Sorting through some old books yesterday, I came across one from Amin Maaloof that I hadn’t looked at in years. So I dusted it off, and started thinking about this post.
The English title of the book is “In the Name of Identity“, but the French title “Les Identit?s meurtrieres” (Lethal Identities?) or the Catalan one ‘Indentitats que Maten’ (Killer Identities) are much more expressive and to the point.
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According to Oded Galor it has become evident that in the absence of a unified growth theory that is consistent with the entire process of development, the understanding of the contemporary growth process would be limited and distorted. He quote Copernicus to the effect that:
?It is as though an artist were to gather the hands, feet, head and other members for his images from diverse models, each part perfectly drawn, but not related to a single body, and since they in no way match each other, the result would be monster rather than man.?
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Don’t pick of a copy of Stasiland
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I suppose by-now every right thinking and reasonably well read adult knows what the ‘poverty-trap’ is, even if most of us aren’t too clear about what there is to do about it. Being stuck in one of these traps could be thought to be like being stuck in a (not necessarily very deep) well with a slimy surround wall. The more you struggle to get out, the harder it gets: your strength disippates, and the walls get to be even more slippery. This could also be called a negative feedback loop.
Well now there is the suggestion that something similar may exist in the world of fertility. As Wolfgang Lutz suggests in this power point presentation, the critical level may be 1.5. No society which has fallen below this level has -to date – returned above it. (Many thanks here to commenter CapTvK who sent me the link).
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With Turkish accession one of the most important issues facing the European Union, people interested in the question could do much worse than read these two recent, and reasonably short, books that focus on the country: Crescent and Star
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As regards his more general attitude to the war, you must not rely too much on those feelings of hatred which the humans are so fond of discussing in Christian, or anti-Christian, periodicals. In his anguish, the patient can, of course, be encouraged to revenge himself by some vindictive feelings directed towards the German leaders, and that is good so far as it goes. But it is usually a sort of melodramatic or mythical hatred directed against imaginary scapegoats. He has never met these people in real life?they are lay figures modelled on what he gets from newspapers. The results of such fanciful hatred are often most disappointing, and of all humans the English are in this respect the most deplorable milksops. They are creatures of that miserable sort who loudly proclaim that torture is too good for their enemies and then give tea and cigarettes to the first wounded German pilot who turns up at the back door.
— C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Britain is crawling with suspected terrorists and those who give them succour. The Government must act without delay, round up this enemy in our midst and lock them in internment camps.
Our safety must not play second fiddle to their supposed ?rights.?
— Barbarism of twisted cause, unsigned editorial, The Sun
Considering how much the resilience of Londoners during the Blitz has come up over the last week in commentary about the bombings in London, I thought a little war-time C. S. Lewis might be an appropriate contrast to the rantings of London’s fish-wrap press.
Now that there is no longer any doubt that the authors of the bombings in London were British citizens – three born and raised in Yorkshire and one Jamaican born convert – we will see how Britain faces an element of the war on terrorism that has no real parallel to WWII and that Americans, Australians and Spanish people have so far managed to avoid: the prospect that the enemy may not be someone far away. How the British people handle this will say far more about their national character than their resolve to “preserve our way of life, our values of democracy and respect for life”.
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UK police said this morning they searched five homes in northern England. They described the search as forming a “significant” part of the investigation into last week’s London bombings. I think it’s useless speculating at this stage what this might mean. I also think it is important that the police are seen to be pro-active in the investigation, public confidence in the security services is an important part of the present picture. I will update this post during the day as the need arises.
Update 11:50 CET
Incidentally, a piece of terminology: saying ‘no arrests have been made” doesn’t have any deep significance in British parlance, since people may be ‘helping the police with their enquiries’ prior to being arrested and formally charged (or not). (This is presumeably even more complicated under the various terrorism acts which I am not especially familiar with). The issue is sufficiently serious to have evacuated part of the area. The raids were in Leeds.
Update 15:15 CET
Police have just announced that they carried out a controlled explosion to gain entry to a home in the Burley area of Leeds, justy a few miles away from Beeston where the original raid took place.
Update 16:00 CET
It has now been revealed that troops from the bomb disposal unit were involved in controlled explosion. The context is one of an Asian district of Leeds. This has implications but we shouldn’t yet jump to conclusions. The Times has fuller details:
“More than 500 people were evacuated from surrounding homes, businesses and the local mosque prior to the detonation at just after 1.30pm.
Armed police immediately surrounded the flat in Hyde Park Road, Burley .
The explosion came six hours after five other homes in Colwyn Road, Tempest Road and Shalford Street in the mainly Asian suburb of Beeston, three miles south-east of Burley, were sealed off following a series of dawn raids.
Neighbours of one of the addresses reported that a 22-year-old man who lived there with his family had been missing since Thursday.”
