The day after

It's beginning to sink in now. Although London is looking largely back to normal -- helped in no small measure by the fact that we're all used to the transport system being up the spout -- there is an underlying sense of pain: for those whose loved ones have not yet been found, who have woken up in hospital minus limbs, who have been eye witnesses to the trauma.
I work right in thick of it, midway between the bus explosion, Kings Cross and Liverpool Street. As I came into work yesterday there were already problems on the underground caused by the first explosion, though I didn't know what it was yet. As I came up Blackfriars Road, I was overtaken by dozens of police vans going up to Kings Cross. Then news of more bombs at Edgware Road and in Bloomsbury and the continual wail of sirens. I didn't go out; I wanted to avoid getting in the way of the emergency services.
Then we get all that bollocks about our values not being compromised by terrorism. Which values are those then? Economic liberalism, failing to reach agreement on climate change, ducking the issues on Africa... The carnage here is sickening, but is made no better by pontification about how we'll beat terror. There have been no demands to cave in to. There have been no values attacked. It is mindless brutality with any possible reasoning masked by anonymity. It doesn't take a hero to make a stand against that.
Focus instead on those who have been traumatised by crawling over bodies in the dark, by not being able to save everyone, by seeing carnage in front of them. And remember that they're not just here, but in Sarajevo, Fallujah, Bulawayo. The perpetrators of all these outrages need to be brought to justice and in the meantime, we need to care for those who have suffered, not pretend that we're making a stand when we're just carrying on what we'd be doing anyway.