Museums reopened in Paris after terrorist attacks

Last night we were in front of Le Carillon paying tribute to the victims of Friday’s terrorist attacks when panic started to spread around making people screaming and randomly running away. As media reported a few hours later, a light bulb exploded in a restaurant somewhere near Place de la Bastille and that was enough to frighten the people there of new shootings. We run fast, basically because other people were doing the same. We run toward the canal and once there we crossed the pedestrian bridge. Then we followed other people who were entering the door of café Chez Prune and as we were inside someone quickly pulled down the shutters.

 

There was a sort of attentive silence inside. We noticed a group of guys crouched down to hide behind the bar, while others were standing up still questioning their smart phones what was going on. We felt scared too, and at that point a bit stupid for having left home. We started to consider whether it was a good idea to stay in a place that was so crowded and probably with no security exit. So we asked a man who was holding an helmet in one hand and a camera in the other if he heard any shooting or explosion. He didn’t, and the British girl beside him didn’t too. They had just entered the café driven by fear, exactly as we did.

 

Today those museums not usually closed on Monday – such as de Musée de l’Orangerie or the Quai Branly – are welcoming again their visitors, despite at the moment the sound of sirens still overwhelms the typical Parisian whispering of people at work. And we are here, doing our job in Paris, which has many problems like every big multi cultural city of the world, but has also extraordinary cultural resources to cope with them. Likely these are the same resources that have led many fearless Muslims to visit Place de la Republique last night. Also thanks to the museums of Paris – starting from the Louvre’s Islamic art wing, which has been financed by the money of a Moderate Islamic Government such as Oman – we may have realised how cooperation tends to have better effects than competition. Or, in other words, will cooperation actually be the force drawing out from competition those positive effects needed to annihilate the terror?

November 16, 2015