A nurse… said: “The problem is the government has made us feel like we’ve come out of this divided. The… party exudes a feeling that you are either with them and [the country] or you are somehow unpatriotic or against them.”
Sadly, American voters seem to be otherwise disposed: even though the current regime has plainly failed to protect the citizenry, plenty of voters still give Bush credit for “leadership through crisis.” Some pundits are saying that an “October surprise” terrorist attack would benefit Bush, as voters rally ’round the flag — even though an attack then, after three years of the Everlasting War on Evildoers, would plainly demonstrate the incompetence of those in power.
Also from The Guardian, a pleasant paean to how Spain’s citizenry is standing against the new era of fear:
What’s at stake is a long history of the city, that exchange point for trade and ideas that has been the crux of all civilisations. The city orders how large numbers of human beings live in close proximity. In so doing, it civilises and turns strangers into citizens who belong to a civil society in which they treat each other with (more or less) civility. All these words have the same Latin root, civitas.
What the demonstrations in Spain remind us is that civility — the measure of goodwill from one stranger to another — is ultimately what makes a city’s spirit. It is the accumulation of tiny, daily interactions with bus conductors, fellow commuters, newspaper sellers and coffee-shop waitresses — the humour, the greetings, the gestures of help that smooth the rough edges of urban living.
Instead, in the past two days the vacuum has been filled by the people; the politicians would do well to listen, and articulate their civility rather than rush to use the shabby and meaningless metaphor of a “war on terror”. You cannot fight fire with fire, was the implicit message of the silent crowds. Spain’s mourning will have global resonance — as did 9/11. Over half the world’s population now live in cities, and the images we have seen in the past few days offer two alternatives of what the city might mean in the 21st century: a place of terror where the stranger is to be feared and distrusted, or the determined solidarity of strangers — a sea of hands waving hastily scribbled messages with the one word that says everything: “No”. Thank you, Spain, for giving us a choice.
Unfortunately, Americans have never had “liberté, égalité, fraternité” as a rallying cry; in today’s consumer society, we actively shun the latter two. Alex Shakar writes in _The Savage Girl_ that “Hell is not necessarily other people; hell is being surrounded by people who share no solidarity,” which sounds a lot like home.
west north 