God, people, there was an act of terror in London? I had no idea. I feel horrible for publishing silly posts about shoes and pasta.
British readers! This was very tactless of me but I honestly didn’t know. How are you doing? Are you ok?
What is happening? Links are welcome.
Clarissa's Blog 
“British readers! This was very tactless of me”
Why apologize? They accept periodid terrorism as the price of living in Britian, just like the mayor of London said. That might sound harsh, but I’m through worrying about feckless western europeans. I’ll start being upset at terrorism there when they are.
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It’s crazy that this is happening so often and so much. I tried watching the news but all the network are talking about is some tweet by Trump. It’s too aggravating.
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I read BBC article and saw that Londoners need to have Israeli-like change of mentality in the area of constant vigilance regarding identification of potential threats.
The article says : “The device was inside a supermarket bag with wires trailing on to the carriage floor.”
That was a huge bag! With wires! On public transportation!
In Israel any forgotten bag / backpack / etc. is immediately identified and if no passenger claims ownership, police with special robots are called and the thing is exploded. Usually it’s not a real bomb, but better safe than sorry.
Just recently I have once again seen a street blocked in my city because of the potential threat and went home via another street. Several days later on the way to work my bus was in a traffic jam because of another alert.
Western Europeans in large cities targeted by ISIS and others need an awareness campaign: “if you see a suspicious object on public transportation … ”
\ I’ll start being upset at terrorism there when they are.
I do not think you are 100% right here. You talk as if being upset will stop terrorism – after using some magic formula of steps XYZ.
We in Israel are very upset at terrorism, yet still continue experiencing it practically every day. Most attacks are thwarted and never make into non-Israeli papers. Even in Israeli papers many attempted attacks, included rockets from Gaza, are only a blip on the radar.
And then non-Israelis wonder why we want to continue operation in Gaza till we destroy most rockets and tunnels, even if Gazan civilians die too. May be, if people heard from Israel reports of daily attempted terror attacks and/or rockets, they would better understand why I want those rockets and tunnels gone.
\ They accept periodic terrorism as the price of living in Britian, just like the mayor of London said.
Isn’t this mayor of London Muslim? Then it would make some sense for him to present terrorism as equivalent to weather.
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“You talk as if being upset will stop terrorism – after using some magic formula of steps XYZ.”
Anger is not the solution, it’s the first step toward no longer facilitating terror.
” it would make some sense for him to present terrorism as equivalent to weather.”
That’s thoughtcrime in western Europe at present…..
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What is a thoughtcrime, cliff? I am confused.
I thought telling people “it’s our new reality” was OK.
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Ah, I understood! Mentioning the mayor’s ethnicity and saying it may influence his views regarding the subject is a thoughtcrime. If I am wrong, please correct me.
I still don’t understand which concrete steps you would advise Europeans to take. In today’s world, ISIS can easily send a few terrorists or find suitable candidates among European residents. I do not see how it can be changed.
My prediction is that sooner or later such terror will reach US, and Americans won’t be able to completely stop it either. I am not talking about 9/11 scale attacks, but about bags in the Tube, bombs at concerts and so on.
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“If I am wrong, please correct me.”
You’re not wrong. To suggest that any kind of minority solidarity is anything less than wonderful is thoughtcrime .
“which concrete steps you would advise Europeans to take”
The best hope for European muslims would be to imitate European (post) Christians on a large scale. Restrict their religious observance to the private sphere, don’t make demands on others to modify policies and rules for religious reasons and begin doing things like valuing secular education and the separation of church/mosque and state and free speech. Those muslims that can do that do fine (I know some of them). But that’s not the direction the trend is going.
Another problem is that the languages and cultures of the immigrants cultures are very under-studied in Europe (and the US). More people with more understanding is always good but that’s a tough sell.
Back to your question, the first step is to recognize that there is a problem and to start talking openly about it (which is not happening).
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And look how great it’s going for European Christians. Church attendance is in the toilet, church leaders are forced to publicly reject the doctrine to please the consumerist flock that doesn’t even come to Christmas service any more. Churches are being demolished because the attendance is nil. And instead of church, family and community, everybody has got an anti-depressant prescription and Tinder. What’s not to like?
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“My prediction is that sooner or later such terror will reach US, ”
It already has, just on a slower and smaller scale. Except for 911 the US is still at the stage where horrible attacks or only at the annual level or so. Europe is on a more or less monthly schedule (actually more frequent but European governments do everything they can to not classify small scale attacks as terror).
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I’m taking students to London in May, and I’m worried the administration (who has to pay for the whole thing — these are honors scholarship kids who got a great hookup) will use the terrorism there to shut down the trip and save 50 thousand dollars. I still feel safe going to London though. The time of day these things have happened are times when I wouldn’t be in those particular places anyway. I avoid the tube during rush hours as much as possible, and give myself lots of time to get around. The worry for me is that we’ll have to make sure students aren’t being “stupid tourists.” That takes a few times abroad to learn unfortunately.
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There are more people in the US killed by maniacs with weapons than there are in the UK, so it seems to me that any attempt to use the murderous activities of a few fanatics to stop US students coming to London is putting them in more danger! My comment, incidentally, is an example of the British sense of humour – cynically ironic.
London is and always will be a great place to visit, I hope admin cowardice doesn’t deprive your students of the opportunity.
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I’d live in London in a heartbeat. I love it so much! And you’re right — America is a much more dangerous place to be. It’s just that my students (and their parents) are not well traveled or cosmopolitan. They hear “terrorist” and think that London is a war zone, even though they think of Chicago — with a murder rate SEVEN times London’s — is fine. That kind of thinking is ridiculous.
