Past Present & Future

london in july

I do think its amazing how London has bounced back from last week’s attacks. After all that confusion everything is returning to normal for those of us lucky to be alive and who haven’t lost any loved ones. It’s a terrible tragedy - ( and most particularly so for those who still have loved ones missing..that’s really the worst thing ever) and i think its brilliant that Londoners realize very clearly ( well for the most part anyway) that hate and scaremongering isn’t the way forward, and is the least constructive thing we could engage in now.

I’m not going to go into the usual nonsense that has sprung up of who is in the right and who isn’t. In my opinion, people who go around killing other people are fucked up, whether they be a bunch of “islamist” terrorists, other kind of terrorists, or nation-states ( or anyone else in between). No fucking difference ( The only thing is that in terms of nation states have “legitimized” violence) - not that makes a big bloody difference to the victims and people it impacts. That’s right. It’s horrible for anyone who gets caught up in war and violence - and from the point of view of victim’s families and loved ones, it doesn’t matter one jot cos the shit has hit the fan anyway. And everyone can empathasize with this - cos to us, the person killed isn’t a statistic, a member of some “group” or nationality or whatever, they are a person, someone with an individual identity. it’s often easy to dehumanize the “other” - but that precisely, is what is so dangerous, because then it becomes easy to justify the killing of such a person. whereas, when someone is a person, you always think, oh god, how can anyone do that? ( well in the same way that people in armies go around killing “someone else” ..but they were an “enemy target” so that’s okay. well it fucking isn’t - it’s the same bloody thing if its a soldier of a nation-state, or a “soldier” in some terrorist group who see us ordinary people also as “enemy targets”

I think it is a problem when people write letters to the Guardian saying oh well we shouldn’t paint the muslims as victims cos they aren’t - cos “they” bombed a church in pakistan, and how we don’t see christian groups bombing public transport in muslim countries. What the problem with this author ( he knows who he is) is categorizing humans into groups – I mean for goodness sake who the hell is he referring to when he says “muslims” or “christians”? does he think we all fit into nice big groups like that? See that is the very root cause of trouble – people who become terrorists think like that – they don’t see people as individuals with feelings and lives, just members of one particular “club”/group – and if they don’t like that club, they feel no compunction about attacking ( or blaming or tarring with the same brush ) anyone they have “put” into this club/group. That’s why they can attack random people and not worry about killing “innocents”. I mean hey buddy, its terrible your church got bombed, its terrible when anyone dies. Okay? And if he’d looked around the world a bit more ( instead of wearing blinkers like these terrorists do) then he’d realize that throughout history all sorts of fucking people have been killing all sorts of other people, ( including wars where - what a surprise! christians kill christians and muslims kill muslims) and you know what? It keeps going round and round. I think the original point that people have made about these particular bombings was not to “excuse” the terrorists or muslims or whomever, but the point was that if you are going to go around killing people then don’t be surprised if someone wants to kill you back. The best way to achieve peace to stop fucking killing people. It’s not a question of legitimacy of killings – no killings are legitimate. You either stick to that position – or it gets very murky because you then end up in the position whereby you say its okay to bomb one bunch of people because it’s a “war” and you’re a nation-state, but you don’t like it when someone else ( we don’t know whom) kills some other people. So basically its murky because obviously people are going to disagree about who/what/where was legitimate - duh - that’s obvious, we can’t agree on all sorts of things - Neither lot of killers are better than the other lot in the sense that – as I emphasize again – from the point of view of once you’re dead, you’re fucking dead. Excuse my use of the f-word..but I don’t really understand why people don’t get this simple fact. Is it because they haven’t been in a war???

It’s no good saying well I belong to this group and so its okay for us to kill people in the other group –hello people this is why wars happen. Me I am an individual and if membership of a society requires me to condone killing in the name of that group then I say fuck the group, where are my rights as an individual? We all seem to accept that on an individual level, killing other people is wrong, why is it so fucking difficult to realize on a collective level that might be the same? Sure the “leaders” of “groups” of all types– (and for people who don’t understand my terminology – I speak as a sociologist and for all intents and purposes – nations are groups too) try to make their “members” feel bad if they don’t support the direction of the group and that’s where things like “patriotism” and stuff comes in. ( and why democracy is so important)

They try and make you feel bad for not participating in something that you know is wrong cos you wouldn’t do it if you weren’t involved in this kind of ultimate peer pressure. Fuck peer pressure. Now this is why people ought to read more social psychology so they’d get that a bit better. Look – I am going to rant on more about this anyway, in a more “academic” way – that’s partly why I’ve got this blog- it’s a very contentious issue and most people haven’t got the reflexivity about their own particular “membership” – and that’s mostly undestandable – but this is a really critical issue since it keeps coming up. And in the light of what happened here in London last week, and some of the commentary and responses around the world – especially the ridiculous hysteria across the US media about “Londonistan” etc. etc. ( for goodness sake- i mean come on..London’s been a terrorist target for ages..just cos some of us aren’t as pissy as some other people..) I really had to bring it up here.

Like I said, thank goodness that for the most part we in London have the good sense to realize that if we’re going to be like that in America after 9/11 ( which was le’ts kill some people to avenge our deaths- and i don’t mean just the govt. i mean lots of ordinary people thought that was okay) then that ain’t gonna get anyone anywhere. You ask why? Cos revenge is a bloody circle, that’s why.