August 2nd: On this Day 16 Years Ago

August 2nd 1990 – 16 years ago. Iraqi troops invade Kuwait – eventually leading to the Gulf War.

I remember that day far too clearly – I was 12 years old then. About 6 a.m. my dream was getting a bit loud and i woke up and found the noise was was real. a funny noise and the floor was somewhat shuddery.. I had these great big windows and i leaned out and what did i see..( well i don’t have my own pictures anymore so this will have to do to give you an idea)

We were supposed to be going on holiday at 10. a.m. Seeing as the airport was the first thing that was bombed – that obviously wasn’t going to happen. What was going on ? i remember the unreality feeling being the strongest during those early moments. is this really happening? this can’t be happening! we had to listen to the BBC and Voice of America broadcasts on the radio announcing that Iraq had invaded Kuwait before it started to sink in. Well it didn’t really sink in for a bit – not till later on in the day when we stepped outside to see lots of soldiers with rifles milling about, and later later on all the casualties of the morning’s shelling strewn about the highways and roads. of course there was no one left to clear up the wreckages. one of the things that most stuck in my mind was the image of a car wrapped around and melted into a traffic lampost, and you could see the hole where the bomb had landed. Years later obviously no car anymore but the warped lampost remained..

anyways. i hope never to wake up to something like that again – but you never know. taking safety for granted is something i try not to do anymore.

–There’s not much interest on the net about this day and memorials etc. – i did a google search to see if anyone else had noted that some of us might be marking this date – ha not much – everything is either about the Gulf War – or as is to be expected – stick in invasion and iraq and kuwait and the 2003 events come up) But hey. I know there are a lot of people out there – spread across the world ( Kuwait was and still is mostly full of ‘expatriates’) who went through this ( who’re still alive that is..) and whether or not they are sitting there consciously remembering this day 16 years ago – here’s to life.

I haven’t ever really written anything much about my experiences and I may do some day. There’s too much to go into here and now anyways. Later on in life when i read the Diary of Anne Frank a couple of things really resonated with me. The waiting the not knowing and Anne was writing about her 14th birthday in hiding, and that made me think about my 13th birthday. i’m a virgo so i turned 13 that September, still under ‘Occupation’. Some fun that was! Being a year younger than the others in my class had always made me eager to be a bit older. and as a 12 year old i couldn’t wait to become a teenager. all my mates’ had had their 13th birthday parties and i had been so looking forward to mine. Alas..
Still i’ve lived to tell my tale if i so choose but unfortunately Anne – and a million other people across the world in different conflicts – didn’t. So i’m pretty thankful and lucky.
On a lighter note : – in 1967 on this day the second Blackwall Tunnel opened in Greenwich.

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Seventh of July – One year Later

one year on from last year’s awful attacks on the seventh of july – here in London. It will be marked by a two-minute silence at noon – to remember the victims, and presumably – more generally – mark the tragedy of loss of life. A public ceremony is also being held in the evening at Regent’s Park.

A terribly difficult time for anyone who lost a loved one in the attack.
And in a lesser way, for Londoners who will possibly be reminded how it could have been one of them – given the vagaries of the Tube, there’s no accounting for which line you have to hop on when. Overall, it’s relevant i think to highlight what such terrorist attacks have achieved: terror, reduction of civil liberties, mutually suspicious ‘communities’, about a million steps ‘back’ basically. What does the violence achieve – nothing. What does violence ever achieve – nothing? just further violence – a vicious cycle. in this kind of nightmarish world, it’s more important than ever to hang on to the notion of a universal human right to peace, which cannot be ‘protected’ and ‘furthered’ by violent action, but promoted through democracy and dialogue.

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