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Jul. 29th, 2005 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emonyAs I was sitting on the train from Aldershot to Ascot this morning, reading HBP and pondering many ponderful things, a chap sat down in one of the seats opposite mine. This in and of itself is not unusual. It's not a hugely busy route, but it gets its fair share of commuters, and sometimes the enormous bubble of personal space we Brits like to adopt has to be broken in to.
So yes, he sat down just across from me. Not normally a cause for any concern, or even much notice. Except - he was carrying a rucksack. A small one, but a rucksack none the less. He was carrying a rucksack, and looking slightly twitchy and nervous. At one point, he opened the rucksack a little, fiddled with something inside, and then closed it up again.
Did I mention that he looked like he might have been a Muslim? No. Well, there you go. I feel horrible, to be honest, for even having thought it. If it had been some ginger-haired white dude, would I have even noticed? Probably not.
He was probably a little nervous because he thought that the rest of us on the train all though he was a terrorist. Fcol.
This is the long-term impact of terrorist acts. Not the damage, not the death - the suspicion. Turning our society against itself, to try and make us destroy ourselves from within.
Terrorism sucks. And so do I.
So yes, he sat down just across from me. Not normally a cause for any concern, or even much notice. Except - he was carrying a rucksack. A small one, but a rucksack none the less. He was carrying a rucksack, and looking slightly twitchy and nervous. At one point, he opened the rucksack a little, fiddled with something inside, and then closed it up again.
Did I mention that he looked like he might have been a Muslim? No. Well, there you go. I feel horrible, to be honest, for even having thought it. If it had been some ginger-haired white dude, would I have even noticed? Probably not.
He was probably a little nervous because he thought that the rest of us on the train all though he was a terrorist. Fcol.
This is the long-term impact of terrorist acts. Not the damage, not the death - the suspicion. Turning our society against itself, to try and make us destroy ourselves from within.
Terrorism sucks. And so do I.
