In Paris, I saw a young man standing on a crate,
speaking fluent Arabic,
draped entirely in a Palestinian flag.
His voice thundered across the cobblestones:
Lillahi Takbir, Allahu Akbar!
For years, the liberal cafe philosophers had watched.
They called every fire across the sea a fight for freedom,
wrapping totalitarians in fine linen and romantic prose,
pleased with their own enlightened tolerance.
Now the flames have wandered into their own living rooms.
I remembered the French diplomat in Dhaka.
When crowds looted the palaces and tore down the walls in July,
he smiled with grand historical sentiment and said,
\"Ah, look, it is just like the Bastille!\"
Now his own streets are burning,
fueled by the exact same wild, unguided spark.
The spirit he praised from a comfortable distance
has finally come home to dinner.
Years ago, men used to gather at the alley corners,
pointing thick, wooden fingers and shouting,
\"We will settle the score!\"
Then they vanished into the night,
only for someone else to settle it for them.
Now the grand theorists sit quietly in their burning cafes,
watching the history they patronised
finally pay them back in full.