As terrorists kill with guns, knives, bombs and trucks, high school students at USC learn conflict resolution

Is it time to rethink traveling abroad?

Just back from a vacation in Spain, I found myself wondering if such trips are now reckless.

Should we avoid crowds anywhere now?

I wrestled with such questions while I watched coverage of Thursday’s nightmarish scene in Nice, France, where a maniac mowed down dozens of innocent people celebrating Bastille Day.

It wasn’t that many summers ago that my wife and I strolled down that promenade with our daughter.

Friday morning, I was still angry and horrified and scared, too, about raising a child in a world gone mad.

So I did some checking and learned that a summer course on international relations, war, global terrorism and conflict resolution was concluding at USC.

Assistant professor Douglas Becker told me his students were taking their final exams, but would be available by early afternoon to share their take on Nice and what, if anything, can be done to prevent horrific acts of violence and terrorism.

The students, most of whom will be high school seniors this fall, took the four-week course for college credit. They’re from Taiwan, Korea, India, Germany and the United States.

Several of them admitted they’re scared about what’s happening, whether the violence is dealt by those affiliated with known extremist groups or by disturbed individuals operating either on their own or in sympathy with established terrorists.

“At first I didn’t know what to think, but I’m really frightened now because I live really close to France,” said Eleanna Bez, 16, a U.S. citizen who lives with her family in Germany.

Terrorists have attacked France three times in 18 months, and earlier this year they slaughtered more than two dozen people in Brussels. Eleanna said her mother forbade her recently from visiting friends in Belgium. She didn’t think she’d be safe.

Eleanna offered a strategy for avoiding harm.

“You have to go a little more unnoticed,” Eleanna said. “I try to not look American.”

Despite fears, the students didn’t seem to have much appetite for limiting their travels.

Yenah Joe, a 17-year-old Korean student, didn’t approve of a decision by her high school Spanish class to cancel a trip to Spain earlier this year.

“You say you’re protecting yourselves by not going, but I feel like you’re suppressing life by not taking the chance,” Yenah said.

People can’t live, she said, “in a state of paranoia all the time.”

Charlie Convery, 17, of Chicago, has no qualms about an upcoming trip to France.

“I’m not afraid I’m going to be attacked,” he said. “I just think the probability is so low.”

He’s right about the odds. Besides, a massacre can unfold at a San Bernardino office party or Orlando night club.

Is there any way to reduce the threat?

One student took a hard line against more refugees entering Europe. But Sean Flannelly, 17, who is from the Bay Area, disagreed.

“I think terrorism can come from anywhere, and I don’t think … discriminating against certain people helps anything,” Sean said. “I think that’s what terrorism is about — creating fears and getting us to play into that.”

The students were at a loss, as most of us are, to explain the designs of those who kill viciously and gleefully.

What they learned this summer is that complex problems seldom have the simple answers offered by opportunistic politicians; that we live in a world in which affluent countries fight over oil, poor countries fight over water, disparity creates desperation, convenient allies can become mortal enemies, and current events are tied to conflicts and policy decisions that go back centuries.

Western intervention has disrupted Middle Eastern and African countries for centuries, said Anna Merzi, 20, a USC student and teaching assistant in the summer course. And resentment is an ember that’s never extinguished, she said.

Charlie, the Chicago lad, added that today’s disputes can be traced in part to European colonization of Africa and the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire.

“You ask how we feel growing up in a world that’s suddenly violent?” Mezri asked. “It’s not [suddenly violent]. What’s changed is where the acts are taking place. They’re now affecting Paris, Nice, Belgium, the U.S. But they’ve been affecting other countries much longer,” she said.

And the best course, she said, is to avoid us-versus-them battle cries that alienate nations and moderate people of faith — including the great majority of Muslims — instead of making them stronger allies against the dark forces.

As they spoke, a bloody coup attempt was wracking Turkey. As I wrote, I watched live coverage of soldiers with black masks concealing their faces, waving weapons while standing on tanks.

I take hope, though, from being in the company of young people who have not given up hope and who are eager to reach back through history for an understanding of the world they live in.

A handful of students said Professor Becker’s class has made them reconsider career paths.

Benjamin Chou, 16, of Taiwan, said he’s now thinking about majoring in international relations when he goes to college.

“I wanted to do market analysis,” Benjamin said. “But after engaging with so many depressing conflicts, I feel like I have the ability to do something for this world, and I don’t want to waste my life looking at numbers and trying to sell stuff.”

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