I want to discuss a somewhat difficult subject with you today. Even as I finish editing this – tittling my is and crossing my ts (apparently there is no special word for the cross on the letter t. This has made me disproportionately sad) – I am unsure as to what I hope to achieve in sharing my thoughts. My original post this week was supposed to be about my ideas on feminism, and I want to highlight the fact that my thoughts on this grim affair are shaped solely by the ideas I had already been mulling over. I suppose I must scrunch up my face and jump right in, lest I waffle for a whole post trying to explain to you where I am coming from.
As you are a well read, well-educated bunch with an interest in current affairs, you will have been following the news of late, and know that a young soldier was brutally murdered on the streets of Woolwich by two crazed lunatics. Their reasons, as they always are, were deeply rooted in their beliefs. Whether religious or otherwise, I can’t conceive that one would commit such atrocities if they are not unconditionally devoted to their cause, be it Jesus, Mohammed, The Flying Spaghetti Monster or Freedom.
CC Image courtesy of Ewan Munro on Flickr
While it has been established by the security forces that this was an act of terrorism (and they clearly know a lot more about the subject then you or I do, working with it every day) I couldn’t help but wonder if we are too quick to judge every wicked act, supposedly in the name of Islam, to be terror related. Is it simply the age we live in? Or is it just an explanation that is more palatable to us Westerners than what I suspect to be the real truth – two incredibly disturbed individuals were most probably exploited by some incredibly evil people to do their bidding, which in the end achieved absolutely nothing? As a white British woman I am no more scared of being killed by an extremist, of any sort, than I was two weeks ago. Isn’t the point of terrorism just that – terror? Which is how, more than 350 words in, I finally come to the point I started trying to make in the first place.
What terrified me the most about the incident was not the manner of the killing, the brutality, the randomness or the ideology behind it. What terrified me was that it happened in broad daylight. In the city that I used to live in, the city I loved with all my heart, a man was walking down the street and someone hacked him to death with a meat cleaver. In broad daylight. And no one stopped it happening. I’m only going to mention once that it took the police 20 minutes to arrive because I am sure that particular matter has several independent enquiries devoted to it already.
While I don’t expect my fellow citizens to be vigilantes, the thought of someone being attacked brutally and no one stepping in to help really scares me. What if Ingrid Loyau-Kennett had not been there to diffuse the situation? Apparently a crowd of 60 or so people gathered around the scene. Watching. Filming. Perhaps I know little of confrontation, and for that I am glad. But surely a crowd of 60 can restrain even the most crazy of lunatics? My husband has suggested that it probably all happened much to fast for anyone to have saved him. But is it too much to hope that someone out there might have at least tried?
From a purely selfish point of view: I am a woman who is fiercely independent and spends a lot of time on her own. I walk everywhere I can, I seek out new, unfamiliar places where I can write and find inspiration; sometimes I find myself working late into the night and walking home as the pubs kick out. I’ve never been scared of being attacked. I have been lucky in that I have never been mugged in the street, no matter where I happened to live or how drunk I happened to be. But if I do feel like somewhere is slightly well, dodgy, I stick to well-lit streets littered with chip shops and kebab houses, where I feel a sense of security in being surrounded by other people.
This sense of security, it would appear is a false one. I always assumed, that if shit got real, someone would be there to help me out. Perhaps I put too much faith in my fellow humans. And yet you hear of heroic acts on planes that are being hijacked, where passengers band together to overcome the hijackers. I do feel that it should take a little less than being in mortal peril for a person to step in when something bad is happening, but maybe we are all too terrified.
Life & Cakes 