Fear Itself

[av8rmike]

I wish I'd bought the Washington Post on Sunday. Here is an article that I thought was totally fascinating, subtitled, "Learning to Live in the Age of Terrorism." Gene Weingarten, usually known for his humor columns, traveled to Madrid to ride the same train bombed on March 11, then to Jerusalem to ride buses, also a common target for Palestinian bombers. It's all about the culture of fear and the difference between places like Israel, that have become inured to danger, and here, where our government can only issue vague warnings about people who might be looking at things.

On the Birthright trip we had become isolated observers, essentially. While under the purview of the trip, we had our own private bus, our own armed guards, and only limited contact with civilian residents. It was still interesting, but hard to feel like we weren't in a bubble. If Kyla is reading, I'd be interested to hear her take on the article, having been in Israel for longer than I.

Comments

[postmoderngirl.livejournal.com]

montfort mentioned that article yesterday, but I haven't read it yet.

My first thought is, yes, I did ride the bus in Israel all the time, and no, I was never scared. But I was there during a peaceful time, there wasn't a single bus bomb in the 11 months I was there. In fact, the only people killed at all were a couple of suicide bombers - they didn't even succeed in killing any bystanders.

[av8rmike.livejournal.com]

Oh. [sheepish] I don't read his journal, and I swear I didn't paraphrase his entry! =) I was a day behind in reading the paper, so I didn't get to it until recently.

Yes, as I recall, you were there during a relatively "quiet" period, before things turned ugly again. Relatively speaking, of course.