One Week On
People
One week on London remembers with two minutes silence, particularly poignant at Kings Cross the site of the worst of the four bombs.
The tributes to the victims of the London suicide bombings is amazing, so much so in fact that in a small way it leaves me wondering. Walking around London at the moment produces an unusual feeling, not one of sadness (necessarily), not one of the usual keep-yourself-to-yourself silence but a strange one, almost of comfort. Somehow a feeling that people are more open and approachable, I think it has something to do with solidarity that everyone has shown. I have spoken to more strangers on trains and in the street in the last week than I have in the past year. For someone who has lived and worked in London all of his life this is slightly alien but what has moved and amazed me more is the level of solidarity around the world. As bad as these attacks are, I don?t remember the same global tributes for similar attacks in recent years (obviously excluding 9/11), the Madrid bombings and Japanese subway bombings spring to mind. Condemnation is different and is always unanimous, but this level of solidarity seems different. I could be wrong of course but from a bystanders perspective these particular attacks seem to have touched more than many others. But why now? Why for these attacks? These bombings were terrible, completely random, completely indiscriminate, but so have others been. 9/11 changed everything, yet things seemed to have shifted again. Are people more determined than they have ever been to condemn "Al-Qaeda" attacks? Or is it just me? Has being so close to something so random, that could have involved any Londoner no matter how astute or diligent, changed me and changed others? In some indescribable way it seems to have change changed the world.
Canon EOS 20D -
Thursday 14th July, 2005
