It’s December. The motifs of the season have taken their place on stage like one hit wonders. Where once we were kicking our way through heaped crisp rust red leaves we now find the sun hung low in the sky, constant rain fights it’s way into gutters clogged with the mushed remains of what once crunched underfoot. It’s dark when we get up in the morning and the same when we scuttle home in the evenings. The trains are late. Downton Abbey’s packed in. Cats and dogs aren’t living together.
It was good to see you last month. For the second year in a row I’ve thought we’d put on a show, sipping champagne whilst gently swinging from chandeliers and if not the toast then at least the grilled entrées of society. Instead it was soggy squirrels, unfeasibly large pies and a general malaise brought on from the season and a general fatigue of our working lives.
I did gain a sense that with your inevitable dislocation from the country that once was home in part reinforces the need for this blog. You may well not need to know who’s just been booted out of strictly, the latest government u-turn or the collapse of all political opposition but I’ll endeavour to provide a flavour of events. The alternative is that you further descend into the behaviours of a enfeebled high court judge, muttering questions like What is a Harry Kane, Ellie Goulding or Wolf Hall. With my own expertise being limited to Big Data, the demise of Leeds United, the music of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and the Housewives of Orange County you can start to see why this blog is more trough than peak.
Whilst we were introducing you to the concept of Harry Kane being one of our own during a low wattage England friendly you’ll recall that rumours abounded of a bit of trouble in the France v Germany game. During the 2nd half of the Spain friendly a strand occupied my thoughts - why were the French and German fans fighting? Why during a friendly? It didn’t make sense. Of course that wasn’t the issue at all and Paris was experiencing a terrorist assault on a scale difficult to absorb. In the following hours and days the scale of the events became clear and actions continued at pace as the French authorities looked to find everyone involved in the terrorist attacks. On one day mid week I couldn’t sleep so had taken myself down to the living room to try and fall crash out in front of a film. Sleep did come but I had conspired to do so in front of the rolling 24 hour news. Around half five that morning I was awoken by the sound of gunfire as the French police raided a flat in the suburbs of northern Paris. Please excuse the laboured reach for humour but for me literally and for western Governments figuratively it was a wake up call.
France hadn’t limited its actions to its own borders. Within days of the Paris attack it had stepped up its bombing raids on Islamic State targets in Syria. There was a speech in the UN, the French official stated “the use of force would be so fraught with risks for people, for the region and for international stability that it should only be envisioned as a last resort”. Sorry, I’m confusing events. This was a speech the French made in the run up to the invasion of Iraq post 9/11. At this point France was incurring bile from US over their questioning of the use of force and what the long term outcomes would be. For some commentators they were “cheese eating surrender monkeys”, affecting the US’ mandate to take revenge, sorry, appropriate action. Following the Paris attacks François Hollande said that France “will be merciless toward the barbarians of Islamic State group and will act by all means anywhere, inside or outside the country”. France rattles its sabre and amongst others the UK heeds the call. The UK parliament is debating whether to act or not. Whether Iraq 2003 is different to Syria 2015, whether bombing without aim, either for a targets disguised amongst civilians or when a long term plan is simply not there - these are questions that risk you being labelled “terrorist sympathisers” as David Cameron has described Jeremy Corbyn today. Keen fans of irony have already pointed out that last time Syria was debated in parliament is was not to bomb ISIS but to attack Assad’s regime. I haven’t seen the bill put before the house but maybe it should just ask to bomb, to keep bombing, someone, maybe an army, maybe a terrorist, maybe just a concept; to flood europe with refugees, to refuse to take them, to fall victim to new acts or terrorism, to buy bigger bombs, to want to avoid boots on the ground, to get our brave boys and girls home as soon as possible, to stand by a war memorial looking sombre, to promise safety and security, to bomb.
So we stand back. It’s going to happen regardless what we say, we say to ourselves. Oh look, Adele has a new album out. That Christmas advert from the supermarket draws an emotional response from me. A footballer has kicked balls into a goal in a sequence different to other footballers. A film is coming out. It’s the idiom of cliches. When the new product will save the day. For hard working families. When decapitating only one victim won't get you on the front page. When Donald Trump is cheered for approving of waterboarding…”in a heartbeat...It works….Believe me, it works. And you know what? If it doesn't work, they deserve it anyway, for what they're doing. It works."
In the Guardian a resident of Raqqa, Syria was quoted as saying “You never knew what time the bombs would hit, so we preferred to stay at home most of the time. At least if they make a mistake you can die with your family, not alone in the street where no one will know who you are.”
This shouldn’t be a testimony whose message is blunted through repetition. It is.
