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7/08/2005

London 7/7

London will heal this wound as readily as a jellyfish or ants nest. There will be a period of Dunkirk Spirit and international idolisation. London this week feels like the centre of the universe, the world is saying 'We Are All Londoners Now'.
 So perversely, today could actually benefit the tourist industry in the long term. The long lost sense of British identity is being refurbished, again in the trappings of war. And this media creation, mixed with the gathering climax of the Olympics, will create a very marketable cocktail. London's image has never been higher. It will be the coolest place to be for the next few years at least.
 It must be very strange to try and maintain a belief in the military solution after today. The strategy obviously hasn't worked, and shows no sign of working. So the answer must either be much more of the same and fast, or go back to the drawing board.
 More of the Same implies two things.
Either that London has now had its big attack, and that the murder will move on to Rome or Paris like some latter day Curse of the Firstborn. The suspense is over. New York, Istanbul, Bali, Madrid all paid their forfeit in the War against Terror, and today London did the same and is now, like the rest, in some way immunised from further attack. And so, employing a failed strategy doesn't really matter in our case.
Or that this is a permanent state of affairs which we will have to learn to like. In which case, employing a failed strategy is all we can do to even begin to control the situation. Which in turn means that there are so many people out there who hate us that we are condemned to live in fear and constant suspicion of anyone we don't know. In Terror even. Which means, presumably, that the Terrorists have won.
Which will be a terrible insult to the real heroism of real Londoners today.
 'Resolution' until we 'Prevail' is not a viable strategy. Hopefully, the G8 leaders will now begin to realise that an industrial bureacracy like Britain cannot fight a mystical sect like Neo Islamicism. The purposes of the two barely intersect. It is like trying to kill a swarm of mosquitoes with a chainsaw.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:53 am

    The solution is simple, pull out of the middle-east, end our oil-dependency and send the Muslims here home.

    No more problem.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous1:21 pm

    How do you see that working in practice?

    ReplyDelete

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