On London, Madrid, New York, Bali, Islamabad, Omagh, Oklahoma City...

[jawnbc]

Last evening querrelle and I were en route to a bite to eat after seeing “War of the Worlds” last night*.querrelle had an SMS from his ex Gary: “are you watching the news?” Fuck. My heart sank. Gary wasn't answering his mobile, and I didn't want to be alarmist, so we left it at that. I subsequently SMS'd Marko (who was supposed to come to the film but cancelled) that we just saw WOTW; he texts back “terrorist attack in London.” Fuck.

I called Marko, got a quick rundown and filled querrelle in. We headed home shortly thereafter. His parents were, unusually, in London (they spend most of the year in Andorra or Spain) but they never use mass transit--no concerns there. Our friend Mike doesn’t work in the city so he wasn’t affected. So far we’re pretty sure everyone we care about is OK.

Cranky bit: What happened in London was awful, as were the things that happened in the other cities I named in the subject line--a few among many, many places in the world where terrorist attacks have taken place. All have been truly terrible stuff. It’s been a releif that, so far at least, none of my friend--LJ and not--had any loved ones among the dead or injured in London.

But there have been a number of people who talk about this (in conversation or on LJ) as if it’s happened to them, though in reality it hasn’t directly affected them or their loved ones, and they don’t have a strong connection to London. And by a strong connection I mean, having lived there, having roots or origins or known relations there. Myself, my husband is a Londoner, and I’ve been to London many times. I have some good friend there. So London is infused throughout my memories, and almost all of those are lovely memories.

But really. For me--or anyone with such a tenuous connection to the place--to claim how much this attack affects me directly? Out of place. Have a reaction? I hope so, that’s part of being a caring human being. But staking a connection to it? A claim to it? I think that’s wrong.

And, I venture to guess, those who are really connected to this tragedy would happily swap places with folks carry on as such.

So I offer prayers and thoughts to all in the UK and their kin. Ditto to those for whom having London attacked represents a genuine attack on their sense of place in this world. I know what that feels like. Which was why my heart sank last night: memories of a gorgeous sunny September day when I tried to find out if my family were still alive as I watched the city of my childhood dissolve into dust.

*Which, for the record, we both thought was a big “meh”. Not bad, but nothing special, or new. Well executed. I can see Dakota Fanning in rehab in 10 years, such is the seeming inevitability for most kids who sound like their 45 year-old divorcée

Comments

[smiley-kiley.livejournal.com]

Amen sister! You just put into words something I felt about reactions to that gorgeous sunny September day in 2001.... so many people spoke about that day as if they were directly effected. I never said a word to any of those people, but i think deep down I resented them. Granted, I was stuck thousands of miles away from home that day, but did they know people who died in their 95th floor office that day? Was is it their hometown that was being attacked? Did their mother run for her life over the Brooklyn Bridge, after watching people jump to their deaths from the towers? No, so they need to pipe down.

Ah, that felt good. :-P

[beardoc.livejournal.com]

I've argued with myself about whether to let this one go, or whether to post a comment, and have decided to do so, against my better judgement.

I get the feeling that you're suggesting that suggesting that the emotions that those people that you mention in this entry is disingenuous?

I don't see that only those that have a direct link to a tragedy are necessarily the only ones that can have emotions about it. Should I not be outraged because I have no relations or have never been to Darfur, Baghdad or Guantanamo Bay?

It's not a great time to say, "I have the right to grieve, but I don't think you do." Obviously, lies are not the right way to go about it - I remember Chris Pratt (cpratt) telling me about meeting a woman in San Francisco that claimed to be Mark Bingham's sister, when Chris knew damn well having been Mark's first partner that Mark was an only child.

But beyond telling lies, why should there be a cap on who can and can't have strong emotions about events like this?

[jawnbc]

I'm glad you've commented, because that's not what I'm saying at all. I didn't--and wouldn't--tell anyone whether their feelings are or aren't.

I'm saying put in perspective. Take a moment and consider how your words might resonate with someone who have been much more directly touched by the evernts.

When people find out my brother was at the WTC, the number who said things like "I know just how you feel, I watched it all on TV," or "we're all the victims" was--and on occassion, still is, shocking.

Saying something is upsetting, fine. Saying something like this equally affects someone who's not at all really connected to it, sorry I don't buy it. It's insensitive (at best) or pathological (at worst).

[timbear.livejournal.com]

I strongly disagree about the September 11 attacks.

