We refute this. With Heavy Hearts and Clenched Fists.
Thirteen years and 10 days after the New World's revolution, the same beliefs and principles of the Enlightenment Era that turned freedom from monarchic tyranny into a guiding principle central to political discourse in European colonies... all made full circle and returned to the Old Continent, where the "Declaration of the Human Rights of Man and the Citizen" enshrined the ideological framework of the French Republic and placed France at the apex of political philosophy with the help of Descartes, Rousseau, Montesquieu and men tantamount to them.
On this momentous day, when the famished and fatigued man's yearning to live free was chiseled into something sharper than the swords of the Bastille Saint-Antoine's royal guards, the citizens of Paris sparked the revolution that dethroned Louis XVI and brought an end to the monarchy.
The Marquis de Lafayette, a man known as the hero of two worlds for having served in the American Revolutionary Army as a Major General at the age of 19, who then stormed the Bastille to liberate Paris at the age of 34, is buried in Picpus Cemetery underneath soil unearthed and exported from Charlestown, Massachussets so he may lay for the rest of his days underneath the ground blood was shed on during the battle of Bunker Hill.
THIS, my brothers and sisters, Citizens and Humans of the Free and Independent World, is why thousands celebrated TODAY on the streets of Nice as did millions more in all corners of France.
...and yet THIS was attacked by an apparent suicidal and homicidal enemy, seemingly motivated by the destructive frustrations of a militant theocracy that lives in the shadows of a globalized society.
How overwhelming to know that we must defend our lives and our rights from these brainless beasts. How tricky and confusing to think that their indoctrination has reserved for their own selves the same slavery and destruction they seek to impose on the perceived threats of their dogmatic schizophrenia. How sad to think that in a mind foreign to logic and reason, men resort to violence to defend beliefs of which there is little to no empirical evidence.
But how necessary to reflect on what created these modern swarms of Radicalized Islamic fascists. How necessary to examine the policies and practices of European powers in the 19th Century, as it is necessary to scrutinize the American campaigns of the 20th and 21st. How necessary to not only prepare to face the enemy, but to look into your own house and wonder what attitudes to the outside world brought forth the flames that now seek to burn it down.
Our generation did not make the decisions that led to the consequences we have inherited. But by the grace of whatever mercy and benevolence is left in human affairs, by whatever courage and intelligence remains in the homo sapiens, we pledge to confront the corrupt and distorted branches of the Tree of humanity with whatever it takes, be it knowledge or overwhelming force. Be it books. Be it bullets.
We pledge to somehow and eventually rise above the lower vibrations and remain in harmony with the living frequencies of creation.
We pledge to have courage in the face of adversity, yet ultimately... we pledge to be governed by Love, not Fear.
Like the Hope you will rise to tomorrow... this story is to be continued.
A version of this post originally appeared on Medium.