Felicity wrote:
> As a Disabled woman who lives a mere half a mile from Brick Lane, the heart
> of the Bangladeshi community, and sufficiently close to both the City of
> London and the Docklands area to have experienced the impact of both the
> April 1993 City bomb and the Feb. 1996 Docklands bomb, I feel a quite
> different sort of anxiety now from that previously experienced. Acts of
> terrorism within the UK mainland by the Irish Republican Army were targeted
> at property predominantly. These new acts of terrorism are clearly aimed
> at PEOPLE from oppressed groups.
>
Of course, we all feel the concern that Felicity has expressed about
the violence in London, no matter who it is directed against. I hope.
What concerns me (just a little) about this statement, which is out of
full context, I grant you, is its implied approval of violence that is
"targeted at property predominantly." While I don't live in the UK, its
seems to me that not all IRA violence was targeted at property -- a few
people also felt the sting of their rage, fury, and hatred.
In the US we are spending a lot of time discussing the high school
shootings in Littleton, CO (in which stigmatized "outsiders" vented
their anger against their tormentors -- a view which no one seems to
really dispute) and demanding an end to the culture of violence, while
bombing the hell out of Kosovo, killing many innocent civilians
(according to NATO, itself). I hope that Felicity's view here does not
lead us in that direction: condemning violence that seems directed
against us while finding a way to justify violence directed against
others.
TL
--
____________________________________________________
Timothy Lillie [log in to unmask]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|