Thoughts: Je Suis Bruxelles

If you are a regular at Dining Traveler, you know my love for Brussels.  This love affair for the city began in 2006 when I moved there for graduate school.  When I arrived in the city, I was completely alone.  After my deployment to Iraq followed by my divorce, I was ready to start a new life.  My intent was to spend 18 months in Brussels for graduate school and return to the US.  However, the universe works in mysterious ways. I ended up staying there for six years.  During those six years, many changes happened in my life.  I earned my master’s degree, met friends who became an extension of my family, learned more about the world than my six years of collegiate studies, and most importantly, I met my Dutchman.  I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Brussels.  Je Suis Bruxelles (I am Brussels).

When I woke up the morning of March 22nd it was like any other morning-….until I reached for my phone.  I suddenly saw 45 of my friends have marked themselves “safe” on Facebook.  Then I noticed the notification on my BBC app:  Brussels had been a victim of a terrorist attack.  There was this uneasy feeling on the pit of my stomach.  I started to check my Facebook and What’s App for my friends.  All the memories of living in Brussels started to flash: dinners at my home in Ixelles, late nights sipping Duvel at Delirium, impromptu picnics at Bois de la Cambre, many trips taken from Zaventem Airport, and most importantly, the night I met my husband at Place du Chatelain.  I felt this deep feeling of pain, sorrow, and sadness.  However, I am sad to say I wasn’t surprised.

With those memories also came flashbacks from my deployment in Baghdad in 2005 where attacks of this nature were the norm.  Suicide attacks at weddings to markets were a daily occurrence in 2005 across Iraq. After seven months analyzing improvised explosive devices (that was my job), I learned how easy is to create terror, even in an area with such limited supplies.  At that time, my fear was that one day these actions will hit too close to home, and they most certainly have.  It doesn’t take much to create something that can create multiple casualties, and most of all, create terror.  Sadly, mass casualties are not needed in order to create chaos and uncertainty.  At the end of it all, that’s what a terrorist wants to achieve. Create a world in which we live in fear and give up the way of life we’ve sacrificed so much to achieve.

As much as I enjoyed living in Brussels, there was the negative underbelly of  a disenfranchised youth who were responsible for my unsavory memories of living in the city.  They carry the same profile of those who have committed these attacks, the type who call women “whore” if they are running by themselves and don’t entertain their advances (it happened to me several times, watch documentary Femme de la Rue), try to vandalize your car when you take the wrong turn and end up in Schaarbeek, or try to rob you at knifepoint (it happened to several people I knew).  Those are the topics that are difficult to discuss as it is better to talk about the good times, but one I feel that should be addressed.  I recall being a security manager at NATO focusing on industrial security.  At one of agency wide meetings, I asked about the threat of terrorism as the briefing focused more on cold-war type topics (mind you, this was 2011).  I was the only woman at that briefing.  The briefer looked at me like I was crazy, then scoffed at me by saying “that’s the job of the Belgian police” (in a tone of “how dare this woman ask me that question?”).  Sadly, this apathy for the state of world affairs is not uncommon in some security communities.

In my opinion, another more important question remains: how does a person who was born and raised in a city still hate it so much that it provokes them to cause such heinous crimes?  I truly don’t have an answer, however, I feel that this is something the authorities should address more in depth.  Apathy must stop.  Not only in Belgium but in the rest of the world.  How do we make all citizens, regardless or race or religion feel vested in the community they live in?  How do we make everyone feel a deep sense of citizenship?

I may not have the answers to the questions above, but one thing I am certain of:  these cowardly acts will not prevent me from continuing my yearly travels to Brussels or even living there again.  Because for every negative experience I had in Brussels, there are 100 memories to counter.  When we stop living, traveling, enjoying the lifestyle we’ve earned, that’s when they win.  Je Suis Bruxelles.