FOREWORD: I was working on this article long before the tragedy in Paris unfolded. France holds a very special meaning for me. In college I studied the language  and culture; I’ve visited Paris and Nancy; I listen to French musicians like Zaz, Karimouche, and Serge Gainsbourg, composers such as Debussy and Saint-Saëns; a French sensibility infuses my personal aesthetics; our oldest child is in a French immersion kindergarten. I was the eternal tourist and bought a mini Eiffel Tower under the actual Eiffel Tower – it stands on the fireplace mantel. What happened in Paris touched me deeply. The solidarity from around the world for Paris and France has been tremendous. It is deserved. And yet this article about Beirut reveals a heart wrenching imbalance. Regrettably my own response to the trauma inflicted on these two cities mirrored the bias. We seem to just accept that this sort of violence takes place “over there,” never “here.” The constant barrage of news has made us calloused to the individual sufferings of the broader Middle East and Northern Africa. But if ever there were a time when we cannot be indifferent it is now.

I blame Vladimir Nabokov. His works are notorious for their disguised commentary and jests, putting the reader on constant guard lest he slip something past. In college I took a Russian literature course that introduced me to him, and I grew a strong appreciation for discovering deeper meaning in what I read because of him. Gleaning meaning, however, does not always require the author to explicitly hide it for one to find.

Case in point, Don Quixote, that seminal work by Miguel de Cervantes. Recently I finished a ten month engagement with Cervantes’ beloved knight-errant. Taking the liberty of a non sequitur I would like to point out that an author four centuries removed, who wrote in a language other than mine, referencing works long since forgot by all but period experts, and using word play that simply does not translate is, to say the least, an adventure unto its own! But I’ve digressed…

During the later part of Book 1, Cervantes tells the story of a soldier who had been held captive in North Africa by the Moors. Himself a soldier, it is suggested that the story is a semi-autobiographical telling of Cervantes’ own captivity. He describes how the Moors would raid southern European villages and cities, likewise ships traveling the Mediterranean. Those from known wealthy families would be used to collect ransom; the rest met with the far harsher fate of beheading.

The Moors were hardly treated better. In Book 2, Cervantes introduces a Morisco family and their plight. The Morisco were Moorish decendants forced to convert to Christianity in the early 16th century. Between 1609 and 1614, though, they were systematically expelled, their properties and assets confiscated. The practice continued into the 18th century, all under the penalty of death.

I cannot help but think that Cervantes had some empathy for the Morisco fate. He treated the fleeing family with honor in Don Quixote. He also seems to have had at least some amount of respect for the Moors. The fictional author making accounts of most of Don Quixote’s and Sancho Panza’s adventures was a Moor, Cide Hamete Benengeli. Further, we are meant to believe that Cervantes translated Benengeli’s original work from Arabic to Spanish. Still, Cervantes plants enough commentary to reveal his definite distrust in the Moors.

In my Nabokovian reading, I found a surprising parallel to events today. As the crisis in the Middle East continues, now spilling into cities across Europe, the specter of yesterday threatens tomorrow’s generation.

I am by no means a foreign policy expert, but it is fairly clear that the elephant in the room is the distrust created by religious differences. For me, this is evidenced by a number of conversations I have recently had with several people. It was explained to me how peculiar it is that most of the refugees are fighting-age men, that “their” beliefs are incompatible with Western ideologies; that when one walks past the camps there is scarcely a trace of women or children. The insinuation is that this is less human crisis and more religious invasion.

However, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) states that 50.5 percent of refugees are women, and only 21.8 percent are men aged between 18 to 59. That hardly seems to be a religious invasion. It most certainly rings of fear fueled by misinformation and distrust.

I likewise disagree that Islam and Christianity are irreconcilable. It undercuts the contributions that Muslims have made to humanity. From health care to science to education, the Islamic world has directly impacted all of us. On an aside, one commenter I saw makes a valid argument: we assumes that the contributions by both Christians and Muslims are due to their Christianism and Muslimism, and not by the fact that the individuals were, in fact, intellectual individuals.

And therein is our barrier – that we define each other as either Muslim or Christian, not as individuals. Not so long ago similar differences between Protestants and Catholics festered with contempt. Northern Ireland’s recent past is a culmination of over 500 years of our own sectarian violence.

What Cervantes taught me is that in four centuries we still remain ignorant to a solution. Our collective apathy, distrust, and fear perpetuate the cycle. As the refugees continue pouring into Europe, their children see the treatment of their parents, families, and friends as disdain for their culture, their religion, their lives. Europe and the United States see the refugees as a societal threat. We thus continue stoking the flames of discontent and maleficence. So long as we maintain this mutual suspicion it should be none too surprising if another 400 years pass with little improvement.