I remember being fearful of going to a concert in Switzerland of all things. It wasn't a happy time.
i remember when the Bataclan massacre happened and fucking wrecked me mentally, the very next day i went to see American musician Austin Lucas who was touring Finland, and he was devastated because he had lost some musician friend at the attack (tour worker for Eagles of Death Metal iirc), and during his show he came down to the crowd and asked us all to bunch up together and sing along with him to the memory of all who died in Paris the previous night, it was my favorite song by his as well, so it was just surreal emotionally. i'll never forget it.
and then there were so many other horrifying Islamic extremist attacks all over Europe, killing hundreds of people, i was paranoid for a long time even walking around in Finland (probably top 5 safest country in the world), then one day in 2017 i hopped on a bus, got a call from a panicked friend "where are you in Turku, go to a safe place there's an on-going terror attack near the main market, probably many dead!!" and i had just walked through the main market 30min earlier, i walk there all the time. so i'm instantly in total shock, i believed my friend because he doesnt joke around, so i told the other passengers on the bus and to call their loved ones in Turku to stay inside and people started panicking and crying and everything and i just felt completely surreal, like this cannot be happening in our safe little city... but it did. one crazy ISIS wannabe motherfucker targeted a dozen women or so and knifed them brutally in the throat etc, some young lady bled out on the street i used to live on.
the perpetrator was caught alive by our sometimes excellent cops who shot him in the leg and stopped a small mob trying to get to him, and he was brought in for treatment at the hospital i happen to work at, he was there for weeks being treated for the gunshot wound awaiting trial, and i had to walk past his room and stuff... there were cops guarding the room for fear of people rushing the hospital and coming to kill him for revenge, they even asked for my ID when i just walked past. it was a real fear back then, people were fucking furious.
now years later i don't think many even talk about him, or remember his name, which is great. i guess he's rotting in jail now. and luckily there were no copycats or anything, and i dont think nazis or alt-righters got that much of a "boost" from it, i guess it's kind of hard for them when many of the heroes of the attack were brown immigrants, who risked their lives trying to help the stabbed white women.
i just wanted to share, haven't thought about what happened in a while... i still feel so sad for the two Jehova's Witnesses who i often saw standing there near the market, even in the rain, no one caring what pamphlets they were trying to give to people, i didn't care to stop and talk to them either.. but they were human like all of us goddamnit, they did nothing to deserve a sudden butcher knife through their throats.
