A dear friend of mine moved to Mexico City last year; exciting for her and somewhat nerve-wracking for me. Ka hates that I do this, but I check up constantly and send links to travel advisories, crime stats, terrifying news articles about the level of violence in Mexico...I'm glad she's enjoying herself there, of course, but I can't help wishing that she lived somewhere safer.
Like England...or not...Ka popped up on MSN earlier with "So who needs to move somewhere safer?" On Friday, London's West End became impenetrable when police found a pair of DIY bombs--abandoned Mercedes containing gas cylinders, petrol, and nails--rigged to go off as clubs emptied that night. Yesterday, two men attempted to crash a Jeep Cherokee--also primed to explode--into a passenger terminal at Glasgow Airport. Things were already tense, what with 7 July being the two-year anniversary of the London train bombings, but these events tipped the scale: in the language of U.K. terror-alerts, the situation is officially "critical."
I knew all this before Ka's message today, yet for some reason it took me a minute to figure out what she was on about. What's nagging me now is not fear that something might happen, but perplexion that I'm so blasé about it all. Blasé's the wrong word, maybe more...oblivious? Or, to be cynical, jaded?
If I actually stop and think about the entire situation, or even just these most recent events, of course I'm affected. Unless I make a point of doing so, though, it might as well be news about the price of tea in China.
My idealistic side suggests this (non) reaction is just my brain's way of protecting me; I couldn't possibly live and function in this society if I experienced the full range of emotions typically associated with imminent and credible threats of danger, and daily flight-or-fight responses would damage if not destroy me, psychologically and physiologically both. Acknowledgement is impractical.
My realistic side suggests that I don't react because I'm immune. Terror plots, bombs that do detonate, wars and casualties, ideology and hatred...all of these things are as certain as death and taxes. When I lived in Canada the worst terror-level was "red," and it applied to our American neighbours not ourselves. "Critical" vs. "red" is just semantics/semiotics, and my idyllic English village is only a few miles from this ugly neighbour, but is it really any different?
I'm in awe of our ability to adapt, and surprised by how quickly the exceptional becomes the norm. I'm also sad that bombs and terror alerts now constitute that norm, and that a terror plot that's already been foiled doesn't even feel like headline news. I don't think I like where we're headed...
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