http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/world/europe/paris-terrorist-attacks.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-abc-region®ion=span-abc-region&WT.nav=span-abc-region
I'm sure everybody has seen this by now. What a tragedy. What an awful, stupid tragedy.
Who knows what's next? We've got Syrian refugees pouring into Europe, and several thousand coming to America next year. Will that still be the case? The far-right has been very loud these past few years, and I wouldn't be surprised if these attacks lead to a sharp rise in nativism and anti-immigration feelings. Not that it's necessarily wrong to increase scrutiny over who we let in if there's cause to believe terrorists could be trying to sneak in, but I have a bad feeling we'll hear a lot of voices screaming to ban Muslims from entering the West, both here and in Europe.
And this may be exactly what ISIS wants. They've taken a beating this last month, and if they can paint Europe as the enemy, if they can build a culture of resentment towards an opulent and islamophobic West that denies any succor to their side, they can get a lot more angry young men to pick up arms and join their cause.
For what it's worth, I teach in a public high school with a large refugee population, and if nothing changes, I'll have a lot of new Syrian students next year.