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August 19, 2007
Mugged by 9-11 but still apologizing about it
Andrew Anthony has a 3-part memoir in the Observer, drawn from a new book, about his journey from garden-variety liberal Brit (which would make him more of a Lefty here) to . . . I don't know - muscular liberal? Liberal mugged by reality? You'll have to read the book to get Anthony's current description of himself.
Several things stand out for me, reading the excerpts:
An analogy I hadn't heard before but which is perfect:
A midlife crisis did indeed ensue after 9/11. In truth it had been brewing for some time. It wasn't my midlife crisis, however, but that of Western culture at large. No matter what other aims may have motivated this singular act of terrorism, it was beyond question that it was planned as a symbolic, as well as a lethal, attack on 'the West', whether the target was militarism (the Pentagon), capitalism (the WTC), or cosmopolitanism (the heterogeneity of the victims).The problem was many in the West were not sure that it was worthy of defence. . . . . 'What was the point?' the anti-globalisers seemed to be asking, all we do is buy stuff, turn everywhere into a market, and force McDonald's and Starbucks down other people's throats.....
He illuminates some nuance that even us 9-11 obsessives missed (scathingly, in this case):
Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New York and Washington,' wrote Seumas Milne, 'it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply don't get it... Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States is hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across the developing world - seems almost entirely absent.'One doesn't need to work for a newspaper - though it probably helps - to realise that Milne was underselling his own speed of analytical thought. To get his piece published on the 13th meant that he would have needed to have completed it by around 6pm or 7pm on the 12th. Allowing for its considered tone, which must have been the product of several hours of sober reflection, it would be fair to assume that he would have begun writing it, at the latest, at around 2pm. In other words, at about 9am New York time. That left the Americans a whole 24 hours to absorb the shock, deal with the grief and then move on to some cold, hard self-criticism. And they flunked it.
And the rest of the article is heartbreaking in that Britain seems to be reinventing the wheel that the urban citizens in the US painfully constructed in the 1970s: the idea that being endlessly forbearing and understanding about criminals and bullies does not produce justice; rather a refusal to judge, and to judge harshly when necessary, encourages injustice toward the most vulnerable and tears asunder any fabric of communal responsibility. Anthony describes a scene reminiscent of the horrible murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964:
Richard Whelan was stabbed to death on a bus in north London. . . . A young man on the top deck of the number 43 had been throwing chips at other passengers. Reports said several passengers left the top deck to avoid a confrontation. But Whelan, a 28-year-old from my old neighbourhood of Kentish Town, and his girlfriend stayed, along with a number of other passengers, and Whelan asked the chip-thrower to stop throwing chips at his girlfriend. The chip-thrower took umbrage and attacked Whelan. According to a witness account published shortly afterwards, Whelan's girlfriend shouted out: 'Oh my God, what's going on?' The answer was that the chip-thrower, a 20-year-old by the name of Anthony Leon Joseph, had taken out a knife and thrust it into Whelan's heart. He then left the bus. Again, slowly, smiling, in no rush. No one pursued him or shouted after him. The community did not act.The murder took place just a few weeks after the 7 July bombings, when most commuters were still very nervous about travelling on public transport, still restively aware of potential danger. In those weeks there had been plenty of time to think about what to do in life-and-death moments, how to come together to combat murderous aggression. Certainly Whelan would have had opportunity to think about such matters, as his close friend Ciaran Cassidy had been murdered by one of the Islamist bombs on 7 July. There was also the 21 July failed bombing campaign, when all of the perpetrators were able to escape from packed tube trains. Some brave individuals gave chase, but the vast majority of passengers ran away.
Only a couple of passengers came to Whelan's aid. Most left the bus, and a mere five bothered to give a statement to the police that evening. As Whelan bled to death, male onlookers refused to give up their jackets to cover the shivering and sweating man. Apparently they didn't want to get blood on their clothes.
Reading parts 2 and 3, I am struck by how badly the UK needs a Rudy Giuliani. And Anthony's need to deflate himself in the face of immense provocation reminds me of abused spouses apologizing for defending themselves. His home is burgled three times and his car stolen. His stepdaughter is beaten up by gangs. And throughout his recounting his reasonable tone of voice never falters. Remind you of yourself circa 1978?
Finally, he wades into a violent girl gang slashing its victim's face with a broken bottle, and rescues her (a dangerous achievement in politically-correct Britain, where the police lay low and victims who defend themselves are derided and sometimes arrested themselves).
