Death and disaster
Jul. 7th, 2005 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustA month ago (a month tomorrow) two men were killed in a hit-and-run accident in Newcastle. This made the national, but not the international news; I had known them only slightly, but I felt the shock, and I saw the devastation of those who had been close to one or both of them.
In other words, it's not about the numbers; each person killed or injured in today's bombings in London matters, each life lost or thrown off-course makes ripples into many other lives.
When I learned the news - and, for what it's worth, I learned it from an "I'm OK" posting on LJ - and when I worked out what a tight area of central London was affected, my reaction too was to check out the friends and family who work in town. And I was lucky, friends posted, family answered the phone, people appear to be OK - having trouble getting home, maybe, but OK. So that's good - that's better than good.
Yet when I read![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rushthatspeaks's thoughtful and sympathetic piece on the subject, it didn't seem to fit. The idea that today would be like 9/11, that it might change things irreversibly - I'm hundreds of miles away, but it didn't seem likely. As rysmiel comments, it's not a paradigm shift.
helenraven's description of her walk home through London confirms this. Perhaps it's a defense mechanism, that the mind just slips off the things that it can't bear to grasp, perhaps it's the famous emotional repression of the English. Certainly the parallel with 9/11 only goes so far: the destruction was less, those who were not actually affected could remove themselves to an area where it was not visible, not tangible.
And without slipping into a sentimentalised, London can take it, mode, Londoners have never had cause to think themselves untouchable. Perhaps becauserushthatspeaks gave as an example of changed consciousness "the small hesitation there will have to be now, before anyone's feet decide to cross the gap between the platform and the train", I thought of the King's Cross Fire of 1987, in which 31 people died: certainly I haven't felt the same about the tube since. The Blitz itself, although only a minority now remember it personally, was a campaign of terror against the civilian population: durham_rambler gives the example of the V2 rocket that hit New Cross in November 1944, killing 160 people.
It's not about the numbers: if it were, it might be necessary to talk about Iraq, where the deaths mount up in twos and threes and tens every day. Perhaps it's about the fragility of human life, and about how lucky we are, those of us who can (most of the time) ignore this, who are still shocked when we are reminded of it.
ETA:sovay quotes HD, very much to the point.
In other words, it's not about the numbers; each person killed or injured in today's bombings in London matters, each life lost or thrown off-course makes ripples into many other lives.
When I learned the news - and, for what it's worth, I learned it from an "I'm OK" posting on LJ - and when I worked out what a tight area of central London was affected, my reaction too was to check out the friends and family who work in town. And I was lucky, friends posted, family answered the phone, people appear to be OK - having trouble getting home, maybe, but OK. So that's good - that's better than good.
Yet when I read
rushthatspeaks's thoughtful and sympathetic piece on the subject, it didn't seem to fit. The idea that today would be like 9/11, that it might change things irreversibly - I'm hundreds of miles away, but it didn't seem likely. As rysmiel comments, it's not a paradigm shift.helenraven's description of her walk home through London confirms this. Perhaps it's a defense mechanism, that the mind just slips off the things that it can't bear to grasp, perhaps it's the famous emotional repression of the English. Certainly the parallel with 9/11 only goes so far: the destruction was less, those who were not actually affected could remove themselves to an area where it was not visible, not tangible.And without slipping into a sentimentalised, London can take it, mode, Londoners have never had cause to think themselves untouchable. Perhaps because
rushthatspeaks gave as an example of changed consciousness "the small hesitation there will have to be now, before anyone's feet decide to cross the gap between the platform and the train", I thought of the King's Cross Fire of 1987, in which 31 people died: certainly I haven't felt the same about the tube since. The Blitz itself, although only a minority now remember it personally, was a campaign of terror against the civilian population: durham_rambler gives the example of the V2 rocket that hit New Cross in November 1944, killing 160 people.It's not about the numbers: if it were, it might be necessary to talk about Iraq, where the deaths mount up in twos and threes and tens every day. Perhaps it's about the fragility of human life, and about how lucky we are, those of us who can (most of the time) ignore this, who are still shocked when we are reminded of it.
ETA:
sovay quotes HD, very much to the point.
