Terrorists lose by not changing us
People are filing back into Kyiv. Against expectations, traffic has returned to Ukraine’s capital city as some shops reopen. More than 800,000 Ukrainians who had left the country when Russia attacked have reportedly returned. Some are back to fight the Russians, while others are determined to carry on as Ukrainians. All are heroes.
The morning after a gunman shot at least 10 people in a crowded Brooklyn subway car, the locals in Sunset Park were seen calmly going off to work. That included many descending into the station where the outrage took place.
This is how you frustrate terrorists. You can’t bring back those who are killed or end the suffering of the wounded, but you can deprive the terrorist of the power to disrupt your life through fear.
What is terrorism? The official definition is the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. Both Russia and the suspect in the subway shooting claim to have political motives — and their intention was clearly to spread fear. Officials still tend to see terrorism as the work of foreign radical groups.
Whether the intimidator is ISIS or Vladimir Putin or some demented individual posting rants on YouTube, the effective way to beat them is the same: to deprive them the satisfaction of upending your daily life.
We saw city councilwoman Alexa Aviles standing near the site of the terror and bloodshed not 24 hours before. Behind her people trudged to work, not seeming to even notice the news cameras.
“As you can see,” Aviles said, “New Yorkers need to go to work. They need to bring their children to school.”
Sunset Park is a largely working-class community of immigrants who showed up for jobs throughout the pandemic, she added. They are health care workers. They deliver packages. “We have to continue to have our city run,” she said in quiet defiance.
And several passengers in the smoky subway car, rather than run away, stayed back to help the injured. Some used their jackets to make tourniquets to stop the bleeding. Similar signs of civic cohesion followed other incidents.
In 2010, the Times Square bomber, a terrorist from Connecticut, set off an explosion. He was caught, and shortly after, the mobs were back on Times Square.
In 2016, a man from New Jersey set off a pressure cooker bomb in the downtown neighborhood of Chelsea. The streets there returned to normal in hours.
In 2017, another New Jersey resident plowed his truck along a bike path in lower Manhattan, killing eight people. The morning after, mothers pushing strollers were back on the path.
Those examples involved immigrants with personal problems. That they were allegedly inspired by radical Islam made the terrorism label easier to stick.
The suspect in the subway shooting, though, is American-born, living in Wisconsin or Philadelphia. Frank R. James’ diatribes against Black women, Mayor Eric Adams and whites in Ukraine point to another seriously cracked psyche.
James has no apparent ties to New York City. What could have attracted him, as well as the other out-of-towners, to choose the city for their rampage is New York’s status as a big stage set drawing international attention.
And we can go back to the most serious terrorist obscenity of all, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that took down the World Trade Center towers. It took a while, but the city came back from that as well. The site is now a major tourist attraction.
Ukrainians’ refusal to let Putin intimidate them should be an inspiration to us all. New Yorkers have done their small part in facing down fear. The terrorists lose by not changing us.