While I should be writing about all things Prague, or at least all things Czech, how can I not comment on this?
Just when you think that maybe, just maybe, the world has kind of got its shit together and wonderful things like Live 8 are grabbing headlines and bringing people together, you get a friend calling you to turn on the TV because there have been bomb attacks on the London Underground.
You hope that your friend’s friends and relatives in London are ok, you watch a bit of the news footage, your stomach turns, a little voice in your head mutters, ‘Here we go again,’ followed by (and though you hate yourself for it, you think it, if only for a moment) ‘Why can’t we just bomb those troublesome countries off the face of the planet, with Dubya strapped – or better yet, nailed to – to one of those fucking bombs?’
You turn off the TV, you turn on the computer, you write it out of your system. You’re not going to get as obsessed with this as you did with 9-11. Since then nothing shocks you, though there are things that frighten you.
I’ve never enjoyed taking the underground here in Prague, but I’m left somewhat without a choice living out in Blackbridge. I was getting comfortable with being suburban, but my tube paranoia has got me thinking once again that it really sucks out here.
I’ve just finished translating the sixth chapter of the ten-chapter book that’s keeping me stuck in Blackbridge. The end of the chapter covers the 1999 bombings that took place in Moscow, Volgodonsk and Buinaksk. At first Chechen terrorists were blamed. Then a group of little-known militant Wahhabis was held accountable. Another school of thought has pretty damning proof to back its claims that the blasts were planned by the Russian security services (headed by Russian President Vladimir Putin) as part of a plot to validate an invasion of Chechnya. No group has ever claimed responsibility for the blasts, and an open and transparent inquiry into each case has yet to happen.
Of course, I sincerely doubt that Chechens (let alone the Russian security services) were involved in the London tragedy. I just found it interesting, in a morbid sort of way, that what I’ve been reading and working on happens to be running along the same lines as current events. Anyone who doesn’t know much about what has been going on between Russia and Chechnya (as I didn’t until I started the book) does not know that to Russians the 9/99 bombings were as damaging to the collective psyche as the 9-11 attacks on New York and Washington were to Americans (and, undoubtedly, as 7-07-05 now is to the Brits).
Sometimes people disgust me. Sometimes I’m very happy to be cut off from all the action in my little suburban bubble, with my girlfriend, our cat, our computer, our TV, our DVD player, our excellent DVD rental shop, the mall, the local pubs, and the skate-park down the road.
Sorry for being all maudlin, but what has happened in London makes me sick, angry and in need of a good vent.
Jul 7, 11:52 (Filed under: Personal )
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