Innocent lives & Sirens
July 9th, 2005Not really sure where to start with this one, so many thoughts and feelings banging around inside my head and I don;t really feel able to tell anyone (except for Miles, of course) as I know I’m gonna come across as callous or insensitive or unpatriotic oe something bizarre like that. I can’t stop thinking about the bombings, and unfortunately for poor Miles I can’t stop talking about them either. They are in my head all the time. I feel like I am devouring news articles so that I can imagine what was happening, trying to recreate it in my mind. I feel a bit of a sicko trying to imagine how people were feeling before, during and after the explosions. Lots of analysing, and hypothesising, to what end?
I read and watch and listen to so many ‘talking heads’ discussing the hows and the whys. What no-one in the media is saying is that the reason for this attack lays with the actions of Mr Blair. He may not be responsible for the 50 (or so) deaths here in London but he is at least partly responsible for the 100,000 killed in Iraq. His War on Terror has brought the War to our door-step. In addition to the illegal war he has involved the country in, and despite the 1 million people who protested and demonstrated against it the country somehow forgave him and voted him back into Goverment, albeit with a reduced majority. What does that say about us? What message does it give out to the world about how we feel about his actions in comitting us to an illegal and immoral oil-war? People have talked about the innocent people that were killed in London whilst carrying on their business, going to work etc., what about the innocent Iraqis who were also going about their business when they were killed, as their country was invaded, bombed and occupied. In the name of that God of Man, Oil. Oh how precious is that God, how we worship him, will kill and be killed for him. Are all lives not equally valueable and significant? Do their families not shed the same tears and mourn their loss also? As despicable as Thursday’s bombers are, George Bush and Tony Blair’s hands are not clean either.
We live so close to a police station, a fire station and a some large hospitals that we’re no strangers to sirens. We often joke that theyr’re the first sound we hear in the mornings and the last thing we hear before we fall asleep. It occured to me today that whenever I hear a siren now I stop and wonder where they’re going, could it be another bombing? Is Miles safe? Then I carry on with whatever I was doing, with a sigh. When will that fear end?
