Hello Norway
Hello to anyone from Norway visiting the blog via this interview.
posted by Rachel at 12:06 am
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They've nicked my photo without credit! The sods.
I nicked it off you , sorry, so that's how they got hold of it, though they didn't ask me if I could provide a pic. Tsk.
Anyway, here's the interview in English.
# How has your life changed since September 11th?
My life did not change after September 11th. I continued to work, to travel, and to enjoy my normal life. On July 7th 2005 I was travelling in a London Underground carriage that was suicide bombed. The motivation of the bomber was to protest against US and UK foreign policy, which he saw as unfair and oppressive to Muslims. 26 people were murdered and 340 were injured on my train. Many of their lives and the lives of their families have been forever changed by their injuries and their loss.
I am fortunate in that I was not injured or killed. I continue to work, to travel and to enjoy my normal life. And yes, I still travel on the London Underground. Every day, at least twice.
# Has the world become more or less secure today than it was before 2001?
The world has become less secure after 9/11. Thousands of recruits to extremist ideologies have radicalised, indoctinated, funded and trained and many are fighting and killing innocent people all over the world in the name of an idea which was given brutal expression on that day five years ago.
# Do you feel more or less secure today than you did one year ago?
I feel less secure than I did a year ago, as I have experienced suicide bombing first hand. This reaction amy be put down to PTSD
( post traumatic stress disrder) but I think it is a rational judgement made by examining the evidence and information relating to the extent of the threat posed by dangerous religious and political extremists on both sides of the so-called' War on Terror'. I include the Bush administration in this definition of dangerous religious and political extremists.
# Five years after the attacks, what has been learned in the war on terror?
Five years on we have learned that fighting injustice with injustice, bombs with bombs, illegality with illegality, propoganda with propoganda and lies with lies is counter-productive and ineffective, and it merely increases the risks of terrorist attack. Intelligence, calmness, and an ethical foreign/trade/aid policy offer a far more effective platform to defeat terrorism than illegal wars, repressive legislation, and the use of torture and bombs. A bomb is a bomb, whether it is strapped to a suicide bomber or dropped by a plane. Its purpose is to kill and injure and terrify.
And by constantly talking about terrorist outrages and feeding the fear, we do 90% of the terrorist's work for them.