What an emotional roller coaster the past few days have been. One day the people of London were celebrating the news that our city will host the Olympic Games in 2012, then the next day the city is thrown into chaos, as four bombs explode during the rush hour.
But in some ways, a lot of us were not surprised. Prime Minister Tony Blair is George Bush’s closest ally on the issue of Iraq – Italy and Spain had been attacked; in the back of our minds were asking ourselves ‘when’, not ‘if’ something like this would happen in the UK.
What has been really interesting is watching how the people of London – and Britain – have reacted to the bombings, through the eyes of non-British media. Those of us outside the country saw no mass hysteria. Just images of visibly shaken people trying to hold themselves together, so that they could minimize the damage and help others who were worse off than they were.
It really was awe inspiring to see how people who were clearly shaken and devastated carry on with the business of the day. They refused to be terrorized.
Watching London’s reaction to the bombing through the eyes of the non-British media taught me the real meaning of this British ‘Stiff Upper Lip’ (yes, those of us whose ancestors come from other continents have it too!). It’s ironic that I joked about ‘British reserve’ last week, because now I feel like I didn’t have a clue about what it really meant then! What a difference 24 hours makes, eh?! I realize now that the ‘Stiff Upper Lip’ is a quiet determination to ‘get on with it’ even when everything is falling apart. It was demonstrated to the fullest last week – even though everyone in Britain thinks the Stiff Upper Lip’ is a thing of the past!
After spending a few years in the US – and having become accustomed to seeing people who are happy to express their feelings in public, I was quite surprised by the reactions of my friends and family when I spoke to them on Thursday. Granted, they were the lucky ones - my dad decided not to go to a morning meeting in near Parliament and my sister and brother-in-law spent most of the day trying to get one of their friends out of central London – his office was really close to where one of the bombs went off. There were so many stories like these. But, with each phonecall I got the same message; while people were clearly shaken, no one wanted any fuss, they just wanted to get on with it – and wanted to be there for each other and were determined not to let this get to them.
That said, we are yet to see how the British public will react once the dust has settled figuratively and literally, but I think that people won’t forget about the bigger picture. The American press has suggested that there have been calls to tighten anti terror laws and have suggested that Britain’s attitude to immigration meant made London city vulnerable to attack. I don’t think those calls are particularly loud. The majority of Londoners and British people understand the political significance of Thursday’s actions. Just a few months ago, Tony Blair paid the price for his involvement in Iraq in the General Election. He won the, but his huge majority was slashed. The opposition by British public to the invasion of Iraq has been unwavering and Thursday’s bombings wont scare people in to changing their minds. Thursday’s bombings will give more credence to the belief that the world has not been any safer since March 2002. And people will feel that the public paid the price for our nations involvement in the so-called War on Terror.
But, politics and observations aside, I am just thinking of those families who were affected by the bomb and I hope that my city bounces back – soon.
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