two minutes silence

July 14, 2005

i'd already decided i was going to observe the two minutes silence before i came to work today. unfortunately there's nobody else in today so having observed three hours of silence already on my own in the office, i decided i would go outside and stand in the street like people in london were being encouraged to.

once i was in a shopping centre when there was a two minute silence and it was very moving; i was astounded at the way everybody stopped and bowed their heads; it seemed very meaningful somehow.

today, however, was the least silent silence i have ever heard. i work on a busy road and cars were zooming up and down, people wandering in and out of the butchers, walking past chattering loudly. absolutely nobody seemed to be observing the silence apart from me. it was kind of sad.

i can't stop thinking about the bombers' families. i feel even more sorry for them than i do for the victims' families, because they have not only lost their sons but they have also got to come to terms with what their precious child has done. they obviously had no idea; i heard the uncle of one of the younger lads say, "we've lost everything that we have". his dad runs a fish and chip shop - who will want to go there now? they've lived here all their lives. they are going to have to close their business, move away... all the while grieving the death of their son with absolutely no sympathy from the community. it must be absolutely devastating.

Comments:
I agree with you too, and... I actually thought it was pretty terrible that those boys had been suckered into it in the first place. When you saw their young faces on the telly, it was like looking at the faces of my cousins or something. Especially of that guy for whom they'd only got a picture of him aged 10. Who'd have guessed that he'd end up being a killer? I think that's really sad.

I suspect their families will be supported by the Muslim community though; I haven't heard any Muslim speak out in favour of the bombings, because as any Muslim is aware, this was not an Islamic act.

When I went to the mosque in MK, there was a lot of inflammatory rhetoric aimed against Western culture and on the news I heard a Muslim kid of about 19 say that 'We heard that all the time as we were growing up - we just never thoguht it would come to this so no-one ever did anything about it' which sums the situation up perfectly, I think.

I am always worried for my brother, who will be Tariq Hussain even when he marries, when something like this happens - and I wonder what effect my surname will have on job applications, hosuing applications and general stuff like that. Perhaps that's just paranoia but the name Hussain is made more infamous every time something like this happens. I mean, it's comparable to being called Hitler!
Soraya x
 
At the CIPD annual recruitment conference an employment law solicitor cited a similar example of a guy who actually made quite a lot of money sending identical CVs, one with his real name and another 'Dave Smith' esque name and then taking the companies to tribunal when they only invited the Dave Smith CV to interview.

Back on topic, we stood outside the office at 12, there was about 50 of us, it was really weird, loads of cars and people walking past, not really taking notice of the 2 minutes silence.

Gordy
 
Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

web counter