Well, what we have we here....
A week on, almost to the day after the london massacres, and they have found the people pulling the strings, apparently.
Why? The question keeps moving around.. if it was attention they were after, they certainly got it (the bombers and the people behind them)..
In that, it was successful.
If they want to sow the seeds of hate and paranoia in western capitals (Madrid, London...) They ara managing it superbly, especially if you go beyond the people on the streets and listen to the rethorics spewed by politicians.
I really wonder how what they say sounds to an objective arab or Muslim or islamist or just concerned onlooker.
It must sound like terror has allready won, in spite of all the reassurances that "we are doing all we can to increase security".
If they wanted to polarise my class into a discussion about the rules of engagement as according to terrorists, they managed that as well. We seem to be engaged in a heated discussion about the whys and whats and whos's of the whole thing...
and of course, with one of our class-mates on site, we are worried.. she is, last time I checked, a muslim, one of those who will be looked upon with suspicion, distrust and so on. I feel stongly for her.
To say that Germany views all of this with quiet detachement would be an undersatement. The newsgroups I read are suspiciously quiet about this... at a university get-together, we carefully avoided the subject, broaching it and the waltzing elgantly around it until we end up somwhere else entirly.
At home, with my parents, it is discussed, finally. And it should be.
For my part, I might
(or might not, it's always an option)understand the timing and the purpose of this by now, but I wonder if it is really neccesary to commit such meaningless acts of murder to bring attention to your cause... it's like lady Godiva, who rode naked on her horse. But in that historical case, it seems to have been effective, and peaceful (not to mention rather easy on the eyes...). But if the only way to get public attention and opinnion is to show naked flesh (pleasant, or in the case of anything to do with bombs, un-) then something is seriously wrong here.
One of the problems is media repression in Iraq, or any Arab state.. most of what you get from there is a polished, goverenment controlled image of people who are not happy, but content with their lot, opressed and subjected to daily torture an repression as they are. Juxtapose this with the image that we are given by some of the more radical media outlets locally... they hate the west (they may be, in part right), the corrupt western governments (but its suits them fine that their own are... you have to get your friends in high places somehow.), the filth.
Oh help. We're people too, you know: Point in case: a man is currently suing the ARD (TV station) for Libel. Why: They called him a terrorist, when in fact he maintains he s an islamist... what a fine line we have to draw. And this is a line the people of London may no longer be able to, for a while.
Filthy West. It could be such a nice place to live in.
A week on, almost to the day after the london massacres, and they have found the people pulling the strings, apparently.
Why? The question keeps moving around.. if it was attention they were after, they certainly got it (the bombers and the people behind them)..
In that, it was successful.
If they want to sow the seeds of hate and paranoia in western capitals (Madrid, London...) They ara managing it superbly, especially if you go beyond the people on the streets and listen to the rethorics spewed by politicians.
I really wonder how what they say sounds to an objective arab or Muslim or islamist or just concerned onlooker.
It must sound like terror has allready won, in spite of all the reassurances that "we are doing all we can to increase security".
If they wanted to polarise my class into a discussion about the rules of engagement as according to terrorists, they managed that as well. We seem to be engaged in a heated discussion about the whys and whats and whos's of the whole thing...
and of course, with one of our class-mates on site, we are worried.. she is, last time I checked, a muslim, one of those who will be looked upon with suspicion, distrust and so on. I feel stongly for her.
To say that Germany views all of this with quiet detachement would be an undersatement. The newsgroups I read are suspiciously quiet about this... at a university get-together, we carefully avoided the subject, broaching it and the waltzing elgantly around it until we end up somwhere else entirly.
At home, with my parents, it is discussed, finally. And it should be.
For my part, I might
(or might not, it's always an option)understand the timing and the purpose of this by now, but I wonder if it is really neccesary to commit such meaningless acts of murder to bring attention to your cause... it's like lady Godiva, who rode naked on her horse. But in that historical case, it seems to have been effective, and peaceful (not to mention rather easy on the eyes...). But if the only way to get public attention and opinnion is to show naked flesh (pleasant, or in the case of anything to do with bombs, un-) then something is seriously wrong here.
One of the problems is media repression in Iraq, or any Arab state.. most of what you get from there is a polished, goverenment controlled image of people who are not happy, but content with their lot, opressed and subjected to daily torture an repression as they are. Juxtapose this with the image that we are given by some of the more radical media outlets locally... they hate the west (they may be, in part right), the corrupt western governments (but its suits them fine that their own are... you have to get your friends in high places somehow.), the filth.
Oh help. We're people too, you know: Point in case: a man is currently suing the ARD (TV station) for Libel. Why: They called him a terrorist, when in fact he maintains he s an islamist... what a fine line we have to draw. And this is a line the people of London may no longer be able to, for a while.
Filthy West. It could be such a nice place to live in.
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