Notes on the UK’s recent terrorist attacks
Yes, this is filed under Controversial (Perhaps).
The three terrible terrorist attacks and their aftermath in the UK this year (so far) follow a similar pattern. First is the attack itself (more likely than not, a white van and guys with knives); chaos, confusion and terror ensue. Then the ‘swift response’ of the emergency services and the ‘everyday heroes’. Next are Tweets by May, Corbyn, Khan et al, expressing various obvious and meaningless outrage: ‘shocking’, ‘terrible’, ‘horrific’ etc. Then comes the media (traditional and social) frenzy, followed by a vigil (with football players and pop stars if you’re lucky) and perhaps a benefit concert.
(I get pushed, shoved and ignored on a daily basis in London; then there’s a terrorist attack and we all love each other, we’re all as one. It only happens in times like this. I don’t see it any other time. Remember the Blitz? Oh, those were the days. I don’t see it. On the day of the Westminster attack, there was a blind woman struggling along a tube platform; no one helped her, people pushed past her. Women on their own struggled up stairs with huge suitcases; no one helped.)
Despite the apparent random nature of the attacks, their aftermath is fairly predictable and follow a set script. It’s become a bit like an episode of 24 or a soap opera. There are ‘what we know so far’ reports and ‘live updates’ for days; the reporting gets so bogged down in details. Someone three miles away from the London Bridge attack heard something and is interviewed; the editor of the Spectator informs us he got a cut-price taxi ride home after the attacks – yes, this was reported on Radio 4. The make and model of the van used by the terrorists is reported. Video footage and photos are examined in minute detail.
In other words it’s entirely about the ‘how’ and very little about the ‘why’. What drives a 22-year-old to kill himself and others (isn’t it tragic that for a young person to get noticed, it is far easier to do something negative than something positive)? There’s little debate on the wider issues of why it’s actually happening – surely it’s as tragic for the terrorist to die like this as for the victims, their families, the witnesses and the emergency services dealing with it (not to mention the terrorist’s family). Like with paedophiles, daring to even think about a terrorist’s motivation is tantamount to siding with them or being sympathetic. We do not want to understand the terrorist – they are pure evil and beyond comprehension.
Jermy Corbyn has recently made unspeakable (yet rather sensible) comments: he’s blamed the UK’s foreign policy in the middle east as the cause for the attacks (which I thought was obvious); he’s said the war on terror isn’t working; he’s said he’d rather sit down with a terrorist and talk instead of shoot him. All this seems logical to me. Western intervention in the middle east has always been a disaster; the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth mentality has never worked; understanding and getting into the mind of a terrorist is more productive and useful than a dead terrorist (as my ex-girlfriend said, if you turn around the mindset of a terrorist, and get them to act as an advocate and ambassador for peace and understanding, that's far more useful than murder. For example, most councillors working in addiction are former addicts). But of course, for all Corbyn’s rational comments, he received a storm of abuse – in the Mail and the Sun (‘Apologist for terror’ and ‘Jihadi comrades’, respectively), you’d expect it, but even in The Guardian comments.
Also, around the time of the attacks at London Bridge, there was a truck bomb in Kabul which killed 150, many of whom were women and children. Hardly made the news here (I know, I know, when it happens here it’s an affront to democracy and the western way of life). More important (most read on the BBC website, as of today) is Phil Collins postponing a show after a fall, grim reviews for The Mummy and a hairdryer gran being a ‘national hero’.
Anyway, General Election here today. Almost touching, really, that at the polling station it’s still an old guy with a computer print out, a pencil and a ruler to check the voters. This election has been about Brexit, terrorism, immigration, personalities, back-stabbing. Hopefully one day someone with give a shit about the environment before it’s too late.
Previously on Barnflakes
Notes on murders and sex crimes
The Paedo files