It seems a lifetime ago, and yesterday.
I recall a stunned silence, much like in 2001, fear for my family --- my sister was travelling across London that day, it turns out --- and friends. And then I sent emails to lots of people. Only to realize afterwards that all the people I knew in the UK were taking things very differently from those of us, even of citric extraction, in the US.
You see, as a matter of culture, when I was growing up bombings were not uncommon occurrences -- not every day, but not rare. In the US, bombings happened every few years, and were the action of a madman, not a terrorist group, and the country was soft to their threats. In the UK, one had to continue life, daily routine and daily grind: you just had to. In the US, they hadn't developed that resilience. And I had lost mine.
I think that it is similar today: the panic on American television about a car crashing into Glasgow airport (hurting nobody but the occupants of the car!) and failed, flubbed bombing attempts, reflect the fact that Americans don't yet know how to get on with life. I gather that the BBC even spent some news time covering Wimbledon last Saturday: not so CNN!
I really do not wish or intend to minimize the horror of July 7, nor of September 11, for those were truly horrific events. And the people who died, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, were loved and are missed.
But at the same time, there were floods this past month in Britain causing horrible devastation, and not on just an isolated scale. And here in the US, I recall July 7 for another reason: the following day, gas prices went up over 15% --- I stormed in to the gas station to rant about profiteering in the face of a national tragedy in another country, only later to discover that the reason that prices had spiked was a storm hitting the gulf coast of Florida, causing refinery problems. Little did anyone realise that day that two months later there would be more national mourning, another avoidable disaster allowed to happen. For that storm foreshadowed Katrina and New Orleans.
Yours in reflection,
N.
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2 comments:
Tragedies come in so many different forms...terrorist acts, bombings, storms...it always hits people hard and then they all rally together for support. I just wish that feeling would continue without something bad happening.
No, I don't think you're diminishing the true tragedies. I think you've just got it all in perspective, and you raise good points.
Michele sent me; don't let the reflections get you down. Let's work to make things better.
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