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Papa: “It’s O.K. They Might Have Guns, But We Have Flowers.”

Last updated on 2019-09-30

Personal privilege: I share this widely posted November 16 interview from French news program Le Petit JournalReporter Martin Weill asks a three-year-old French boy at one of the sites of Friday’s terror attacks in Paris if he understands what all the flowers and candles are about.

  • Fils: Mais les fleurs, ça ne fait rien, c’est pour, c’est pour, c’est pour…
  • Père: C’est pour combattre les pistolets.

Voilà le courage.

13 Comments

  1. Margo Sherren

    This child clearly understands that guns are more protection than flowers – he seems sad and resigned to the fact he must accept.
    I am hoping he has a Christian view of his little soul and spirit so that
    his spirit it protected only in God’s kingdom.

  2. “clearly understands”? Are you sure you’re not just seeing what you want to see, Margo?

    Then again, if the boy is a good skeptic, suppose Papa had said something about God’s protection. What if the little boy had asked how many of the victims were Christians?

  3. larry kurtz

    homo sapiens is terminal by design.

  4. Snaillady

    “I am hoping he has a Christian view of his little soul and spirit…” How very self righteous of you caheildelberger.

  5. mike from iowa

    Seems like I remember some naive college students with flowers learned a harsh lesson about guns and rights back in 1970. Some places called Kent State and Jackson State,I believe.

  6. Roger Cornelius

    So, how much protection did God provide those 129 murdered victims and the nearly 100 more critically injured?
    Those murdered and maimed must not have been Christian since they did not receive God’s protection.

  7. Spike

    …I am grateful there are good HUMAN BEINGS that work hard to make the world a better place.

  8. Bill Fleming

    Remember the folk song about where the flowers go? Here’s the flow diagram: flowers>girls>husbands>soldiers>graveyards>flowers. Rinse and repeat. When will they ever learn?

  9. mike from iowa

    “The Lord told me it was going to be a), a disaster, and b), messy,” he continued, adding that he wished Mr. Bush would acknowledge his mistake.

    Pat Robertson recalls warning dumbass dubya about his private war with Iraq. Apparently god doesn’t protect kristian ‘murrican soldiers in frivolous acts of killing.

  10. Snaillady, please clarify: you quote Margo, then criticize me. Are you seconding her statement and saying you disagree with my response, or did you mean to criticize Margo’s statement?

  11. Curious: could “flowers” in Papa’s words be a metaphor for “God” in Margo’s? Could they be talking about the same thing?

    Spike, I share your secular sentiment… but could we say that human beings failed to protect those 129 as well?

    Mike, your reminder of Kent State reminds us just how hard this conversation is. I want to find power in the words of the boy and father above. We need the father’s spirit and the boy’s skepticism.

  12. mike from iowa

    Someday military grade weapons barrels will be used solely as flower pots as a reminder to anyone left what happens when wingnuts get power and shove their idea of democracy and kristian theology down everyone’s throats. They need to be disabused of the notion that they know what everyone needs.

    Meanwhile,we are stuck in a dangerous world made possible by neo-con wingnuts and delusions of first-strike,world dominance that failed miserably. And even now,they hide behind the might of the US and act belligerent and bellicose because they won’t be required to sacrifice anything in future wars,just as in the past.

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