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Friday 22 July 2011

Norway

I've been so silent recently because I've been working on my dissertation. Development on it is painfully slow, and I really wish I had an extra week. My fault, I should have done more work in the beginning. Alas, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

This post isn't about me. Much like the last one, its about something I've read that's affected me. Last night, when my boyfriend came home from work, he checked BBC news, as we both do, several times a day. He told me Norway had suffered a bomb attack and a mass shooting. This confused me, Norway is generally involved in peacekeeping, the only thing that angers the international community is the fact they persist in wale hunting. My theory was it must be domestic, turns out my theory was, sadly correct. At least 84 people, as I write, were brutally gunned down, young people on a summer camp. An hour of terror for all concerned, which will leave scars on the entire nation. So far, 7 people are known to have died in the bomb attack. The tragedy of this is that, as Norway has never suffered something like this before, it caused a slowness to respond which led to more people dieing. There are few places in the world innocent of this type of pain. Far too few places.

The reasons for this attack will be given, eventually. But they will never be justifiable. There is never a reason to hurt others in this way. The BBC profile of the man arrested call him a Christian fundamentalist. As a practicing Christian, I can tell you, this man is not a Christian. Just as those men who caused the September 11 attacks were not Muslims. Both religions speak of peace and loving thy neighbour. Violence is abhorrent to any one true to those faiths.

My thoughts and prayers are with Norway, with Somalia and the famine, with anywhere that there is needless suffering, violence and hurt. My one hope for the future is that, perhaps, one day we will learn to help each other, and stop making points through violence. That there will be no need to live, wondering when the next attack will happen. That, when one country is suffering from a famine, it does not have to go cap in hand to the international community, because the international community is already there, hands outstretched.

I hope everyone has a good, safe weekend.

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