"Suicide bombs kills dozens as capital goes into mourning". Were you aware of this headline before reading it here? Were you aware that on Thursday evening an attack in Beirut even took place? It was buried in the world news section on the BBC website, I only saw it as I was reading that section at lunchtime on Friday.
As France and the Western world go into mourning, Lebanon is emerging from one. Both the epic atrocities were seemingly committed by the same organisation. The so called Islamic State, but there is nothing Islamic about the people who were involved in these attacks. Just as there was nothing Catholic about the people who bombed the Arndale centre in 1996.
Personally I am deeply saddened and sorry for each and every person who has lost their lives because of a terrorist attack. But in times like this, humankind should be gelling together and supporting each other. Instead today, I have seen it being fractured to its core. Friends, families, and communities turning on each other and living in fear of the unknown. But isn't that what the terrorists want? To install fear into the very core of our being.
Or is there something deeper here? Is that not what the Politicians want? Why declare martial law on the streets of Paris? To control or to protect citizens? As long as I can remember, we have always been frightened of something. The IRA, Al Qaeda and now IS. Before I was alive, the Russians and nuclear war, the Chinese or Vietnamese. Now North Korea and Russia again.
Maybe George Orwell wasn't writing a work of fiction when he published 1984. Just maybe he was onto something. Maybe Oceania (The West) Eurasia (Former Soviet Union) and Eastasia (China, Korea, Japan etc) are forever going to be fighting over the disputed zone (The Middle East/North Africa). Which in turn will allow that feeling of fear to never go away. Meanwhile Big Brother will always be watching you!
“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
―
George Orwell,
1984
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