. . . .As I tried to comfort the girl, she was surrounded by several helpers. These people were spectators a few seconds before but now that the attackers had gone they snapped into loud Samaritan mode, shouting at each other and me to stand back as they led the girl into the off-licence. Where had these caring voices been before when the teenager was undergoing a lifetime's disfigurement? . . . . Anger began to rise in me. I noticed one stationary onlooker with a smile on his face, a sort of amused smirk. He was standing no more than five yards away, a well-built, reasonably fit-looking man in his mid-thirties. . . .'What's so funny?' I asked him. 'She's a young girl. How could you stand by and watch that happen to her?'
'Don't have a go at me, you pompous prick,' he replied, full of belated aggression. 'Why should I get involved? It had nothing to do with me.'
On reflection I probably did seem like a pompous prick, possibly because I was acting like a pompous prick. There I was, the have-a-go hero, admonishing harmless strangers for their inaction. . . . I'm sure self-righteous indignation animated my every gesture. For I was saying in so many words: 'Why couldn't you be more butch and fearless, like me?' No wonder I was put in my place. And yet I meant it.
I guess this is the stereotypical British diffidence, but for God's sake! You rescue a 16 year old girl from a vicious attack, a flaming asshole defiantly defends his selfishness and deliberate isolation, you rightfully upbraid him not only for his attitude but more so for his inaction . . . and you agree with him that you were a pompous prick?
You have to read all three parts - it's full of this kind of guilty equivocating. Kudos to Anthony for bravely describing his journey, but if he has such a long way to go before he is unashamed to denounce the bully and the bystander, and unapologetic about standing up for the vulnerable and defenseless, think how much farther the rest of his mates have to go to even tolerate what he has to say. For example, this is apparently what the average British liberal thinks of a civic association which in the US is innocuous even to urban Blue Staters:
We may hear a great deal about 'empowering communities' but few self-respecting liberals would want to spell out what that power should actually mean. Even a scheme as tame as Neighbourhood Watch, in which residents report suspicious activity to the police, runs counter to progressive thought. In the liberal imagination it brings to mind small-minded snoopers and busybody curtain-twitchers, insufferable suburbanites hostile to strangers and young people. Among sophisticated people it enjoys the image of a sort of petit bourgeois Stasi.
Oh brother. Thus a once-proud and civil culture is brainwashed into disavowing the best of its heritage. It used to be that New York was known for its crime and London was the city where one could walk the streets at night.
I had a mild disagreement a few months ago with someone who thought our values of individual rights and rule of law are so deeply embedded in our society that I was needlessly fretting about losing them. My argument was that the shift in values is creeping and insidious and one cannot afford to be sanguine about it. Eternal vigilance, as they say, is the price of liberty. (It was only a mild disagreement because we were at a dinner and the conversation was ranging far and wide and I agree with this person about most things and I decided not to get into it. But it's something I feel very strongly about.)
Exhibit A: Great Britain.
Judith | 08/19/07 at 10:13 PM | Categories: Liberal hawks and friends
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Comments
The problem is that Britain has been neutered.
Feminists and PC people have neutered the natural male response to react to criminal aggression by beating the hell out of the aggressors.
If this knife attacker with the chips had gotten his ass kicked repeatedly by a bunch of men, it would have mattered a lot MORE than any law enforcement.
If the bottle attack had resulted in the attackers being beaten, thoroughly, well it would have taught a powerful lesson.
The bystander was a flaming jerk because he knew he was less than a man. The PC-rules penalize standing up for yourself and empower criminals.
The only way to respond to that is Bernie Getz. Britain does not need Rudy. It needs more Getz types to beat the criminals at their own game. Or various militias/gangs to enforce order where the police won't.
I don't think the elite WANT anything akin to a normal society. How can a person be powerful if ordinary people have safety too?
Jim Rockford | August 20, 2007 03:20 AM
You haven't seen anything until you've seen a British woman, all brash and independent when speaking with you, merely a humble man who accepts her equality as her inborn right, then turn around and silently walk with her head bowed a step behind her cocky muslim boyfriend who forbids her to speak until he nods his head.
You allow your society to become thorougly feminized, with the public square becoming not much more than a nursery crib, and barbarians will step in and take it all away from you, imposing their masculine will with the threat of violence.
It's always been that way, it will always be that way.
Seen it all before | August 20, 2007 07:19 AM
The only way to respond to that is Bernie Getz. Britain does not need Rudy. It needs more Getz types to beat the criminals at their own game. Or various militias/gangs to enforce order where the police won't.
