Having read the recent debates I've bitten my tongue for so long, but in the end I feel I really need to speak up. Kakki, I have no doubt you are a nice decent person (I really mean that) but your comments at times make my head spin! I don't need to go into the foreign policy issues again, other people have already done that very well (Mike, Vince, Brenda, etc) so I just want to give you my own perspective from where I am, i.e. London UK. I find it extremely upsetting that you claim all-American exclusivity to feelings of grief and hurt over the recent atrocities. Unless you lost someone in your own family or are living in Manhattan, I don't think you can tell me that you have more right to feel raw, hurt, in mourning, than someone like me. Well let me tell you, I have been deeply depressed since "the events", it feels like my world has been attacked just as much as yours. I have very close friends all over the States, I've spent a lot of time there, it really does not matter to me what nationality I have, I would not wave any flag or ask for any country to be more "blessed" than another, to me that is just senseless. But most of all, I want you to realise how vulnerable we feel here. I work in the financial centre of London. Even our chief of police has admitted that London would be the next main target after the recent attacks on US soil. I would probably feel safer in LA, certainly much safer in small town America at the moment than in London! I have an Italian colleague whose mother was crying on the phone because she is so worried about her daughter being in London. And then, in less than 3 weeks from now I am supposed to fly to Colorado to visit a friend for 2 weeks. I just read this morning that Colin Powell won't let his daughter get on a commercial plane at the moment, so she had to cancel her theatre commitment in London. Wow, that's reassured me! I mean, just how much more personally involved and threatened do I have to feel before I qualify to be in the exclusive club of those that you think can validly discuss this issue? For years here we've had to put up with the IRA threat (financed mainly by Noraid from NY, unfortunately) and twice I was in an office building so close to an IRA bomb that windows were blown out and people were severely hurt. I hold my breath when I walk past an unmarked van in the centre of London, I try to stop my children from coming up to central London, and this has been going on for years, you don't know how depressing this is! And now this. Please realise London is just as likely to get bombed or sprayed with lethal chemicals as the US. We are all involved, and in any case, just like the people in small town America who are not really at risk but feel involved as part of the "bigger family", in the same way do we in other western countries, as we are part of the same culture. And this does not mean we can't be critical. I remember, around 20 years ago when I had just arrived in England from Belgium and was working, my first real job, in an office of all-Brits, it was the end of the Falklands war with Argentina and the British troups were on a triumph parade outside in the street. A girl in the office rushed out and then came back all excited, saying proudly "I went up to the soldiers and kissed them". I was naove and idealistic enough to think we could speak our mind so I said that I thought it had been a unnecessary war, defending a piece of land way out where we (UK) had no business, that certainly it was not worth all the lives (after the UK had sunk an Argentine submarine with around 1000 young conscripts lost) and that it was mainly done to win Margaret Thatcher the national vote. This girl who had kissed the soldiers turned on me and said that I should not speak like that, that I would surely speak differently if it had been Belgium rather than the UK being involved. This shocked me so much that I still remember it 20 years on. It had not occurred to me to see the situation through nationalistic glasses, that someone like that girl, same age as me, would oppose free individual thought and expression of opinion. Of course I would have said the same if it had been Belgium's war! I just cannot tell you how shocked and hurt I was by this reaction, but it taught me a lot! And although I know, Kakki, that you are a much kinder and intelligent person than that girl, some of your reactions gave me the same shudder and so I felt I had to say this. That's the main thing I really want to say now, the rest has been said very well already. Or maybe just quickly this: about catholicism and pacifism. I was raised a catholic too, before I grew up and realised I could not believe what they or any other religion told me (sorry Vince, I think you are an absolutely wonderful person but I only believe in our own human duty to behave morally). So I am speaking from within, and there are a lot of catholic writers and thinkers and ordinary people (including my uncle who is a priest and an absolute treasure) who I have a lot of respect for. But I need to say, Kakki: the catholic church has only recently developed a "pacifist" stream, comparable to that of any proper, moderate muslim thinking. It's certainly nothing "typically catholic". And see how many catholic priests in Northern Ireland are still supporting terrorists - giving them proper military burials when they die "for the cause", a cause that is also naively sponsored by Noraid from New York. Ah well, it's so difficult to be brief about things like that, I must stop. Just to say again how much I appreciate pieces written recently by Kate Bennett, Debra, Mike, Vince, Brenda, Marian, Yael, Evian, Michael, Fred, Sherelle and doubtless some others I don't recall right now. Ashara, I am in utter admiration for what you are doing. I would love to make it for the Jonifest next year but am not in a position where I can commit myself at this point. I just hope very much that you will get enough deposits together and that I can make it. If you are getting close to losing the booking and you need a few more names to commit themselves, please let me know and I will see what my situation is by then. Lots of love to you all, Lieve. ********************************************************************** EBRD SECURITY NOTICE This message has been Virus scanned **********************************************************************
