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London living: The culture of blame

By Bronwen Foster-Butler Terrorists strive to create a culture of Fear. They want to transform our privileged Western lives into lives spent petrified and suspicious. I live in a city that, as of July 7 th 2005, has become a war zone.

By Bronwen Foster-Butler

Terrorists strive to create a culture of Fear. They want to transform our privileged Western lives into lives spent petrified and suspicious. I live in a city that, as of July 7 th 2005, has become a war zone. However, instead of my life being transformed into one of nervousness and worry, it is one of speculation and political questioning. I still take the tube and bus to work; I still have friends regardless of their religious beliefs, and I still aim to treat all strangers as equals. The only difference in my life is that I am now spending my idle thoughts searching for someone to blame. Someone other than myself.

Sound confusing? Each and every morning I wake up assuming to hear the worst – that another bomb has gone off, that another tube has crashed or bus exploded, or even worse, that the police have gunned down another innocent. I am a Whistlerite who has, for cultural and financial reasons, been temporarily transported over the pond to live in the big smoke: London, England. I came here to experience the perpetuity of life; the cross-section of humanity who reside here and the inspiring action that makes each and every day different.

When I arrived the city itself was alive; it was crawling with excitement. As those who were in Whistler in the summer of 2003 remember, a city bidding for the Olympic Games shows off its best colours for everyone to see. Like a peacock, we strutted around, proud of our feathers and our distinctive markings. Summer was just starting, vacations were being planned and pub gardens were overflowing with faces and stories. On July 6 th we were awarded the 2012 summer Olympic Games. London was thriving.

The very next day, our glory and celebrations were cut short. To live in a city under attack is like no other experience. Although the death count was relatively low considering the total population of London and the potential devastation, even a single death by a terrorist affects everyone still living. Regardless of our political or religious beliefs, we are all changed. I drove into the city that night and saw a ghost town; instead of being stuck in crowds and traffic, cement barriers, barren streets and heavily armed policemen delayed me. Our lives had come to a halt.

But not for long. Over the following week, throughout all the press conferences, public speculation and political mumbo-jumbo that bombarded the media, one message came through the strongest. We were not afraid. Londoners, determined not to let the terrorists win, fought back with our own weapons: words, art, music and passion. The pubs were still full, the buses still ran and the tube was still a little bit late. We were not a culture of fear – that was easy to see, nevertheless there was still tension in the air.

When I was awoken the following week by yet another set of attacks, I finally understood what it was that was changing the flavor of our lives. Instead of being afraid of everyone we passed, we were secretly blaming them. The government was blaming a new terrorist sect; the police were blaming lack of funding, red tape and fate; religious leaders were blaming the Bible, the Koran and society in general; the media were blaming Bush, Blair, Osama, Saddam, God and Allah. We, the public, were left with nobody but ourselves.

And that is where it strikes the hardest. Instead of being able to point the finger at one person or one group, as the smoke cleared it became ever so obvious that it was our own people who were responsible. The bombers were not radical refugees from Iraq or Afghanistan; they were cricket players, football lovers and tax-paying Brits. They were our neighbours, our cousins, and our friends. We could blame no one.

Too often, we find our lives overtaken by conflicts and conquests. Our present world leaves so little room for harmony, for peaceful unions and acceptance. We are driven by the belief that there is a right and a wrong, a white and a black, a good and an evil, and we miss everything in between. We strive for that which is impossible. Perfection means the exact opposite of what everyone wants. Perfection cannot exist and is therefore not what we should be working for. Instead of conformity we should have understanding. Nevertheless, we are dying for our ideals, for a way of thinking. We are killing for a peace of mind, for a piece of land. As my very good friend and mentor Sioux Valley Bob once wrote to me, "Perfection doesn’t have a face to laugh in, that’s why it’s so hard to see the humour in it."

Tomorrow I will wake up and turn on the news. The morning will have progressed in one of two ways. War or peace. They are mutually exclusive. Somewhere along the way this fact has been forgotten. We will continue our lives searching for a good and an evil, a right and wrong, a black and a white. Through this searching, blaming, bombing, conquering and killing we will overlook the endless shades of grey that encompass our lives and that are, in their own different and distinctive way, as close to perfect as we will ever get.