Thursday, July 21, 2005

Safe Beirut/Dangerous London?

There have been more bombs today in London. Actually, they didn't seem to be bombs as much as small detonations aimed at creating panic, security alerts and disruption in the city. And how successful that's been! More stories of friends thrown off buses or trains and trying to forge a pathway home from work through cordonned ares, and evacuated streets.
As usual, I was at a friend's house, eating and totally unaware - actually, with the first set of bombs, I was simply sleeping and unaware, having no job to commute to at 8am.
This time, one of the the 'bombs' inched itself much closer to home... a bus on the intersection of Columbia road and Hackney road. Hearing "BOMB IN BETHNAL GREEN" repeated on the radio felt quite unnerving, seeing that I live on Bethnal Green Road...

It is strange to hear of bombs in both cities I call home.
Just 2 weeks ago, a member of the Murr species was almost assassinated in Beirut. Now my beloved London East End has been attacked. It is almost risible how Beirutians are urging me to return to the homeland, saying that London is now officially unsafe! Wasn't it a couple of months ago that even my suburbian Lebanese hometown of Broumana was targeted by a bomb?
It seems that, wherever we go, there is anger and disquiet. I don't want to point fingers, and I don't want to throw blame. Politics and rebellion have become almost too complex to fathom. Or, actually, they have been diluted into a perpetual and metaphorical dissatisfied bellow that screams a "East vs West" chant...
Is it really as simple as that?

And now I have been invited to have a drink on Hoxton Square, 50m from the bus incident. Because, as you have heard, London Is Defiant, and London Goes On In The Face Of Terror...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Weird enough, one of the Murr species accused terrorists of the blast that was about to kill him!

Anonymous said...

u must be a bomb magnet rasha!

Rasha said...

Wow! I'll take that as a compliment!