Well I suppose everyone’s heard by now of the awful attacks on London during the morning rush hour. Thanks to the 4 people who emailed me asking if I was ok. I live quite a way from London, so I’m fine. I’m just in a state of shock at the moment still. My work colleagues were listening to updates on the radio and letting us know what was going on, but it seems that the strongest emotion that I can muster at the moment is “:|”
I think I’m dreading the fall-out from all of this more than anything. People are just going to want revenge, starting this all over again. We already have enough racist fuck-heads as it is who think that anyone with their skin colour a little darker than theirs is an illegal immigrant and after their jobs. With these new attacks, these people are now going to think that they have justification for being dicks. We’ve been bombed many times before by the IRA, but nobody hated the Irish because they knew that it was just a minority group. Oh, and they’re white. But now, because the terrorists have a different skin colour and religion to us they’ve been elevated to ‘OMFG ALL MUSLIMS ARE TERRORISTS!1¬!’. Bullshit. These terrorists are a bunch of cowardly fanatics who targeted people indiscriminately, regardless of their race or religion.
Tony Blair will probably use this as a justification or to gain support for what he and Bush have done in Iraq and move us just that little bit closer to a police state. If he mentions fucking ID cards again, I’m going to scream 
I’ve been living on 4 hours a night sleep, so I’m feeling a bit :???: , so I’ll sign off with a quote from the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone:
This was a cowardly attack, which has resulted in injury and loss of life. Our thoughts are with everyone who has been injured, or lost loved ones. I want to thank the emergency services for the way they have responded.
Following the al-Qaeda attacks on September 11th in America we conducted a series of exercises in London in order to be prepared for just such an attack. One of the exercises undertaken by the government, my office and the emergency and security services was based on the possibility of multiple explosions on the transport system during the Friday rush hour. The plan that came out of that exercise is being executed today, with remarkable efficiency and courage, and I praise those staff who are involved.
I’d like to thank Londoners for the calm way in which they have responded to this cowardly attack and echo the advice of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair – do everything possible to assist the police and take the advice of the police about getting home today.
I have no doubt whatsoever that this is a terrorist attack. We did hope in the first few minutes after hearing about the events on the Underground that it might simply be a maintenance tragedy. That was not the case. I have been able to stay in touch through the very excellent communications that were established for the eventuality that I might be out of the city at the time of a terrorist attack and they have worked with remarkable effectiveness. I will be in continual contact until I am back in London.
I want to say one thing specifically to the world today. This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at Presidents or Prime Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion, or whatever.
That isn’t an ideology, it isn’t even a perverted faith – it is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder and we know what the objective is. They seek to divide Londoners. They seek to turn Londoners against each other. I said yesterday to the International Olympic Committee, that the city of London is the greatest in the world, because everybody lives side by side in harmony. Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack. They will stand together in solidarity alongside those who have been injured and those who have been bereaved and that is why I’m proud to be the mayor of that city.
Finally, I wish to speak directly to those who came to London today to take life.
I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to take others – that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society and I can show you why you will fail.
In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.
They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don’t want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.
Commenter Plug ♥ Lisa, Christina, Chelsea, Maizzy, Joni and Tamz
Hey, I found your domain through pick-me.net’s and I just have to tell you, that this domain is really cute beyond reason or compare. I really love it. Anyways, that’s a greek tragedy about the al qaeda bombings and such. Again, cute and adorable layouts.
I’m glad you are okay, Bex.
Could you explain the ID cards? I’m not sure what they are…
Nice layout I like it
Renay: ID cards are being looked into by the Government as a means of preventing terrorism, etc, by making everyone carry around an ID card bearing fingerprints and other personal details, which would also be stored on a database.
It maybe doesn’t sound too bad at first, but you should see the mess the gov has made of computerising the passport office, or the CSA, or anything else they’ve had a go at. Their track record on IT projects is abysmal.
Prime Minister Wilson looked into ID cards in the 60s and knew then that it was an unworkable farce. The expense would be enormous. The cards would be compulsory, but wouldn’t be free either. Being forced to pay approx. £100 in combination with the fact that at best they’ll achieve absolutely nothing with it and at worst be open to all kinds of malicious abuse, leads me to think that the system is insane.
Even if we give Blair the benefit of the doubt and accept he’ll never do anything malicious with the information, he won’t always be in charge. Would you be happy with, say, a fascist government having intimate records of everyone ? What if 10/20/50 years from now the BNP (extremely racist, British political party) gets elected, can they have access to the national ID database?
Blair says they will help with immigration and terrorism….how exactly? Will we all be stopped and asked to prove we have a right to live in our own country or will it only be those who look foriegn that get stopped? Will Americans, Aussies, Swedes, Canadians etc be stopped or will it mostly be Asians, Arabs, Africans, Jamacians, etc?
I’m just afraid that Blair will use the London bombings as an excuse to try to bring ID cards in again (they’ve already been rejected by Parliament), under the guise of protecting the country from terrorists. I’m afraid it’s not that simple really.
Hope that made sense anyway
The act was terrible, the people that comitted it are psychotic, but the aftermath could get worse. It’s not just Blair’s ID card ideas, but the fact that Bush may use this attack as a way of pushing his next hair-brained scheme, or even make out that this was an attack against America, which would undermine Ken Livingstone’s speech entirely. As for attacks against the muslim community, it’s already started in Leeds, and let’s just hope we don’t have a repeat of the Bradford riots.
That ID card thing sounds terrible. Thanks for explaining it…I hope it doesn’t ever happen.
No offence, but people did hate the Irish during the IRA’s bombing campaign. I know plenty of stories about racist attacks and comments from back then.
No offence taken
I agree, a lot of people hated the Irish during the IRA bombings, but I don’t believe it was to a scale like this. In my opinion, the fact that the London bombers were supposedly Muslim brings out all other kinds of prejudices due to their differing religious beliefs and colour. People who were already rascist now have an excuse to voice their hatred without being attacked for it.
If you got on a bus now and a white bloke got on, chances are that you wouldn’t think twice about it, even during the height of the IRA attacks. But if a bloke with an ‘arabic appearance’ got on, the chances are higher that you would feel more uncomfortable. The only difference really between English and Irish is the accent really.
I realise that I perhaps worded my post wrongly. I do agree that people hated the Irish for what they did, but as I said above, I don’t think it was as easy to find as many scapegoats for the IRA attacks compared to the large Muslim communities here.
Thanks for taking the time to reply!