OK, let me make one reasonable conjecture based on the info we have so far. The raid in Leeds is based on forensics of the remains found on around the bus. This could have been one of the people who planted the bombs. If this is the case – and the Times certainly also leads us in the direction – one part of the story may be about to become clearer.
Update 17:15 CET
My conjceture has now been confirmed. Sky are now reporting that a decapitated head found near the scene of the bus bomb had been that of the bomber. Forensic tests then led police to carry out raids in Leeds, and to a car at Luton railway station north of London. This also seems to add strength to the Kings Cross meetup hypothesis (see below in comments). Sky are also claiming that there have been arrests.
This is not an analytical “perspectives” type post. Just a number of bitty threads that seem in one way or another worth noting (small pieces loosely joined). They could basically be grouped together under the following headings: photos, suicides, explosives and origins.
Maybe I should also point out the obvious: that living in Spain while coming from the UK gives me a rather unusual perspective on what is happening. I lived the days surrounding the Madrid bombings intensely, now I am doing the same with London (where I had my home for many years). In some ways I can’t help but see this in terms of similarities and differences.
The big difference is of course in the government reaction, and the way that this is transmitted to a wider public. The British official reaction is one of ‘containment’ in every sense of the word. I think this is a good approach, since I think that excessive shock and panic only serves the purposes of the terrorists. The overall sensation was that London was as prepared for this as it could have been, and that many of those working in the crisis management and emergency services areas were following through on already well rehearsed roles.
Things in Spain couldn’t have been more different.
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Update (16:35 CET):
London’s mobile phone network is overloaded and spotty. The police is asking people not to call unless it’s important.
Two U.S. law enforcement officials said at least 40 people were killed and London hospitals reported more than 350 wounded. A senior police official confirmed at least 33 deaths killed in the subway blasts.
[…]
“This is clearly an al-Qaida style attack. It was well-coordinated, it was timed for a political event and it was a multiple attack on a transportation system at rush hour,” said Lawrence Freedman, professor of war studies at King’s College in London.
Update: The most current death toll number appears to be 45 (Guardian.) I predict it will steadily rise for some days, and then steadily fall for some weeks. The final number is unknowable, but that very, very many are injured appears fairly certain.
Update: From Wikipedia:
HOTLINE NUMBERS:
* Metropolitan Police: 020 7766 6020 (UK) +44 20 7766 6020 (INT’L)
* British Transport Police: 020 8358 0101 (UK) +44 (0) 20 8358 0101 (INT’L)
Don’t call the emergency services unless in “Life threatening” circumstances.
The Metropolitan Police advises against all unnecessary travel within the Capitol.
Original entry:
Guardian Newsblog:
Suddenly, the terrible scale of today’s attack becomes clear. Ambulance sources, reported on Sky, suggest 23 people have been killed at King’s Cross, nine at Edgware road, seven at Aldgate, two at Russell Square. There are hundreds – possibly more than a thousand – injured. We’re trying to verify the numbers.
The numbers 45 (Guardian) and 44 (Sky) have also been bandied about. No numbers are solid at all.
Daniel Johnson in email to Europhobia ( a while ago):
However there does seem to be a bit of a paradoxical thing happening. The broadcasters are holding back – reluctant to report news and instead focusing on reporting on the good work of the emergency services (from eye witness accounts and personally talking to people on the phone, the services are doing a great job and we should be incredibly proud). So they’re very calm- but the public is spinning the rumour mill.. before long I’m sure we’ll get IRA rumours, G8 rebels, etc- we should take comfort in the fact that the leaders of the free world are all together in a room, our emergency services are doing an amazing job – and the majority of scare-mongering rumours appear to be just that.
Its good to be sceptical of rumors, and not spread hysteria.
Nosemonkey said at 13:01 “God, us Brits are great. Hardly any panic – more just getting pissed off that it’s going to be a bugger getting home. I love this country sometimes.”
Many people were hurt today in a “major incident” on London transport as suspected terrorist attacks caused multiple explosions on tube trains and buses and plunged London’s transport network into chaos.
There’s still a lot of confusion, and little information.
The Guardian Newsblog and Europhobia are liveblogging.
British Transport police initially said power surges had caused explosions, but now people say it’s likely terrorism.
Officials shut down the whole of the London Underground system and cancelled all central London bus services as they tried to comprehend the scale of the disaster. All London hospitals are on major incident alert.
An explosion ripped apart a double-decker bus near Russell Square. Union officials said they had received reports of two more bus explosions, but details were not immediately available.
Laura Matthews, a press officer at Universities UK, which has offices in Tavistock Square, said there were bodies lying around the bus explosion, some of them without arms or legs. “Get people down here quickly,” she sobbed. She thought a bomb had gone off and was trying to evacuate her office.
There were unconfirmed reports that a number of people on the bus had died
London explosions ‘mirror Madrid bombings’ says terror experts, but at this early stage, I’m sceptical anyone really knows what they’re talking about.