Explosive

Portland had a brush with terror and the surreal yesterday, when a Somali teenager attempted to set off a huge bomb in the middle of the city's tree-lighting ceremony, attended by 12,000 women, men, and children. We learned about this in both our morning papers this morning. We get the Sunday New York Times and the daily Oregonian, both of which pictured the attempted bombing on their front pages. Luckily, the whole thing was being controlled by undercover FBI agents and they planted a fake bomb instead of a real one, so nothing bad happened and the guy got arrested. However, as I was saying to several people earlier today, I now have more understanding of why terror is so, well, terrifying.

The would-be bomber was quoted somewhere as saying (paraphrasing here) that Portland was the perfect place to attack, because it's out of the way, below the radar, and no one would be expecting it. This is exactly the reason that I have worried almost not at all about any kind of terrorist attack. A bombing in a the middle of a huge ceremonial holiday event is something I could envision in other countries or at least in big cities in this country. So, I guess my bubble has been burst and this kind of thing can really happen anywhere. It is, to say the least, disconcerting, and, to say the most, utterly terrifying! I'm not saying I'm going to alter our daily routines or anything, or avoid going to community events or anything like that. I just wish we lived in a world where no one felt the need to blow up anyone else. Really, is that too much to ask?

The other part of this that caught my eye is that the perpetrator is Somali-American. Sacha's school is right in the middle of a large Somali immigrant community and is full of newly immigrated Somali kids. A lot of the families have at least 5 children and a family of 12 is not unheard of. So, the community is big when compared to the size of the city and the lack of people of color here in the first place. I hope this doesn't lead to more discrimination against these kids and their families, who obviously had nothing to do with what this guy was up to. His quotes in the paper make it very clear that he's some kind of sociopath, but of course, he'll be associated with the Somali community anyway. I wonder what Sacha's day at school will be like tomorrow. I'll be interested to hear what she learns...