The trouble caused by these terrorist plots goes on and on. While hand-cream is still used in this household without triggering major incident, something nasty nearly happened to me this morning.
I was returning from the petrol station with a copy of the local paper. I learned that suspects have been arrested in every street where I once considered renting a flat, but not the street where I live now.
I was absorbed in reading about how mounted police had cordoned off King’s Wood in order to dig for explosives. It was a bit like my post “A grave mystery unearthed”.
All of a sudden, a hand grabbed my sleeve, accompanied by a loud cry. An earnest grey-haired lady was at my side. She’d been walking behind me, but speeded up when she saw that I was about to step in a pool of vomit.
I thanked her for this prompt rescue. I was immediately reminded of the other day when, distracted by BBC News 24 live coverage of counter-terrorist actions in my town, I’d let my blackberry jam turn into purple toffee. “It’s all because of the terrorists, they put such chaos in our lives,” I quipped.
I don't suppose many passers-by would have grasped the subtlety of my joke, but this lady being Polish with very little English, it went over her head. “Terrorists? Terrorists!” She rolled her eyes and pointed a finger to her head significantly: “It’s money! All money!” I guess neither of us knew what the other meant.
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3 comments:
I am glad she got to you in time, ugh. Sorry about the jam thing.
Just goes to show something behind you working in your choice of streets to live on. You would have been okay anyway, I believe.
Thanks Yves.
Yes, I would have been OK anyway. What I have been trying to convey is that media hype is not the same as life on the ground. Even the local media and local member of parliament here have been stirring things up unintentionally. They have their own agendas of course, the one to sell newspapers etc and the other to justify his existence and his party's point of view.
What I see is that there are forces in the world so powerful that they infiltrate into stable local communities to a certain extent, so that in this peaceful town there are some young men who don't want peace at all, they want to fight, so they look for some perceived injustice and then they get seduced by what we used to call the "recruiting sergeants" into joining up.
I see that it is not enough to be a peaceful community. Young men want more than peace. They want a cause to dedicate their life to. As wise old men we need to ensure that we don't set them up with the excuse of any government-sponsored injustices. Mistakes like failing to feed the Irish peasants during the Potato Famine, or more recently, invading Iraq, keep on feeding the young men's rage for centuries. There are more controversial examples but I will leave them to the imagination. Then there are the cunning old men who exploit these feuds for their own devious ends.
That is the way I see it: not evil but something natural which needs to be dealt with wisely and dispassionately.
It has been that way for a long time Yves, a long time, the young and the old, the causes and the lack of peace, maybe out of all this more and better peace will come. I think so, for everyone.
We have different views in details, we have to deal with those, each in our own peaceful ways, being as effective as we can for our point of view, always realizing the other side as much as possible, the main thing is maintaining the environment for that, a peaceful place to change things that need changing.
Thanks Yves.
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