From somebody on DailyKos who lives there:
The worrying thing is that with the possible exception of the bus bomb, these weren't suicide bombs. There is still an Al-Qa'eda cell out there, ready and able to kill dozens of people. Don't draw too many parallels from Madrid or Casablanca. In Istanbul they were able to strike twice in one week. I don't plan on panicking, but I don't plan on getting too complacent either.
You might think this was an attack on "White People". If so, you don't know this city. There were Bengali chefs on their way from Camden to the West End when that bus blew up. There were Turkish bankers on their way from Stoke Newington to the City when one tube went up, Pakistani civil servants with a nasty commute from Tooting to King's Cross when another went up, Ghanaian shop assistants heading from East Ham to Bayswater when the Liverpool Street train went.
We are the central front, those of us in the big cities in the West with our multi-national multi-class populations and our dodgily liberal politics, and our counterparts in the developing world megacities like Casablanca and Jakarta, not to mention Baghdad and Basra. Al-Qa'eda don't check that their going to kill Bush-Blair supporting racists before they set off a bomb. Al-Qa'eda don't put bombs in Tewkesbury, and they don't put bombs in Topeka, Kansas either.
I've been a bit worried about our Mayor, Ken Livingstone, about some local issues and his ever more vaulting ego. But he was a star today and spoke brilliantly for this city. Let's think macro, not micro, at the moment...
[snip]
The people who did this want to divide people against one another. I have this to say: Riyadh - New York - Casablanca - Jakarta - Jeddah - Nairobi - Tikrit - Madrid - Istanbul - Dar es Salaam - Bali - Washington - Baghdad - Mobasa - Mosul - London. We have all been through this together and we are stronger than you despite the idiocy of our leaders.
This is what the mayor said today:
I want to say one thing specifically to the world today.
This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and powerful, it was not aimed at presidents or prime ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jews, young and old; an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any consideration for age, for castes, for religions, whatever.
That isn't an ideology, that isn't even a perverted faith. It is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder. We know what the objective is. They seek to divide Londoners. They seek to turn Londoners against each other.
I said yesterday to the International Olympic Committee, this city of London is the greatest in the world because everybody lives side by side in harmony. And Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack.
They will stand together in solidarity around those who have been injured and those who have been bereaved. That is why I am proud to be the mayor of that city.
Finally, I wish to speak through you, directly, to those who came to London today to take lives. I do know that you do not fear to give your own lives. That is why you are so dangerous. But I do know that you fear you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society.
I can show you why you'll fail. In the days that follow, look at our airports, look at our seaports, and look at our railway stations. And even after your cowardly attacks, people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.
They choose to come to London, as so many have come before, because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves.
They flee you, because you tell them how they should live. They don't want that. And however many of us you kill, you will not stop their flight to our cities where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another.
Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.
Why am I so obsessed with these terrible events? I suppose it's partly the theory that's being bantered about - that Americans are still so freaked out about terrorism ("OMG! We're praying for you!") while the rest of the world accepts it as a part of modern life. But it's also that I've been in love with London since I first stayed there for five weeks when I was 11.
I'm taking this somewhat more personally than I should.
