It Was a Nightmare Coming Home
I've been away in France - good dose of escapism. First morning back I took the tube, for the first time in a fortnight... it was thursday. Just a couple of hours later, the people with bombers returned. But this time their plan failed, if not backfired, and no lives were lost, at least not that day.
The shooting, and the raids and arrests that followed initiated a crude mix of emotions, the inevitable desire to believe in good intelligence, justice being done, the temptation and seduction of retribution. We thrilled to the adrenalin of the media chase and were rewarded by the persuit and execution of a presumed terrorist. 36 hours later that thrill was dreadfully arrested, the villain became victim - a lone, hapless, frightened migrant caught in a socio-cultural crossfire.
The media intensity continued over the weekend - provoking strange detachment, random acts of docility and hedonism. Distant, similarly ruthlessly orchestrated explosions in the Red Sea... Another week is now underway, and as more facts are collated, so life moves further from a sense of predictability, logic or normality. Innocents and militants, fear and hate, good and evil... everything is polarised, and yet much of it remains grey.
Today the weather turned, and the everyday, and work in particular, fails completely to impress. The battleground is as much within the self as it is with the perceived enemy. I try to resist hating the extraordinary persons who've commited these crimes, who wish to do so much harm to ordinary citizens. I continue to believe they're not representative (of muslims) - but the intended altruism only exposes the limitations of my understanding of, or interaction with, Islam. Continue to be tolerant, respect the beliefs of others, aknowledge the principle aspirations of all people...
But I struggle to do this now. These men, who seek to demonstrate the omnipotence of their beliefs by the most infernal form of mortal combat, are both perpetrator and victim. The oportunism of the attack promotes a kind of seige mentality, and the attack now postures as total war across the social fabric of the country.
Throughout our lives, most of us, conciously or not, wrestle with conflicts of principles, some of it personal, but much of it universal. Whether we are active or passive, activist or pacifist, these issues - human rights, freedom of information, or from oppression, union rights and political asylum - all provoke radical and diverse opinion.
You can collect the data and plot these views on and x-y graph and you'll approximate a political profile, supposed indicators, tendencies, afiliations... we try and nurture these to better navigate our moral universe. We like to think we score well, in theory. But these men test my powers of empathy, of tolerance - but then it's not only a question of methods, means to an end, the atrocity... if I'm honest it's also about location. Their actions are intended to bring the war home, but no faith should exalt in the death of civilian - not mine, and not theirs.
I've read and talked and asked myself what I think about Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Afganistan, Chechnya... Oldham. But Madrid, and Ingushetia, changed a lot of that, and I floundered under the will to power of those acts. And now it's here. I attempt to compare and contrast, to rationalise, contemplate and argue my point, til pigs fly, til the cows come home, or the pigeons come home to roost. But I'm too close to the epicentre, I'm in too deep, I can't see the wood for the trees. Similies and metaphors, analogies and anachronisms... they all fail us.
This is a war on everything we profess to stand for, to believe in - not what we believe as a single faith, because Britain is far from that. This country is a thriving, evolving multi-racial community, but of course it is a flawed project, prey to the wounds inflicted by acts of local power struggles, division and blind hatred. Now, more than ever, we must all mind what we think, do and declare in the name of our beliefs. After everything we are individuals - we are one, but we're not the same - and together, collectively, we must face down the ones that hate.
BBC2 are about to show The New Al-Qaida... and part one is about the internet. Great opening salvo that bristles truth and resonates with irony: "Al-Qaida is a worldwide brand, driven by the World Wide Web".
The shooting, and the raids and arrests that followed initiated a crude mix of emotions, the inevitable desire to believe in good intelligence, justice being done, the temptation and seduction of retribution. We thrilled to the adrenalin of the media chase and were rewarded by the persuit and execution of a presumed terrorist. 36 hours later that thrill was dreadfully arrested, the villain became victim - a lone, hapless, frightened migrant caught in a socio-cultural crossfire.
The media intensity continued over the weekend - provoking strange detachment, random acts of docility and hedonism. Distant, similarly ruthlessly orchestrated explosions in the Red Sea... Another week is now underway, and as more facts are collated, so life moves further from a sense of predictability, logic or normality. Innocents and militants, fear and hate, good and evil... everything is polarised, and yet much of it remains grey.
Today the weather turned, and the everyday, and work in particular, fails completely to impress. The battleground is as much within the self as it is with the perceived enemy. I try to resist hating the extraordinary persons who've commited these crimes, who wish to do so much harm to ordinary citizens. I continue to believe they're not representative (of muslims) - but the intended altruism only exposes the limitations of my understanding of, or interaction with, Islam. Continue to be tolerant, respect the beliefs of others, aknowledge the principle aspirations of all people...
But I struggle to do this now. These men, who seek to demonstrate the omnipotence of their beliefs by the most infernal form of mortal combat, are both perpetrator and victim. The oportunism of the attack promotes a kind of seige mentality, and the attack now postures as total war across the social fabric of the country.
Throughout our lives, most of us, conciously or not, wrestle with conflicts of principles, some of it personal, but much of it universal. Whether we are active or passive, activist or pacifist, these issues - human rights, freedom of information, or from oppression, union rights and political asylum - all provoke radical and diverse opinion.
You can collect the data and plot these views on and x-y graph and you'll approximate a political profile, supposed indicators, tendencies, afiliations... we try and nurture these to better navigate our moral universe. We like to think we score well, in theory. But these men test my powers of empathy, of tolerance - but then it's not only a question of methods, means to an end, the atrocity... if I'm honest it's also about location. Their actions are intended to bring the war home, but no faith should exalt in the death of civilian - not mine, and not theirs.
I've read and talked and asked myself what I think about Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Afganistan, Chechnya... Oldham. But Madrid, and Ingushetia, changed a lot of that, and I floundered under the will to power of those acts. And now it's here. I attempt to compare and contrast, to rationalise, contemplate and argue my point, til pigs fly, til the cows come home, or the pigeons come home to roost. But I'm too close to the epicentre, I'm in too deep, I can't see the wood for the trees. Similies and metaphors, analogies and anachronisms... they all fail us.
This is a war on everything we profess to stand for, to believe in - not what we believe as a single faith, because Britain is far from that. This country is a thriving, evolving multi-racial community, but of course it is a flawed project, prey to the wounds inflicted by acts of local power struggles, division and blind hatred. Now, more than ever, we must all mind what we think, do and declare in the name of our beliefs. After everything we are individuals - we are one, but we're not the same - and together, collectively, we must face down the ones that hate.
BBC2 are about to show The New Al-Qaida... and part one is about the internet. Great opening salvo that bristles truth and resonates with irony: "Al-Qaida is a worldwide brand, driven by the World Wide Web".
posted by johnnytoobad at 9:05 pm
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