You get a Getz when people feel like the forces of law and order are absent and/or corrupt. Then they take the law into their own hands. But ideally the state should have a monopoly on violence. The local govenrment should make it clear that any law-breaking will be taken seriously, that offenders will be apprehended and swiftly judged and sentenced if they are guilty.
That's the idea behind the "broken windows" theory of policing. You don't tolerate the small stuff and people get the message that you won't tolerate the big stuff either. Then Getz's aren't tempted. A Getz is not a solution, a Getz is a sign that the system is broken.
Judith | August 20, 2007 02:07 PM
The only way to respond to that is Bernie Getz. Britain does not need Rudy. It needs more Getz types to beat the criminals at their own game. Or various militias/gangs to enforce order where the police won't.
Bernie Getz?? No, that's not what anyone needs. Britain needs a Rudy Giuliani, and another Guardian Angel-type group. The Guardian Angels, an unarmed neighborhood watch group, provided a positive image of self-defense by working with the people in the neighborhoods. They also sent a message to the government, letting them know that the police and the mayors weren't doing their jobs.
Bernie Getz indulged his own 'make my day' fantasies and blew away the average New Yorker's right to armed self defense.
In Iraq, militias and gangs help us to fight al Qaeda. That's good. Once they get rid of al Qaeda these 'vigilantes' turn around and terrorize their community, extorting money, beating people up and occasionally shooting random civilians to keep everyone in line. That's bad, the worst possible result of tribal vigilantism. You can't fight terrorist violence with terrorist violence.
mary | August 20, 2007 02:15 PM
I think Anthony is "diffident" because he's addressing his fellow Brits. Given the situation he describes, if he tried to address their cultural pride or their bravery, he'd be wasting his time.
My argument was that the shift in values is creeping and insidious and one cannot afford to be sanguine about it. Eternal vigilance, as they say, is the price of liberty.
You're absolutely right about that. I used to visit Britain a lot during the '80's, and things have really gotten a lot worse.
I visited a few years ago, and noticed an awful lot of self-hatred (and anti-Americanism) but this Kitty Genovese response is new. Creeping and insidious is right.
mary | August 20, 2007 02:24 PM
You allow your society to become thorougly feminized, with the public square becoming not much more than a nursery crib, and barbarians will step in and take it all away from you, imposing their masculine will with the threat of violence.
I don't think the opposite of "feminine" is "bully." I understand what you are trying to say, but the implication is that valuing civil society isn't manly.
Judith | August 20, 2007 02:39 PM
I think Anthony is "diffident" because he's addressing his fellow Brits. Given the situation he describes, if he tried to address their cultural pride or their bravery, he'd be wasting his time.
Good point. if he stood up all the way straight he would scare them away, so he has to keep stooping just a bit. But that kind of thing drives me up the wall. Good thing I don't live there - I would have no friends.
Judith | August 20, 2007 02:41 PM
Just a comment on your allusion to Kitty Genovese. There's considerable doubt that her neighbors were as callous as the original story made out. This may have been one of those cases where, shocking as it may seem, the NY Times might have . . . exaggerated. To their (small) credit, though, the major revisionist article was also in the NY Times, even if it took them 40 years.
See Kitty Genovese, 40 Years Later
"In the end, Mr. De May's conclusion about the murder is that, while the behavior of the witnesses was hardly beyond reproach, the common conception of exactly what occurred that night is not in fact what occurred. What did occur, he argues, is far more complex and far less damning to the residents of Kew Gardens. "Yeah, there was a murder," Mr. De May said. "Yeah, people heard something. You can question how a few people behaved. But this wasn't 38 people watching a woman be slaughtered for 35 minutes and saying, 'Oh, I don't want to be involved."
kahnja | August 20, 2007 03:29 PM
Good thing I don't live there - I would have no friends.
You'd have lots of friends - Brits are amazed by Americans who know Shakespeare, geography and history.
(yes, I know that the fact that they're amazed by this is insulting, but once you get past that..)
They even like a good argument. Unfortunately, the Brits who do know that their culture has deteriorated are very embarrassed about it. That's why it's hard to address directly.
mary | August 20, 2007 03:29 PM
I don't have a problem with Neighbourhood Watch schgemes, and I think that suggesting that "progressives" "liberal" "sophisticated" "elites" do is a transparent straw man. I dare say there are a fair few NW schemes in areas where frankly there's not much crime anyway which are staffed by curtain-twitching busybodies, but I've never heard it suggested that that is the norm.
