Getting home from central London today was a two-hour nightmare -- although less painful than it might have been because a few of us working in the same area left work early and made our rather convoluted way to North London together. At one point, the thought of getting on a train after two terror attacks on the tube in two weeks made one of my companions burst out crying. Afterwards, she kept on apologizing (...Brit), but what occured to me was this: her reaction was so much more normal and healthy than the reaction of everyone else on the platform, who seemed surprisingly indifferent.
Yes, people are more jumpy than usual, but all this talk of 'not letting it get to us' is going too far. A certain amount of anger (not to mention other emotions like fear) is merited. Indeed, I think it's both healthy and necessary, provided it's channeled in the right direction -- towards deciding to do everything necessary to stop more attacks. At the moment, people's energy is all being directed toward 'carrying on as usual' and being 'resilient' and stoic. Those are both important. But I want to see people moved to vow to root out the terrorists from our midst, swearing they won't let this happen again. And that's just not the public mood I'm picking up.
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