A Moment of Silence for Spain?
I attended a lecture· yesterday as part of the Spirit of Fès·, an interfaith festival of sacred music that started in Fès, Morocco, and has spread throughout the world. The discussion concerned the possibility of bridging the divide between the great faith traditions to achieve peace in the world. One of the panelists made a startling observation: after last week’s bombing in Madrid, Spain·, there was no official national moment of silence or mourning of the tragedy in the United States.
On September 14, 2001, all of Europe observed a three-minute silence to remember the victims of the September 11 attacks·, as did most of the rest of the world. Yet, even though this was the worst terrorist attack in Spanish history, and Europe itself observed· a transnational moment of silence, there was no such response here.
Why is it that our tragedy is the world’s tragedy, but disaster elsewhere is reflected here primarily as fear of more terrorism on American soil?