On that day the world changed for *all* of us, and while some of us had tremendous sympathy for those who went through the ordeal at close hand, we were also grieving in our own way for the world that we had lost.

The London attacks yesterday were different, they were very similar to the kind of attacks we were subjected to from the IRA for many, many years and while they were terrible they were, in the general scheme of things, "no big deal". The younger people are frightened by it all but us older people are really thinking more along the lines of "Oh no, not again! We just got rid of all this crap".

[jawnbc]

But Tim I don't think we disagree here. What you describe makes perfect sense. See my reply to Seumas, and that doesn't make my opinion a bit clearer, I'm happy to discuss it further....

[timbear.livejournal.com]

Sorry, my fault.

"Wrong end of stick error in line 1"

[zurcherart.livejournal.com]

Well said ... been thinking of writing something ... probably will add it to my long list of things I've been thinking about writing. It's funny to compare the "American" reaction (at least as represented on LJ) to the English/Londoner resident and ex-pat reaction (as least as represented by my co-workers at the Swiss Bank - although we've already established they're mutant freaks).

Of course, I haven't talked to anyone who isn't horrified. But, in short ... I didn't notice anyone here in the Zurich office searching out a tenuous personal connection to the event, even though many are from England and have lived in London. Most our users, business analysts, and support staff on this IT system I am building work out of our London office. I think the Liverpool station is the closest underground stop to that office.

The one exception is the other American in this office (the one, after me, with the most tenuous connection to London). He was hollaring out news as soon as he could pull it off the web as if it were the scores to a major league football game.

And one difference - the strikes occurred around 10.00 AM local time. By the time news items started filtering up on the web, we were all at our desks working. We didn't have live video from CNN.

[jawnbc]

He isn't a NYer, is he? Cause (we) are a bunch of drama kweens a lot of the time....

;)

[zurcherart.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah he is.

[jawnbc]

There ya go, hanh? Didja heah? 30 dead! 30--no wait, 37 dead!

Years ago toneyvr and I were in Yellowstone, and a park ranger was giving a talk about bison safety. He mentioned that someone had been gored a couple of days earlier. After a few reasonable questions a NYer said "oh my gawd, did he like stick to the horn? And were his guts all hanging out?"

Everyone else looked at her like she was insane. She and her 10 year old son did the Seinfeld shrug, like we were the freaks.

[zurcherart.livejournal.com]

There ya go, hanh? Didja heah? 30 dead! 30--no wait, 37 dead!

It's like you were there.

[jawnbc]

I was there...for 20+ years.

BTW I was leaving the house today to get the drycleaning, iPodded, and Piero queued up. I started humming along, panicked. composed myself, almost skipped past it, then figured "whatever."

Shake it shake it! Ha ha ha....

[stoplabelingme.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. There's a whole class of drama queen who likes to feel personally affected by other people's tragedies. When I moved ot Buffalo and heard people speaking in hushed voices about how they'd been in NYC only nine days before, or they had a friend's friend who almost was going to visit the tower that day... Did you know we saw the second plane hit through the window from my computer class?

[jawnbc]

And Kath watched it Waldbaum's parking loat on 116th St. :(

[b12x12.livejournal.com]

I was working a teen help-line when the Challenger space shuttle exploded in 1987 (?). It was very interesting how many calls we got that night... much higher volume. It seemed that the event and the public grieving that went on kind of cracked open the door or gave permission to a lot of people to grieve... maybe it wasn't the Challenger they were grieving, even if that was what they were talking about. As Thoreau said, "Most men live lives of quiet desperation." Maybe they can only make a little noise when they're confident their cries will be drowned out by those around them?

[jawnbc]

Similarly after 11/9/01 a friend who's a counsellor had pretty much all her former PTSD clients contact her about the events. So there's certainly a triggering affect for a lot of people. I didn't mean to include them here....more the folks on LJ who pretty much personalize every world event.

[isledemoi.livejournal.com]

The most absurd reporting I have seen covering this event has been a couple of articles on newspaper websites offering the headline of "9/11 survivor caught in London bombings."
My initial reaction was "What incredibly rotten luck!" only to find that when I read on further, neither of the two people mentioned in the separate articles had lived through 9/11. They had just been at the Trade Towers around the time of 9/11, perhaps the week before! Such a tenuous connection in a desperate attempt to increase the drama of the story. Made me wonder how they get away with this kind of crap.

[jawnbc]

Because a lot of people think it's "good journalism". D'oh! :(