“When a friend emailed me a ‘thank God, you’re back’ after the news of the [January] attacks on Istanbul, my first reaction was I’d go again tomorrow,” says Guzmán.
“It’s not as though it never crossed my mind while traveling to Istanbul with my family this past December that one of the world’s most culturally significant cities, like Paris, could be a target. But the truth is any city, including ones like the relatively unknown blighted L.A. exburb of San Bernadino, is equally vulnerable. If we give into our fears and never leave our homes (because as someone who rides the New York City subway every day to 1 World Trade, that’s really what we’re talking about) we give into the terrorists’ goal of crippling tourism in a city wholly reliant on it, of undermining its economy and governance. As we know from recent events in Syria (or Libya or Yemen), it’s precisely this instability that becomes fertile ground for ever more radical forms of terrorism. And round and round we go. By continuing to claim our collective citizenship of the world, we play our part in short-circuiting this vicious cycle.”