Paris needs the piano

The night after the Paris terror attacks, the sound of a piano rang out outside the Bataclan. A crowd gathered around pianist Davide Martello, listening to the immortal melody of “Imagine.” In front of them was the Bataclan, where the previous night, a deafening explosion had killed more than 120 people.

Davide Martello was not in Paris the night before. He was sitting in a bar in Konstnaz, Germany, watching the football match between Germany and France. When he heard about the terrorist attacks in Paris, Martello “just knew I had to do something. I wanted to be there to comfort and bring a ray of hope…” And Martello drove all night, 600km to Paris. Drawing a peace symbol on his guitar, he sat in the middle of the square, paused for a few seconds, and then began to play the song “Imagine” praising love and peace.

“Imagine” was not the only tune that rang out in Paris as theaters, cinemas and entertainment venues closed. On the night of the attacks, the French national anthem was sung loudly at the State de France stadium by football fans.

The video of Davide Martello was shared on social media, touching millions of people. In Vietnam, the video also spread quickly on Facebook with profile pictures changed to the colors of the French flag. Many people watched it, but some people looked at the profile pictures with the background of the three colors blue - white - red and said "follow the crowd", "movement", or "hung the French flag but still have a smiling photo", "why don't you pray for Lebanon, Iraq, Syria...".

But Martello played in Paris. Before Paris, Martello had played in many places, in Istanbul, Türkiye during clashes between protesters and police in 2013, outside the Charlie Hebdo newspaper office after the terrorist attack, in eastern Ukraine, playing music for German soldiers in Afghanistan on Christmas... In Paris, less than 24 hours after the terrorist attack, his music still made people gather in crowds, listening silently, even though they understood that the threat of terrorism still existed, and that the crowd was the target of the attacks. His music helped them overcome their fear, to be "calmed and have a ray of hope" - as Martello wished. In the crowd listening to Martello play, surely no one thought that it would be more meaningful for him to donate blood than to play in a place where blood had just been shed. Those who were stunned when watching Davide Martello's video did not think that hanging the French flag on their avatar was a form of flattery. For them, it was a way to share the loss and needed to be respected.

Post-terrorist Paris needs blood donors to save the wounded, open homes to those in turmoil, and piano music.

According to Labor