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Friday, July 08, 2005
An aversion to self-pity
The British don't give in to fear, writes Tunku Varadarajan in the Wall Street Journal. He says:
Update: Shom Biswas finds an exception to this rule. He writes in:
Also, reader Tajinder Pal writes in from London to second what Varadarajan says. "Londeners have handled themselves remarkably well," he writes. "People are just doing their normal work as if nothing has happened."
An assertion was made yesterday on the Web site of an al Qaeda affiliate claiming responsibility for the terrorist bombings in London: "Britain is now burning with fear."Read the full thing.
This is not true; and it cannot ever be true, because it is alien to the British character to "burn." And even if ardor were not so damned un-British, "fear" would never make for kindling in Britannia. Some nations are too stoical, too suspicious of disarray, to panic or wilt in the face of hostility.
Update: Shom Biswas finds an exception to this rule. He writes in:
[The British don't give in to fear] even when fear has a name? Or maybe more than one names? Even when it is called Thomson-Lillee? Or for the matter Marshall-Garner-Holding-Croft-Roberts?Heh. Come come, let's not get cricket into this.
Also, reader Tajinder Pal writes in from London to second what Varadarajan says. "Londeners have handled themselves remarkably well," he writes. "People are just doing their normal work as if nothing has happened."
