British people are gully.
Not just because they've had years to cultivate their gullyness as the colonizers of the world (although that helped), mostly because those people are so damn resilient.After the IRA bombings ripped up the Tube stations in the 80s and 90s, they just removed the trash bins. Although you have to lug around you Cadbury candy bar wrapper, at least you don't have to worry about Irish freedom fighters lighting your ass up. During the Blitz, Hitler's boys destroyed buildings, but the Brits just moved to the Tube and rode out the firebombings underground. Most recently, after bus and train bombings, they put up memorials in honor of the victims, then kept things moving and got back on the bus and the metro.
I lived near one the Tube stations that was bombed while I was studying abroad, and I was probably more shook than the native Londoners as we validated our oystercards to enter the station. British swagger runs deep. While I'm no anglophile it was inspiring to see another city affected so deeply by terrorism not let fear and paranoia hold them back. However, its not all good in the UK. The tension in England between the the Arab population and the rest of the citizens is palpable, with something of a culture war going on within the country. British culture, so long defined by an English, Scottish, Welsh or even Irish identity now incorporates, Asians, Africans, Caribbeans and many others. And today people are unwilling to assimilate and conform, most visibly young Arab from or descended from the Middle East. Hell, you even got white British kids rocking PLO scarves, looking like a Arafat was reincarnated as a young British hipster. And, London was the first place I witnessed racism from a privileged point of view; Arabs and Muslims in the UK are treated similarly to how blacks have been in our nation for the past 400 years. Somebody knows the troubles we've seen.
Regradless, in the light of the latest terrorist act against the British people I hope their famed stiff upper lip serves them well.
Not just because they've had years to cultivate their gullyness as the colonizers of the world (although that helped), mostly because those people are so damn resilient.After the IRA bombings ripped up the Tube stations in the 80s and 90s, they just removed the trash bins. Although you have to lug around you Cadbury candy bar wrapper, at least you don't have to worry about Irish freedom fighters lighting your ass up. During the Blitz, Hitler's boys destroyed buildings, but the Brits just moved to the Tube and rode out the firebombings underground. Most recently, after bus and train bombings, they put up memorials in honor of the victims, then kept things moving and got back on the bus and the metro.
I lived near one the Tube stations that was bombed while I was studying abroad, and I was probably more shook than the native Londoners as we validated our oystercards to enter the station. British swagger runs deep. While I'm no anglophile it was inspiring to see another city affected so deeply by terrorism not let fear and paranoia hold them back. However, its not all good in the UK. The tension in England between the the Arab population and the rest of the citizens is palpable, with something of a culture war going on within the country. British culture, so long defined by an English, Scottish, Welsh or even Irish identity now incorporates, Asians, Africans, Caribbeans and many others. And today people are unwilling to assimilate and conform, most visibly young Arab from or descended from the Middle East. Hell, you even got white British kids rocking PLO scarves, looking like a Arafat was reincarnated as a young British hipster. And, London was the first place I witnessed racism from a privileged point of view; Arabs and Muslims in the UK are treated similarly to how blacks have been in our nation for the past 400 years. Somebody knows the troubles we've seen.
Regradless, in the light of the latest terrorist act against the British people I hope their famed stiff upper lip serves them well.
