Creek Running North

I’ve followed a lot of links in the last week that promised to deliver “the best thing I’ve read on the London bombings” or “the one essay on terrorism I’ve seen that makes sense.” And some of the linked blog posts were pretty good. Most of them were worth the time spent reading them.

But my pal Phil Edwards has actually gone and written the best thing I’ve read on the London bombings, which also happens to be the one essay on terrorism I’ve seen that makes sense.

Excerpt:

As such, the anti-terrorist message is fundamentally not political. It’s true that an act of terror is not like other forms of violence; one of its distinguishing qualities is that of being unforgivable. But it’s also true that, like other forms of violence, acts of terror are always meaningful. The act was committed by a certain group, with its own aims and its own history; certain targets were chosen; the effect of the act was to shift the balance of power in particular ways; some causes were furthered and others hindered. In practice, this means that ‘unforgivable’ is not the end of the story. From London to Madrid to Algiers to Deir Yassin to Fallujah to Srebrenica to the via Fani to Brighton to Omagh to the Milltown Cemetery, we have always to ask (we cannot help asking), unforgivable and… what? Was that particular act unforgivable and irredeemably vile, unforgivable and contemptibly cynical, or unforgivable and horribly mistaken? Might it even, in some circumstances, be unforgivable but tragically constructive?

There is much more there, and some of it will come as surprising anathema to US ears accustomed to Manicheanisms. It’s a salutary tonic for those Americans who summon up the (well-intended) bluster to proclaim “We are all Londoners.”

You wish, pal. You wish.

[edited to reflect subsequent edits in Phil’s essay]