Interesting that the la-la who wakes up in the US and decides he/she wants to be a jihadi tools up with assault rifles, pistols, body armour and pipe bombs – while their UK brethren (because they are all symbiotically linked, ye ken?) has to make do with a steaky bought from Morrison’s. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, isn’t there? Read the story/watch the video here.
‘Hmmm…’ is a series of short observations, too long for Twitter, too short for a proper posting.
‘Someone asked me, what would have been the make-up of your ideal platoon – athletes? No, I said: poets.’
Sydney Jary, WW2 Platoon Commander
At times like these I would suggest we might do better to listen to the poets, rather than the politicians, the soldiers, the commentators et al. With that in mind, my favourite living poet, Warsan Shire, in the aftermath of the London riots:
what they did yesterday afternoon, by warsan shire
they set my aunts house on fire
i cried the way women on tv do
folding at the middle
like a five pound note.
i called the boy who use to love me
tried to ‘okay’ my voice
i said hello
he said warsan, what’s wrong, what’s happened?
i’ve been praying,
and these are what my prayers look like;
dear god
i come from two countries
one is thirsty
the other is on fire
both need water.
later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere
Title image is ‘Response to the Sandyhook School Massacre’ by Jeremy Collins
If you’re about to comment on Paris (or Beirut, or Baghdad), pause: imagine what the terrorists behind the attack would like you to post.
Anti-immigrant? Tick.
Anti-refugee? Tick.
Anti-Islamic? Tick.
This is a war? Tick.
Our tragedy is greater than your tragedy? Tick.
This is France’s/Russia’s/the US’s/the UK’s/the Arab governments’ fault? Tick.
Don’t let the terrorists work you like a ventriloquist’s doll. Unless, of course, you enjoy having someone’s hand up your arse.
Ugandan Special Forces officer descends the stairs of the ruined Uruba Hotel, June 2010
Images from the Martini Hospital, Mogadishu. al-Shabaab shot out each man’s eye as a punishment. January 2011
An elder in Parwan, Afghanistan, eyes up a wind-up radio, his reward for participating in a focus group
An al-Shabaab Attacker Lies Dead on the Slip-road Leading into Villa Somalia, July 2014
Doorway on Via Roma, Hamar Weyne
Our Man on the Horn 