The Guardian Angels, on the other hand, are simply vigilantes, albeit unarmed. In the US you have more of a tradition of vigilante justice than we do, and it's something we're deeply suspicious of. We see the Guardian Angels throwing their weight around and we start humming "Strange Fruit". We pay the police to that that stuff, and if we need more police then let's have more trained police, not amateur hour from the local self-selected bullies.
And as for needing Rudy Giuliani: please. Why would we need a failed mayor most Brits have never heard of, whose sole talent is for grandstanding? I haven't changed my mind about him since posting this, this and finally this. Inasmuch as anyone bothers about him at all he's a figure of fun over here. Remember, we just got rid of one ignorant self-aggrandising creep with a penchant for pointless invasions. Why would we import yours?
Rob | August 21, 2007 12:09 AM
Rob -
No one was saying that you ought to bring Rudy to Britain. However, I do agree that you've already got your own ignorant self-aggrandising creep in Red Ken. And in Syria's favorite tool, George Galloway. Glad to hear you got rid of them.
So, what do you think is the solution to Britain's current crime problem? Or are you going to try to tell us that there's nothing to see there, move along...
mary | August 21, 2007 11:37 AM
Anger began to rise in me. I noticed one stationary onlooker with a smile on his face, a sort of amused smirk. He was standing no more than five yards away, a well-built, reasonably fit-looking man in his mid-thirties. . . .
'What's so funny?' I asked him. 'She's a young girl. How could you stand by and watch that happen to her?'
'Don't have a go at me, you pompous prick,' he replied, full of belated aggression. 'Why should I get involved? It had nothing to do with me.'
On reflection I probably did seem like a pompous prick, possibly because I was acting like a pompous prick. There I was, the have-a-go hero, admonishing harmless strangers for their inaction. . . . I'm sure self-righteous indignation animated my every gesture. For I was saying in so many words: 'Why couldn't you be more butch and fearless
I guess we really are going to need James Webb; for how are we going to know the s*xual identities without an official scorer.
In this story, the ideal British man is castrated. To be aggressive as a man is to adopt a faux penis as a 'butch woman.' Being castrated by the women, the by standing man can enjoy the attack on a woman as 'it doesn't involve me (great revenge, and I can't be held responsible).'
michael | August 22, 2007 02:48 PM
No one was saying that you ought to bring Rudy to Britain.
Well, Judith said she was "struck by how badly the UK needs a Rudy Giuliani." Nice to see from your comment that you accept there's nothing unique about him. It doesn't need to be the Rudy, just a Rudy: ignorant media whores come in packs of 24 at the supermarket. You correctly point out also that they come in all flavours, and we do them just as well as you. The difference with between Giuliani and Livingstone of course is that Ken's actually a useful mayor as well as a mighty ego.
As to the solution to Britain's current crime problem: well, Mary, I guess that would be the same as the solution to the crime problems we've had ever since I was born (and before - don't get all post hoc ergo propter hoc on me!). More police, better trained police, and police with more connection to the community they're policing so the good guys trust them (and so they pick up more quickly on anything funny going on). I don't think we need vigilante gangs, lynch mobs, imprisonment without trial, execution, torture, schoolkids with handguns, indefinite imprisonment of minors, or any of the other things the American right (and its British fellow-travellers) considers desirable. I'll stick with the rule of law, thanks all the same.
Rob | August 23, 2007 05:28 PM
The US Marines have the right attitude towards civil society.
No better friend. No worse enemy.
M. Simon ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.keshertalk.com/nav-commenters.gif)
| August 23, 2007 08:16 PM
More police, better trained police, and police with more connection to the community they're policing so the good guys trust them (and so they pick up more quickly on anything funny going on).
Gee, that's exactly what Rudy did. So why do you hate him so much?
mary | August 23, 2007 09:02 PM
If Rob followed my Rudy link he would know that.
Judith | August 24, 2007 02:40 AM
First off, I don't "hate" Giuliani. Scorn, perhaps, pity even, but not hate.
If what I suggested is exactly what he did, does that mean that the Guardian Angels have been disbanded? Or does vigilante justice still rule in NYC?
My reasons for not wanting him in Britain, or as president of the USA, is not because of his policies with regard to the police so much as his lame-brained posturing over...well, just about anything, really. Like this. Or this. Same reason you don't want George Galloway IIRC. Here's a deal: we'll keep GG if you keep Rudy. OK?
And I'm not a New Yorker, but there does at least seem to be more than one opinion regarding Rudy's competence when he was mayor.
I am,however, delighted to note the improvement in NY's crime figures, and fully expect that Mayor Bloomberg's moves towards handgun control will improves matters further.
Rob | August 28, 2007 07:08 PM
