‘Red Ken’ Livingstone, Mayor of London
“I want to say one thing, specifically to the world today — this was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful, it was not aimed at presidents or prime ministers, it was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian … young and old … that isn’t an ideology, it isn’t even a perverted fate, it is an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder.”
(Via MaxSpeak, You Listen!.)
“We are all Brits today”
No you aren’t. Nor are you all Londoners.
On one level I know (OK, I assume) that you, and everyone else expressing those sentiments, means well, but on another level I find it somewhere between patronising and just plain offensive.
It’s NOT about you…
Friend, I saw the Twin Towers collapse from my street. I took comfort in the sentiments from overseas and from faraway lands.
If I’m going to apologize, I’m going to apologize for a president that squandered that good will and made the actions of today seem like a retaliation.
No apologies necessary Glenn, you’re not the originator of the phrase nor the sole user of it.
But it’s a glib and facile thing to say and my gut level reaction to it is analogous to someone who comes up to the victim of a mugging or assault and says “I know exactly what you’re going through because the same thing happened to me”. We’re a different people in a different nation and we will have different reactions.
Knowing that people around the world are outraged and concerned and supportive is good.
Your President, our Prime Minister… I think we probably owe equal apologies to the world for those two.