How London Defeated the Bombers......

Just after 7/7 journalist Euan Ferguson visited the sites of the bombing attacks Last week he retraced his steps and witnessed the Capital’s return to normal.. Hi article was published in yesterday’s Observer. Set out below are some extracts from the article

“This Friday marks the anniversary of that drizzly day when four young men attempted to do to London what their al-Qaeda heroes and mentors had done to New York. They brought terror, in the form of four homemade rucksack bombs. On Friday there will be silences, and thoughts, and services…

.. Everything, some said that day, had changed: this had been our 9/11, and London life would not be the same again. Certainly it was an unconscionable act and a grim day: but even by three in the afternoon, after phones began to work again, there was some semblance of life to the city: life, and defiance. For once, Londoners helped each other, looked out for each other during their long trudge home. And now? Perhaps the best testament to city-wide resilience is that, wandering round these same places, it is rather hard to remember the mood that strange, one-off day….

Tellingly as anything, the help-others mood has gone. Of course London is, in places, friendly enough but elsewhere, the mood has gone. Londoners are pleasantly rude again, banging into each other, and cursing, and hurrying, and not really giving much of one about other people…

Near Russell Square is one of the rarest houses in London: rare because it features two blue plaques from English Heritage: on the right of the door, one to Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, 20th-century Muslim 'reformer and scholar'; on the left, one to the historian RH Tawney. The scientist Sir Syed, who argued, against great opposition, that Indian Muslims should accept Western education and, to an extent, culture, and spent years planning the 'Muslim Cambridge'; and the thoughtful socialist hero who preached every kind of tolerance except that towards acquisitive greed….

It was hard not to reflect that their arguments have been somewhat lost. The arguments from every side are less moderate: the arguments were carried out, a year ago, directly under their feet. But the city in which they chose to live, it would seem, speaks on: it ignores, mostly, the savagery beneath the streets, and the bumbling authoritarianism above: and, simply, rightly, gets on with being London.”

Is this yet another “No shit Sherlock” post from me? Probably it is. Unsurprisingly the bombings had no lasting effect on the physical face of the capital. It took some time for the tube lines to be fully operational, but people settled back quickly into their normal routine. The day after, the tourists were back around the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. The Monday after, people returned to work as normal. What else could we do? It had nothing to do with the Dunkirk or Blitz spirit - we simply had lives to lead. The bombers disrupted that for most Londoners for just a little while: the effects are still of course being felt by many of those injured on the day and by grieving families.

Needless to say I have nothing for disgust for the bombers. What they did was murder, nothing more, nothing less. I also have similar regard for the small minority who somehow think their acts were somehow a blow for justice. Perhaps they would like to take the list of the dead and point out the “Little Eichmanns” among them.

I will probably return to this subject later in the week


London
Bombings
Terrorism