So, today there was another terrorist attack in London, involving ramming people with autos as has become usual. The attacker was exactly who you'd expect, and indeed he was exactly who authorities expected, because as usual they admit he was known to them before hand. The head of police in London said, as usual, that we should keep an open mind and not assume anything about motives (from this guy they already knew about), but also that we must take time to remember the stress that this puts on Muslim members of the community, who are especially prone to feeling unwelcome at times like this.
It's so routine now. This time the Prime Minister was nearly within arms' reach of the attack, but so what? You can always get another Prime Minister. They're just as disposable as everyone else. The important thing is that no one jump to conclusions about that thing we already know about.
And there was the guy in the Paris airport shouting "I am here to kill and die in the name of Allah" whose motives we may never discover. We're comfortable with the ambiguity, because we're complex people.
ReplyDelete"People are dead and injured, but the real tragedy here would be if this damaged our diversity!"
ReplyDeleteMy own sarcasm doesn't seem like an adequate response, but I'm at a loss as to what might be. I don't think I would have imagined 20 years ago a media figure announcing that we should ignore small terrorist attacks—after all, only five people were killed! Or the degree of censorship people have submitted to in order not to make terrorists angry enough to kill them. Or, for that matter, the pervasive sense that someone who doesn't submit is not brave (though possibly foolhardy), but malicious and racist. Or that Islam would be a race, for that matter.
Pres. Obama used to say things like, "We lose more people to traffic accidents." And of course that's true, but weirdly beside the point. We do what we can to minimize traffic accidents consistent with our ability to go about our lives other than in a straitjacket. It's not a question of how many people are at risk but of what's creating the risk, whether it's inevitable, and in particular whether it's poised to explode if we are supine in the face of it. Car accidents aren't like Ebola, which will expand exponentially if we take an "oh, well, that's life" attitude. Terrorist incursions are more like Ebola. The right equation between terrorism and car accidents would be some kind of rust virus that was going to eat out everyone's driveshafts if left unaddressed. Or, to put it in terms that Vox would understand, a conspiracy among heartless corporate moguls to replace driveshafts with brittle plastic without telling anyone, to save money.
ReplyDeleteSo long as Americans and Westerners continue to worship vice and unholy gods, they will continue to be hammered by their deus ex machinas, as well as the actual gods.
ReplyDeleteEven the old Norse would understand that point.