Clem just blogged about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and it struck me how different people’s reactions are to emergencies, crises and terrorist attacks, according to how old they are, where they live, whether anyone you know could be in danger and, of course, technology.
Take three examples of terrorist attacks: 9/11 in New York, 7/7 bombings in London and Mumbai attacks last November. Back in 2001 I was nearly 10, and had never heard of terrorists before, nor of killings on such a large scale, I just didn’t understand. I was only in primary school, and though the teachers must have heard in the morning, I only found out when my mum told me she had been listening to it on the radio all day when I got home. It didn’t seem so much of a big deal to me at the time; of course everyone around me impressed upon us that it was very sad, but I felt quite disconnected and detached to the event, and only felt sad because I knew I was supposed to be, rather than actually was. Looking back now, and actually having watched TV programs on it for myself I know how terrible it is and I really am sad about it, but at that age with nobody close to me involved I couldn’t react to it.
In July 2005 a group of suicide bombers attacked London’s underground and bus services, and of the three this is the one which affected me the most – just reading the Wikipedia page brings back all the fear and confusion I felt that day (and if you’re an easy crier then the list of people killed at the bottom and their “statuses” should cause you to shed a tear or two). I was 13, in year 8, it was the day before the end of the summer term and we were all preparing to say a fond farewell to our amazing headteacher of 12 years the next day – not much work was getting done, obviously. I had pulled out of a trip to Germany, so that break time I went to find my German teacher to get my passport back. I didn’t find her – what my friend and I actually found was an open MFL staff room door with a TV on inside. We were about to leave since the room was empty when I noticed that it was playing the news in the middle of the morning for some reason. Once we had got the gist of what was going on, our first reactions were “woah that’s… horrible”. Still quite detached, we went to inform the rest of our class that there had been a bombing in London, and it wasn’t until someone said “NO! My dad’s going into London today!” that I realised that my own family could be affected by this. We all logged onto the BBC website, which at the time was reporting 6 bombings on the tube plus one on a bus, and as young teenage girls are prone to do, got rather overexcited and blew things out of proportion… as much as you can blow mass killings out of proportion. It was at about that time when the mobile phone networks overloaded and nobody was able to contact anybody to check if they were okay, which added to our fear. Going to a north London school, it was highly likely anybody could have had someone close to them killed or injured as the majority of parents were commuters to London.
Although the rest of the day was spent at school as usual like in 2001, this time we could check the news on the internet, and had phones, which made the whole situation even more real and intense than it already was. That afternoon it was decided that the next day there would be no school, so we had our end of term assembly that afternoon, and our send-off for our headteacher was cancelled.
Last year’s Mumbai attacks were also quite different. Although nobody close to me was involved, many of my Indian friends had been to the places which were targeted, and this time it emphasised to me that any of them could have been killed if it had been a different time – or anybody else I knew and loved could have been killed if it was a different place, and so I felt for all of the innocent victims in a way I hadn’t really before. This time I kept up with it regularly on the internet, which also made it much more real than 9/11 had been, and even 7/7. School wasn’t directly affected of course, but we all discussed it a lot (and certainly less panicky than before), and it was… different. Funny how age and technology affects you isn’t it?
I remember 9/11 so vividly. My uncle brought me back home from school, and literally as soon as he walked in the door his phone rang. It was someone telling him to turn on the tv, and when he did, it was playing the clip of the first plane flying into the north tower. I was only like, 8, but I remember feeling so distraught, especially with my uncle swearing like hell. It was really bizarre. The London attacks didn’t have such a great effect on me, but I remember being horribly worried when I found out that my best friend’s brother was in London at the time. My best friend had to go home – she was literally crying her eyes out.
I feel really guilty not remembering about the Mumbai attacks. I suppose, really, it’s down to the fact that it wasn’t as close to home as the others. News headlines from foreign countries tend to just fly over my head. =/ I probably wouldn’t have cared as much about 9/11 if that person hadn’t phoned my uncle, nor 7/7 if my best friend hadn’t been involved. I guess that’s just the way I roll. =/ These days, though, the thoughts of both 9/11 and 7/7 scare me more than they did back then, so I definitely reckon age has something to do with it.
The age factor was what I was trying to get at with my post – I find it interesting how it was much scarier for people who were even just a few years older, while at the same time, it was disturbing for even my four year old brother.
My dad’s boss’s daughter’s husband (that’s a mouthful) was killed in the attacks. He didn’t even work at the WTC. He was there for ONE DAY on a business trip. It was the wrong day. That scares me, truthfully. Out of 365 days in a year, he just happened to be there on the wrong day. Canadians weren’t supposed to be killed in the attacks – it was an attack on Americans. Yet Canadians died.
The Mumbai attacks weren’t the same to me. Obviously they’re no less terrible, but the fact that I don’t know anyone who was affected by them and the fact that I don’t live anywhere near Mumbai disconnects me from them. I live fairly close to NYC, so that makes it all the more scary.
I feel really blessed since I am born and am living in Brunei Darussalam. It’s really peaceful here and we never encountered any of this, thank god. When I first knew about the 9/11, I was scared because I thought it was doomsday. The other two weren’t as scary because I knew by then that terrorists were out there. I was only fearing for the safety of my relatives in UK at the time of the London Bombing. The Mumbai attacks didn’t affect me so much though.
Aki’s last blog post..Pressure and Stress