Musings on the London bombing

I figured I'd write something. It probably won't be well-written enough to befit such a tragedy (if you think such a tragedy needs befitting), but whatever.

My dad was in London today on a business trip. Luckily, he was wholly unharmed (though somewhat inconvenienced by the lack of public transportation).

It seems most Londoners are viewing the bombings as just that - an inconvenience, not a life-altering event.

David Plotz reported in Slate:

"the feeling of the city—at least of those who escaped tragedy—seemed muted, inconvenienced rather than heartbroken. Four years ago, every one of us who lived in Washington and New York had our lives changed by 9/11. We discovered we had a new enemy; we started a new war; we had the face of our cities changed forever. But Londoners already knew who their enemy was. Their cops and soldiers were already fighting this war. And their city looks exactly the same today as it did yesterday. London was not surprised today; it was put out."

Contrasting the reaction to the London bombings with 9/11 sent a chill through my body. I remember my reaction on 9/11: my mom told me something as I was walking out the door to catch a ride to school. I arrived at school and my friends and I talked excitedly about what we had heard. Then I realized: safety was no longer a given. We could no longer take safety for granted. That was a pretty earth-shaking epiphany.

My reaction to the London bombings was somewhat similar: "yet another big, safe city bombed by terrorists? It's only a matter of time before we'll have random suicide bombings in the U.S." Thank god we don't.

Life will go on, of course. And apparently, that's the way to fight terrorism. Tim Naftali pointed out, "Perhaps it bears repeating that terrorists seek to alter the way in which we lead our lives, to close open societies, and to turn liberals into authoritarians."

The mindset of "if we change the way we're living, the terrorists have won" may sound kinda hokey, but I guess it's really true. Indeed, I was watching ABC today, and they brought on an Irish ex-terrorist as one of their experts. The one thing terrorism cannot deal with, he said, is futility. Terrorism can only survive in an atmosphere hospitable to terrorism; that is, an atmosphere in which people overreact in the name of security (he cited the PATRIOT Act as an example of overreaction).

This entry is kinda running out of steam, so I'll end it here. Slate has a bunch of insightful articles on the London bombings, if you're interested. (I haven't read all of them yet, so don't blame me if they suck. But their articles are generally awesome.) 

My writing skills have severely atrophied in the last few weeks, so I'll probably try to post more often. My last several entries have been very, perhaps overly intellectual. I thought that no one would really want to read mundane details about my life, but I'm meeting a buncha new people these days ('09 Yalies, mainly), and I realized that blogs are a good way to get to know people better. So look forward to less serious entries ahead.