Once again my news feed is full of terrible things. Horrors and terrors hard to imagine. And I wonder anew if our world is at a tipping point. Then I remember, we have been here before.
I have friends in the UK. I imagine a lot of people in Australia do. It’s harder to imagine going to a tween concert and it ending in deliberate tragedy. Harder to imagine someone setting out to kill themsleves and bringing as many down with them as they could. We watch, on the other side of the world, in shock and sadness. Some will call hypocrisy. Will say that we have no heart when it comes to lives lost in other regions. But I don’t think it’s that. It’s the proximity. It’s the relatability. There is the fact that so many of us have friends and family in the UK. The thought that it could easily happen here, if it can happen there. I wrote about this after the Paris attack.
The climate shifts a little. We worry anew. Like we do every time these things happen. For a few days, weeks even, we are shocked out of complacency and far away threats feel nearer. September 11 changed the world forever, but not as deeply as I feared at the time. In the days and weeks following those awful scenes burned into our collective mind I expected the world to go to war. I remember being unable to sleep for worry. We had planned to go to Egypt in the month following those attacks. The trip was cancelled. In the end, we could have gone. The world continued to spin and for those not directly touched by the tragedy, very little changed. Our lives did not drastically alter.
People committing heinous crimes and using their God as a justification is not new. Unholy acts being cast as holy actions is something we have seen for centuries. From the crusades to the KKK to the persecution of Jews to Daesh, those committing atrocities have often done so under the guise of servanthood to a higher power. Even in the way that the Catholic Church has disgracefully acted in the wake of child abuse, you can see it. This idea that the actions of men (and it is mostly men) are between themselves and their God and everything (and everyone) else is meaningless collateral.
Nothing about this is new. Apart from the media saturation and the speed at which news travels. But the stains on humanity have always been there.
To be honest, I am not so worried about a terrorist attack. I am much more concerned about the glacial reaction of the world’s large corporations and governments to climate change. I think that’s the bigger issue of our time.
As for worrying that the world has changed, yet again for the worse, due to the attacks on the UK, perhaps the question we need to ask is “Why hasn’t the world changed?” Why do people keep pretending that their God sanctions them to murder?
How do you deal with the news when it is filled with such horror?
I’ve turned off the news. I just can’t deal …
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Yep, sometimes you just need to turn it off and remind yourself of the sunshine.
“Why hasn’t the world changed?” Why do people keep pretending that their God sanctions them to murder? That’s a really good question. We seem to live in a world where we don’t learn from history and we take no responsibility for our own existence (climate). It’s shocking, really.
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It’s so frustrating that the people in charge don’t seem to have any regard to those who went before.
It’s a hard thing. They say to live in fear is to let “them” win, but how does one ignore such valid fear?
That’s the hard thing isn’t it? My boys went down to Melbourne for the big soccer match this weekend – and I was genuinely fearful. But tried not to say anything as I didn’t want to rain on their parade. My husband is so pragmatic about these things and “what will be, will be”
Usually I don’t/won’t/can’t watch the news but the London attack is a little bit too close for comfort. We were still living in London in 2005 at the time of the tube bombings. I remember frantically phoning my husband to see if he was safe. It was the same story Sunday morning frantically messaging friends, checking they were all tucked up in bed and safe and sound. As horrifying as it all is, like you I understand that what’s happening isn’t new. As you so rightly point out, people have been killing in the name of religion for thousands of years. Why? I wish I knew the answer. In the meantime, I’ll be here wearing my emotional raincoat and sprinkling happiness and kindness wherever I go. I can’t change the world, but I can make a positive difference in my little part of it.
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Let’s all go out and sprinkle that happiness and joy. The world needs it.
I can’t deal with the news anymore but my sister lives in Manchester and I have many friends in London so have been watching for updates. You are spot on with your question “Why hasn’t it changed”? & I don’t think any God could possibly sanction murder. I just try to spread kindness in my own little way and hope that it contributes to a bigger movement.
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It’s the only thing we can really do.
That’s a really good question, Robyna. I just don’t know what the answer is. It’s a frightening world we live in at the moment and I feel for our children and what world they will grow up in.
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Me too. I try to console myself that our parents were probably worried about exactly the same thing for different reasons. I think we all worry about what kind of world our kids will inherit.
Unfortunately the way I dealt with the news was to turn it off. I know it’s like an ostrich burying its head in the sand but on that day I couldn’t listen to it anymore!
Ingrid
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I don’t like the sensationalism that the news brings to these events – it feels so voyeuristic and turning pain into a form of entertainment.
It’s horrible but it doesn’t overly worry me. I was living just outside London in 2005 and working in the city most of the time and yeah, of course it’s scary to go back after something has happened. But you can’t not. I also grew up with parents who lived in London in IRA days so terrorism isn’t new to me, I’ve always known that sometimes {insert chosen expletive about people} plant bombs places. It’s not good, but it doesn’t change my mind or plans.
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It’s strange what we can grow used to – I really hope we don’t get to a point in Australia where we have to adopt that kind of resilience 🙁
You are so right, this has been going on for ever. It is the reaction of the close minded that I fear the most, although for an hour or so on Sunday morning as I waited for word on my daughter, it was anger and fear of the world. xx
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That would have been so horribly scary – my heart goes out to you.
I think the thing that depresses me is that these crimes seem to get more heinous and shocking as time goes on, because of this need to escalate. Targeting kids at a concert is low. So low. I mean, what’s next? A daycare centre? Sadly, I’d not be surprised. Humans are capable of so much savagery that it’s truly depressing if you allow yourself to dwell on it.
It IS truly depressing, and you are right – it’s almost as though people are looking for more and more shock value.
I have shed so many tears lately but I can’t live this way. The sadness of how other people are feeling and the wasted life has made me think more about my life and that I need to keep living it and kicking it’s butt. #teamIBOT
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I think that perspective is probably one of the few positive things that comes about from these atrocities.
It’s so hard to bear but I just keep on living my life and treating everyone in my life with kindness. Every little bit of kindness makes a difference.
I believe that too. Let’s just keep trying to sprinkle that kindness.
I do take a break from the news more so because of the sensationalist manner in which things are reported. Terrorism is not new to me; growing up in India, we have had several terrorist scares and bombs on trains and places I would frequent. I remember just picking ourselves up the next day and going to uni/work because we couldn’t let the terrorists win.
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I agree that the media is very pick and choose with regards to terrorism. The things that they do pick, they run away with. But what else can we do but go on living?
I try not to watch the news or when I do, I look for the heroes in the story, because they are always there and it tends to restore my faith in the world. Good people will indeed always outweigh the evil. But I always question ‘what type of world will my kids grow up in’ and that encompasses terrorism and the threats to our world’s environments
I think that’s the best way to look at it. There are always more good people than bad.
It’s getting harder and harder to watch the news, it seems as if some new act of terror is happening every day. The God I know is a God of comfort and mercy, who in no way condones terror or abuse. To be honest, bringing everything to God in prayer is the only way I can cope with what I see on the news.
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I can’t understand anyone who believes that God would condone murder. It makes no sense.