Letter to my MP and the Independent about the murder
of a young man. That's how I feel. That's what these
dreadful politics do to me.
Best
Sigi

 “He looked like a cornered fox,” That’s what an
eyewitness said, himself pale and shellshocked by what
he had seen. A man shot dead.

And I remember my  feelings, I thought: thank god, he
can’t do any harm any longer. Clean shot. Tabula rasa.
I felt terribly exhausted but relieved. 

That’s what I felt when I heard the first reports
about the shooting. It’s the end of the terrorist, I
thought.
It’s the beginning of us feeling secure! We are free,
we are liberated. We can ride happily in the
overcrowded, too hot tube. Everything will be fine
now. One down. One to go. I might have thought that,
too.

And then I heard that there had been five shots. Eight
shots. And then I heard that this guy was not
connected to terrorists, and not a bomber at all.

I couldn’t believe it. It had been obvious, hadn’t it?
Hadn’t it? I heard a witness speaking about wires
sticking out of the guy. 

Hang on. Wires. I thought. I sometimes listen to my
mobile with headphones. My radio. With headphones.
Wires.

I think it was Sunday when I learned that this young
man had nothing to do with terrorists suicide bombers.
He was a young smiling man, from Brazil.
i was so terribly upset. Shot eight times, in the
body, in the head, by our police, shot in the head.

There were so many rumours. Rumours can kill.
Rumours have killed. Dead. This is cold blooded
murder. Murder in our name.

There is no excuse for this. There is no excuse for
this hot and humid climate of hysteria. And our fears
are fired up, poked lovingly, like a holy fire, by
holier than thou politicians.

I am very shocked when I learn what has really
happened. I am also shocked having caught myself -
feeling relieved about the death of a young man. The
murder of a man in our name, in my name.

The gravity of what our security forces did in our
name to this young man is only sinking in, now,
slowly.... And it  feels like a punch to my own head,
my own heart.

I am against the death penalty. I feel corrupted now.
And I was corrupted, by hysteria, my own fears, the
many rumours.

Our police is under stress. But so are we. So am I.
I may not attack someone because I assume this person
might, might, might, attack, someone, or me.

I also feel guilty because in some ways I had silently
agreed to this cold blooded deed. I had been
frightened, nervous with fear. Fear had made me nod my
head.

‘He looked like a cornered fox.’ was the quote which
is still ringing in my ears. Nobody had said: ‘He
looked like a young man afraid to die.’ 
At the time the quote made me feel better. He wasn’t
human after all. Now it makes me feel shaken, ashamed
about myself. my heart bleeds for this man and his
family. And i am afraid of times to come.

This is what so-called war on terror does to us. This
collective hysteria where nothing is analysed but seen
in the bright comic book colours of good and evil. 

We don’t see people as human beings instead we make
them into animals, things, Untermenschen.

Because we are afraid, we kill and we murder, in cold
blood. Fear makes us do unspeakable things. And fear
is our apology, afterwards, for the sins we have
committed.

Men with guns need to be very cold blooded. Men with
guns need to be detached. We don’t need men with guns
nervous, full to the brim with images of fear. 

Dark skinned young men in Hackney are running for the
bendy bus, they are running late. Can the men with
guns be so detached, so cold-blooded to see that young
men are running to catch a bus? 

Or are they so saturated with fears that they only can
see dark skinned potential bombers? And guns are
raised on London’s grounds. Men with guns are let
loose on London, let loose on us.

Whose words, whose orders, do our men with guns
follow? Who trained them? What have they been trained
to think? Untermenschen? Shoot to kill?
That is what I am worried about. Their mindset.

The other war, the Iraq war, was also done in my name.
No, no! I had shouted. And many, many of us has
shouted and many  of us have written letters, and more
letters.

And now this.
A cold blooded murder, again in my name. To protect
me. To save me. Thanks, but no thanks. Not this. Not
in my name, because this is the slippery slope of
losing, losing what we are: diverse, different
individuals. We are fun loving drink loving religious
partying meditating puking shouting screaming quiet
reflective Londoners black and white and brown and
sunburned.
Peace loving. The vast, overwhelming majority of us.

We are Londoners. All of us. Everybody.
That includes the man with the gun who shot a man
seven times in the head and once in the shoulder.

Why did he shoot him in the shoulder? - Did his hand
slip? Did he wonder, for a split second, whether this
trembling young man lying on the floor was actually a
human being and not a potential bomber?

What is left of Jean Charles’ face, his head, which
the man with the gun has shot seven times? Jean
Charles from Brazil, killed by seven shots like seven
deadly sins.

Who is the man with the gun? He is one of us, too. 
Hello, my friend. Will you do it again? Will you
remember this for the rest of your life? Can you
listen to Brazilian Samba music without crying?
Or are you still shell shocked, numb with grief? Will
you kill again with no questions asked?
I pray for both of you. 

Both men belong to us. Who washed the blood away? One
of us. Will I see traces of Jean Charles' blood on the
floor in my tube carriage the next time I dare to
travel?Will I? Will I smell blood on the breath of my
tube?

We have suffered terrible terrorist attacks.
 But this may not make us behave like this. This was
murder. Murder in our name. Fear made us do this to
each other. 
Let’s stop this. Now. Think.
We don’t need a shoot to kill policy.  And I find it
so offensive when  politicians try to sell it as 
‘shoot to protect.’ 
Not in my name, thank you.

What is happening right now is an escalation of
tensions within London. It will cause racism, has
caused attacks on muslims and other minorities
already. It is creating fear and spreading terror
within the different communities, between communities.
These politics will cause hatred.

This dreadful situation was brought on by dangerous
and badly planned foreign politics, which were against
international law.  I don’t understand why Blair
constantly denies those links.

Now we see the first grave violation of our civil
rights, of our human rights here in Britain. A
functioning democracy cannot have a shoot to kill
policy. A Prime Minister defending it is beyond the
pale. 

To detain suspects for three months without charge is
the stuff of nightmares. It happens in totalitarian
states.

This is the result of Blair's Iraq war and Blair's
logic. He is used to walking over international law
and human rights, has done it before. 

Blair’s proposed anti-terror measures will  destroy
our democracy from within, thoroughly and via the law.
Escalation, hatred and racial tensions in our lands
will be the results of his dangerous proposals.

That is not what we need. We need serious
de-escalation approaches, a revision of foreign
politics, a calmer approach to the whole situation,
also via our media.
Otherwise fear and bad political decisions will
destroy our way of life and our democracy.




	
	
		
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