It’s been five years now. At 7.58 am on March 22, 2016, two explosions pierce the ordinary crowded routine of the Zaventem airport, the main airport in Belgium and its capital. 73 minutes pass, and another violent detonation explodes inside a subway car in Maelbeek, in the heart of Community Brussels, a few tens of meters from the twelve-star palace of power. After a few days, when the pain and confusion will again leave room for the ever simple Belgian everyday life, the death toll will indicate 32 citizens of fourteen nationalities and three suicide bombers. Initially it was said “35”, but in the confusion, three victims had been counted twice. There were also over three hundred wounded, some in terrible condition.
It was in the air. After the November Bataclan in Paris, the connections between the hideous, insanely self-proclaimed “Islamic” terrorists and Belgium had become evident in the ignorance of the police in charge of managing national borders. Fall 2015 brought a lockdown that now looks ridiculous. Brussels closed for a few days for fear that there was an attack. The lockout was global, everyone stayed at home. Not much, in retrospect, although the first cut is always difficult to forget, then a boy said what many thought: “They can kill me, but they can’t stop me from living.” And life, with the slowness of the Flat Country, returned to its normalcy.
All attacks generate pain, as does any violation of the freedom, rights and life of individual living beings. We must never forget even one, because it is only on memory that we can build. Each event generates its lesson and remains glued to the skin of those who passed by, leaves a trail of precariousness and disseminates a desire for ethical reaction. The London attacks were “against imperialism” (finished), the French ones against the Grandeur (presumed), the German ones against economic power (effective). In Brussels, Europe was attacked, that is, all of us, all together.
Five years have passed, he told himself. There are ten defendants awaiting judgment, including the terrible Salah Abdeslam, the infamous Mohamed Abrini – the man in the hat who flees on foot from Zaventem -, and Ossama Krayem, the kamikaze who, at the last moment, gave up his explode in Maelbeek. The law dictates that they are ultimately guilty only after proper judgment. But the process, it seems incredible, hasn’t started yet. The Belgians say it will leave in September. It seems. A real shame. And shame is still not enough.