself who, on the other side of the world, hear this terrible news? “What can I do?” I constantly asked myself. Will changing my profile picture to the Paris peace sign logo and using Facebook’s tricolor overlay help? Will sharing the news and posts of CNN and other articles on my news feed do anything? All I could do was hope: hope that in some way other people would become interested and read the reports, hope that other people would become aware of what’s happening to us. Some may say that this is just a bandwagon effect happening, a social media trend and absurdity (though perhaps for some this might be true), but what if for some people this—spreading the word, praying, sending their positive thoughts—is the most they can do? Is it not worth something and a way to start something?

We are in the age of stagnation despite all the technological advancements we are achieving, and while some of us want to change, we are still all in confusion; we have so much going on in our world that we don’t know what to do with the information we receive and, even more so, we don’t know how to change. I, too, am in this stage, although I am not proud of it, but I still hope to rise from it.

All that has been happening concerning terrorism and violence do not only boil down to the events in Paris but also to the bombings in Syria the day before the Paris shootings, and the days, weeks, months, and years that have carried such events. The world has changed, we have changed, but it is in such a way that we have leaned more to one side of things.

We are not making mistakes because from mistakes you learn, and we are not really learning anything, are we? Are we not merely doing evil acts? Have we not witnessed enough innocent lives being taken away for us to finally rise from this? Though amid all these most of us still strive, we still try and fall, but will rise again; the mere act of having national landmarks light up in the French tricolor shows that the world is with France and there is
still a chance for us.

I pray not only for France, Syria, Kenya, or Japan, but also for the places that have been unmentioned and forgotten but have nonetheless felt the hands of evil; I pray that we may learn and take the path of goodness; I pray for all of us, and most of all I pray for humanity. Je suis le monde, nous sommes le monde. I am the world, we are the world.

Samantha Piers, 17, of Cubao, Quezon City, is a 12th-grader in the Manila Waldorf School.