7/7

As with the attack on the twin towers, the victims of the indiscriminate 7/7 bombings in London were from varied backgrounds; and from different faiths. There were also foreigners affected by the bombs: Israeli, Polish, Turkish, French and Australian.

Walking through London streets and not finding anyone who speaks English enough to give me directions to a street I'm looking for.  That's a vivid memory for me.  In fact, the ones I asked looked frightened and suspicious and quickly edged away from me as if I was an immigration official checking out their visas.  But that's only my imagined impression; and it was at least 20-years ago.  But that's how it is in London.  It's a cosmopolitan city and all types of people live there, as if they are going to find happiness somewhere in the vastness of it all.  "It'll break you like a twig," I was told by an African in a car I'd hitched a lift in, when you could hitch a lift in the middle of London.

But things changed after 7/7 when it became clear that the bombers were Muslims, OK that's not surprising, but that they were British and their connection with war zones must have been tenuous.

Now we have to separate in our minds Islam from Islamic extremists.  Instead of hatred of Muslims, the opposite happened and people began to understand that, in most families, there is a distance between everyday Islam and the bile of the bombers.

The first reaction after the bombing had to be ugly:  "Who are these Muslims to come here, live in a country where they're allowed the freedom to express their views, and rail against our freedoms so violently?"  Of course, this led immediately to a rise in hate crimes against foreigners with darker skins.  Things returned to normal within a month, helped by the denial that the bombers' did not represent Islam, not mainly by the Muslims themselves, but rather by the media, the politicians and the police.

The law-enforcers were out in ... well, force.  Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London at the time, was one of the first to state that reprisals would be dealt with severely.  He was right.  The people who carried out the acts were murderers and most probably brainwashed.  Who in their right mind would opt to kill themselves and innocent  members of the public for a place in paradise? 

In fact, the people were not divided by terrorism, seeing it for what it is, a delusion of hatred for a western way of living wherein, ironically,  the terrorists lived and benefited from.

So, in a spirit of tolerance and forgiveness, though probably not by all of the relatives of the victims nor the public, society was able to show that they were not at the same level as the perpetrators.  

This has to be our reaction if we are to live securely in peace.

 

A society of cowards

Pat vituperates here and perhaps he's right.  

TATTOOS

Horses for courses.

Nevertheless, I can't make up my mind about the attractiveness or otherwise of tattoos. Being a member of the Virgin Active (a contradiction in terms, surely) health club I see beautiful women in snug bikinis showing off lizards crawling down spines, black stars on inner thighs, rosettes around the navels; and guys with inked gladiatorial epaulettes that will probably look like ancient chigger infections in years to come.

In Kathmandu, the Newar women wear traditional tattoos on their ankles and calves as a deterrent to avoid rape by the Muslim hordes in mogul India whose detestation of tattoos originates in the handing down of an edict from God to Abraham and/or Mohamed that one should not deface the skin in any way. But why has tattooing the skin become so popular?

One Swiss guest who stayed with us for a while made two memorable comments: "Where are all the police? I don't see any on the streets" and "Why do women disfigure themselves with these tattoos on their backs?"

Dawa, my daughter, approached me with that dad-I want-your-permission-for-something look. She wanted my blessing to go ahead and have a tattoo. I told her I couldn't stop her but I would be disappointed if she did. Then there was a kind of telepathic agreement and we both said more or less the same thing to each other: that I would give up smoking and she would agree not to have a tattoo. That was five-years ago; and as far as I know she doesn't have one and I haven't smoked tobacco.

One night, I can't remember if this happened on the same night for both of us, we had a dream. I dreamed that she had got a tattoo and she was with Fulmaya, her mother, backing into a lift trying to avoid me. They both looked guilty and I realised that she had had a tattoo. 'Right, I'm going to start smoking again!' I petulantly cried out. When I awoke, I thought how stupid and puerile of me to have said that. I should have told her that though I was disappointed she had gone and got a tattoo, it was quite attractive.

Coincidentally, she had a dream in which she had got a massive tattoo and she so regretted having had it done and would have to live the rest of her life with it.

Both of us experienced a sense of relief.

We just don't do tattoos.