Terrror on Two Fronts

This week in Mumbai, we witnessed multiple, coordinated attacks on famous-name, heavily-traveled venues that resulted in over a hundred senseless deaths. The authorities have not yet determined exactly who is responsible, nor whom they will arrest and try for the outrages.

The terror involved a band of as-yet unidentified gunmen attacking, among other unfortunate locales, the Taj and the Oberoi hotels in central Mumbai and the killing of numerous innocents. One presumes the target selection was the result of a strong resentment against affluence, consumerism and, in general, the freedoms associated with openness.

Yesterday in a New York suburb, we witnessed a mindless, mob-driven attack on a famous-name heavily-traveled venue that resulted in a single senseless death. The authorities have not yet determined exactly who is responsible, nor whom they will arrest and try for the outrage.

The New York suburban incident took place at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream. The terror involved a mob of early shoppers on Black Friday (the media-anointed Biggest Shopping Day of the Year) trampling to death a Wal-Mart employee in its frenzied pursuit of heavily discounted consumer totems. One presumes the target selection was the result of a strong, not to say fatal attraction to the baubles that have come to symbolize affluence, combined with a total lack of openness to the notion that one may need to examine one's history of decisionmaking should one find one's self crowded during the chilly, pre-dawn hours before the portals of a purveyor of mundane baubles.

Making matters worse at the Wal-Mart, once the crowd had done its trampling, its members continued to shop. When told the store was closing due to the tragedy, many could not understand, and were shocked and even angered that the mere trampling of an employee might somehow interfere with their pursuit of flat-screens and mittens.

Elsewhere in our great nation, a Black Friday-morning shooting at a Toys-R-Us may or may not have been directly related to shopping. Yet we can now fully imagine that, under the wrong circumstances, we too may be wounded or killed while toy-shopping.

Mindless terror stalks the earth--claiming victims at the Taj, the Oberoi, the Mumbai Jewish Center; claiming more victims at the hallowed gates of Wal-Mart and Toys-R-Us. It pays to keep an eye out--for armed attackers; for mindless tramplers. Let us hope not to find ourselves or a loved one fallen victim to either hateful number, and offer sincere condolences to those who have.

--Renaissance