Blitzed

The second response might include a serving of national stock-taking. Words, no less than bombs, ought not be bandied about thoughtlessly. News coverage since the first attack has been filtered through two prisms, that of the Blitz and the “Muslim community.” Both are problematic.

Nearly every British newspaper, from the Observer straight across to the Daily Mail, oddly responded to an event on that took place on July 7, 2005 by running headlines about July 1941. Question Londoners about the Blitz’s contemporary relevance, and from their pained response it becomes clear how securely it resides among a pantheon of national certainties, like tea, the countryside, and round-buying in pubs. (This is to say nothing of esoteric delicacies such as Horlicks and Marmite, unlistenable radio drama on Radio 4, or the litany of strange new worlds beamed nightly to prospective extraterrestrial tourists in the shipping forecast.) It is the stuff of Englishness, the matter of Britain. If not quite Our Finest Hour, and historians have shown ample evidence of unheroic behavior aplenty in those prelapsarian months, the Blitz probably makes the running for the top half day or so, and anyhow suggests Our Finest Values. So what’s the problem?

THE PROBLEM IS, we have Blitz for breakfast. Those of us who live in London and the Home Counties can’t contemplate a soccer match without summoning the Blitz spirit. As far as national architectures of values go, the stiff upper lip and wry stoic humor serve decently as any, perhaps more ably than most; but can they not stand on their own without being wrapped in a stale sexagenarian blanket? Doing so implies they’re of the past, and must be handled carefully, like Elizabethan parchment drawn rotting from a case in the Public Records Office. They’re not. They’re robust, and relevant, and should be treated with confidence as the national resources they rightly are.

This isn’t to say the Blitz parallel doesn’t fit–at least partially. Like the bombers of 7/7, those of the Luftwaffe targeted noncombatants (at least in the Blitz’s third stage, from February to May 1941). But Londoners would have been a good sight better off on 7/8 talking about the IRA bombing campaign, which actually attacked the Underground.

(There’s also the question of the proper uses in reportage to be made of history. Such narratives should be held in reserve for when we really need them. Best not to over fish these waters, or, switching to a more Anglican metaphor, drink all the college’s best port in advance of the truly dark days.)

Last week London’s commuters on the still functioning District Line read their Harry Potter and yawned; or, the No Talk on Tube Rule resting in temporary abatement, lingered to exchange polite, meaningless words. It is nothing so much as boring: Apart from the East London Mosque in Whitechapel being besieged by television cameras, there is more excitement here in London when a heat wave strikes.

The other question, of course, is the “Muslim community.” The term is bandied about with frightening velocity on Radio 4 and in what used to be the broadsheets. Public discussion of British Muslims has unwittingly adopted a shtetl view of religious minorities, which, followed to its conclusion, suggests Londoners might have some luck finding them in the same quarter of the town, distinctively dressed, and by dealing with them en masse as the ancien regime did with its consistories. Communities are convenient, homogenous, they believe the same thing; it’s what sets them apart from crowds. If you want a community, you know where to go to. Have a problem with a community? Call up the community leader. Or better yet, call a summit and ask several of them to keep their rowdier young lads in check.

One should be suspicious of language that essentializes–that flattens out individuals and prioritizes the ability of people who lead organizations to speak on behalf of people who do not belong to them. For example, there is only one organization in Britain which purports to speak for Irish Catholics. Most people reject it violently–or, as the case may be, rationally and democratically.

This new campaign of terrorism is likely be with us for a while. The British will need to decide how to cover and talk about it.

Patrick Belton is a researcher at Oxford and co-editor of OxBlog.