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(Comparing murder rates from 2015-16)
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London is fine, Clarissa. Thanks for asking. x
My son lives in London, my niece and her new born baby son live there, many friends live there. I used to live there, during a previous terror campaign by some Irishmen. We learned to be vigilant but we certainly didn’t live in fear. Terrorism didn’t drive me out of London, the cost of living there did.
I intend visiting London next week to see an exhibition. I will use public transport. Fear and panic is what these bastards want. It’s not British to give in!
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“Fear and panic is what these bastards want. It’s not British to give in!”
Past a certain point, that kind of passivity ceases to be useful.
“No matter how many bombs Germany drops on us, we won’t strike back!”
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And where did I say ‘… we won’t strike back?’ Who would you like us to strike, do tell?
And what the hell has it to do with German bombs?!
What I said is we are not intimidated by these bastards. They want us to be intimidated. We refuse! Britons are not passive in response to fanatical religion, we are a secular society, unlike the US. We will not be dominated by religion.
The police here are actually quite good a lot of the time so they have already arrested two suspects in the case of the recent – mostly failed – bombing on a train in London.
I am bloody angry and I am not going to change my way of life because terrorists want me to. Passivity? I don’t think so.
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“Britons are not passive in response to fanatical religion, we are a secular society, unlike the US. We will not be dominated by religion.”
Sort of ironic, isn’t it? The American mythology goes that Pilgrims came to America to escape religious persecution, and that we have a guarantee to no state religious preference, and yet, there’s an awful lot of shoving religion (Christianity) down one’s throat in America these days. I’m so tired of it. I would much rather live in a completely secular society.
I kind of wonder if religious fanaticism will die out in my kids’ generation. I was raised Catholic and now am a non-believer. I hesitate to use the word “atheist” because that term connotes its own fanaticism sometimes. Anyway, pretty much all the people I’m friends with were raised in some church and have since left, and are raising their kids as secular people. But I know that I’m also fairly selective about friendship and would never be able to maintain relationships with very religious friends, so I’m sure there are whole hoards of people out there that would readily die for their Christian faith. Not me. Not ever.
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Thanks! I was raised to go to church etc. too, though as an Anglican. I am a non believer. Religions are based on stories, some very brilliant stories. I can write stories too. Doesn’t make them true.
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“What I said is we are not intimidated by these bastards”
the combat troops on the streets tell a different story….
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A few soldiers in London, positioned at strategic points around the transport infrastructure are an added precaution, not a sign that we’re intimidated. Troops are not marching around everywhere.
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\ A few soldiers in London, positioned at strategic points around the transport infrastructure are an added precaution, not a sign that we’re intimidated. Troops are not marching around everywhere.
Numerous security guards positioned at strategic points – for instance, at mall entrances – are a necessary precaution, not a sign that we’re intimidated. Troops are not marching around everywhere – except for a few combat soldiers with F-16 returning home or police forces moving to check the latest bomb alert.
They want us to be intimidated. We refuse!
Israelis are not passive in response to fanatical religion anti-Semitism, we are a secular free society, unlike the Arabs. We will not be dominated by them.
The police are extremely good 99% of the time, so 99% of attempted terror attacks fail.
🙂 😦
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// Israelis are not passive in response to fanatical religion anti-Semitism, we are a secular free society, unlike the Arabs. We will not be dominated by them.
It was supposed to be :
Israelis are not passive in response to fanatical
religionanti-Semitism, we are asecularfree society, unlike the Arabs. We will not be dominated by them.LikeLike
“church leaders are forced to publicly reject the doctrine to please the consumerist flock ”
Depressing, but still better than imams condoning terrorism to please their consumerist flocks. It’s not sly fundamentalists manipulating young innocents into violence but young men who want to do violence shopping around for an authority figure to give them the a-okay.
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// And instead of church, family and community, everybody has got an anti-depressant prescription and Tinder. What’s not to like?
The young from insufficiently integrated minority communities seem to feel imprisoned and excluded from the high society rather than happily living in great communities of other (1st / 2nd / etc. generation) immigrants:
“Imprisoned” by Whom?
Those who say they feel shut out of Parisian life might be shutting themselves out.
https://www.city-journal.org/html/imprisoned-whom-15418.html
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Sug’s rhetoric (except the “we are a secular society” part, unfortunately 🙂 ) and Fie’s talk about Chicago murder rates remind me of rhetoric in Israel. I was both saddened that London is being talked of in such terms and cheered up. Cheered up since previously Israeli rhetoric often sounded empty and got on my nerves, but now I see we the Israeli Jews are hardly unique in such responses and not worse than Westerners.
Fie, Israeli murder rates, especially if you leave out Arab on Arab murders, are much better than Chicago’s. Does it mean my country is safer than America? 🙂
The comparison between Chicago and London is unfair since:
1) Students probably don’t choose to frequent the most dangerous Chicago areas, while London tourists do frequent most likely to be attacked places.
2) I suppose being a gang member raises one’s chances to be attacked in Chicago significantly, similar to the situation in Israel, while in London usual, law-abiding people are the targeted group.
I do not mean that London shouldn’t be visited, just that the comparison was incorrect.
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El – If students were on a tourist trip in Chicago, they would use public transit (trains and buses), like they would in London. Aren’t all public transit systems vulnerable to the extreme? And since London’s recent attack was nowhere near a tourist area, I respectfully disagree with you.
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