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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

METRO

Have you ever noticed the bland faces of ordinary people on the metro?

Normal, wooden faces poked in newspapers, staring vacantly into the distance or gazing out the window as if there were luscious green fields rather than the dark brick nothingness of the underground.

There is nothing to betray anything but trust for that metallic earthworm safely taking them to their destination. Faces mashed together in an uneventful blur of striking predictability.

Just another casual everyday occurence...

UNTIL...

17 OCTOBER, 1995 - Paris metro bombing during the height of the evening rush hour

11 MARCH, 2004 - Madrid metro bombings


7 JULY, 2005 - London bombings - a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks on London's public transport systems

29 MARCH, 2010 - Below are pictures from the suicide attack on the Moscow Metro during the morning rush hour that broke the predictability. 39 people were killed. "People were yelling like hell," said one eye-witness. "There was a lot of smoke and within about two minutes everything was covered in smoke."


6 comments:

WendyCinNYC said...

So true. Life can change in an instant. I was in New York during the 9/11 bombings and there is nothing more horrifying than so much unexpected loss. My heart hurts for the people in Moscow.

Sharon said...

Thought provoking post. It is so easy to be lulled into a sense of well-being by the familiarity of routine. What makes us comfortable also makes us vulnerable to the predators among us. Yet, without trust, we could not function. We are in more danger from our own species than from any other source. I wish we could find a way to fix this conundrum.

Purple Cow said...

Wendy - The 9/11 bombings changed the world and make the occasional metro suicide attack seem like child's play...

Sharon - Roth books since the 9/11 bombings give me an idea of what it must be like to live in the US. I have a feeling that much of the terrorism fear in the US is hyped up more than it should be. But of course I don't live there...I'd be interested in hearing your views. Here in Athens terrorists mainly assassinate an odd politician or two - usually corrupt ones(nobody seems to mind this very much)...Still killing is killing...

Robin said...

There will never be any defense against terrorism or even against the an individual who is willing to die in order to kill another (on a more personal level). The personal vendetta is a bit easier to understand. The person willing to strap on a bomb and walk into a crowded area in order to kill a bunch of strangers is difficult for me wrap my brain around. I don't understand hate at that level. I don't understand the honor in dying that way. There is this movie THE KINGDOM that I watched once. I have it on DVD. I am not sure that I can bring myself to watch it again. It explains a lot, but I didn't like what I saw. And yet I watch "24" like a fanatic. It scares the crap out of me and I can't tear myself away. I'm not sure what that says about me....

Propoquerian said...

perhaps a positive note on all this--there is no more safety in our homes, in our routine places, than there is when we go abroad, when we go on adventures.

So, for the same reason, there is no Less safety when we go on adventures, experience new places.

Ok, well, yes there are the horror stories of heads found in the ground in Mexico and many more such stories. So, it's not that our sense of danger in going abroad is false. It's that our sense of safety at home is false.

We must hold onto that safety, as Sharon says, to function. But...it might be the smartest thing, and the most freeing, to realize we are just...holding onto it for that reason. not because it is necessarily founded in anything.

Purple Cow said...

Robin - I know I was bred to hate Turks. Bedtime stories consisted of what my family suffered in their hands. I was regaled with horrors of the 1922 catastrophe. No, I wouldn't strap a bomb to myself and kill Turks on the metro cause I was raised in Australia...but if my parents had continued living in Turkey, which incidentally is where I was born and raised until the age of one before my father fleed to save his life for political reasons...if he had been killed, if my children had been killed then I don't know...I can't say for certain what I would be capable of...Things aren't really that simple.

Propoquerian - Here in Greece yesterday an Afghan immigrant boy was blown up by a bombing device he found in the garbage set to go off later...a warning call was received just as he was getting blown up. This boy and his family left their home in unsafe Kabul to come to safe Athens...How ironic!