Boston was bombed on Patriots' Day. During the superlative event of human achievement. Murdering an eight-year-old boy and others to prove some point. Life's hideous, tragic ironies will never cease and no one anywhere is immune.
At 8.45 pm on Friday, the most bizarre episode in Boston's history ended as it had started: with bombs and blood. "Suspect No 2," injured and hiding in a stranger's backyard, was captured by police after gunfire and flash bombs. It initiated a new chapter, one that will persist longer than the two-hour car chase and shoot-out, the 13-hour metro-area lockdown and the 22-hour police exercise. In this chapter, hopefully we'll find out why it all happened.
Boston is a beautiful city. It is America's oldest city. It is the continent's most learned city. In the spring, Copley Square where the attack took place is carpeted with thousands of tulips and daffodils like a Dutch postcard. The Greater Boston Area a hub of Facebook creators, face-transplant surgeons and a quarter-million students in a hundred universities.
Unsurprisingly, many of those not lining the 26-mile route on Monday were at work like I was. Private sector workers get just eight paid holidays a year, half of that of T&T, but the only way to survive in a competitive market is to work hard.The 2013 Boston Marathon bombing was shocking. No one imagined this city would be the site of a terror attack. It is innocuous, academic and progressive. "Terror" isn't in our vocabulary. I have never felt unsafe here.
'Police activity'
So when on Monday at 3.02 pm I glanced at the e-mail alert from the T, Boston's transit authority, about downtown subway stations closed due to "police action" I assumed it was a fight or something. It was a generic term, like how a suicide on the tracks is called a "passenger trespass."
Even when I walked towards the site of the attack and saw hundreds of people behind reams of yellow police tape staring blankly, shaking their heads; police, bomb squads, ATF, fire engines and ambulances rushing through constantly; runners wrapped in towels to keep warm because they couldn't reach their hotels–I didn't believe one of "those" attacks had just happened here. In the days that followed, sirens continually upset the eerie silence that had set in.
Helicopters passed over my brownstone at 2 am. Getting off the T I hit a wall of policemen and sniffer dogs. Everyone was uneasy, stunned and utterly confused at why this happened.
The two alleged attackers had shown no signs of extremist views or psychopathic ways. They were born near Chechnya but grew up in Cambridge. They spoke with American accents. They went to a very good high school near my old workplace. They were athletes. One won a scholarship, listened to rap, smoked weed and helped out others. They had both started their bachelor's. They were "normal."
So the second thing that's not understandable is why these young men blew their chance at a real life. Having US residency offered them unprecedented opportunities compared to their war-torn homeland. They had everything going for them.
Hate attacks
The repercussions of the attack have already begun. Near the T station at which I disembark to go to work, a man punched a woman in a hijab and shouted, "F--- you, Muslims! You are terrorists!" The woman was a doctor. She was taking her toddler to a play group.The 13-hour lockdown is believed to have incurred an economic loss of between US$25 and US$33 million.
The historic comprehensive immigration reform bill in Washington, DC will now be stymied as "immigrant" will once again be conflated with "terrorist."The Boston Marathon will now be both a celebration of human triumph and a grieving over lives, limbs and liberties lost. Patriots' Day, the commemoration of the first battle towards US independence, will now symbolise freedoms forcibly denied.
The young men who allegedly committed this act of terror didn't even consider an escape plan. One of them was on Twitter all week; he even showed up at school the next day.And that makes this episode even more incomprehensible. Making sense of tragedy is necessary for the city to heal. With the apparent brainchild dead we may never know the full story. With their apparent casualness, we may never comprehend their rationale. With their youthful naivete, we may never divorce ourselves of anger, vengeance and hurt.
The politicians keep saying that Boston is a "resilient" city. How do we know when we've never experienced this before? Does resilient mean maintaining usual city life? Hardening our hearts? Developing superhuman defences to combat an ever-present menace like in a comic book?
We all "knew" we lived in a dangerous world. Last week, I watched that world on TV and realised I was in it. It is deadly and random and hopeful all at the same time. As they've been saying here, all we really can do is "keep calm and Bost-on." It makes little sense but I'm getting used to that.