The Big City

“March 11 is a date I will never forget,” a passenger at Atocha told the Associated Press news agency.
“More than anything I remember the silence that engulfed the city after the massacre”, Javier Hervas said.

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Madrid remembers terror victims

I was in Madrid when the bombs went off. I was there for the coverage of the elections, it was supposed to be a nice quiet trip. My hotel was at the top of Atocha, the street that runs down to the Station. As you can imagine, I don’t remember any silence; it was mayhem for us. The thing I remember most is the attitude of the Madrilenos to the bombings. We interviewed a lot of people and many of them muttered “bastardos” under their breath; they took it personally. It was such a dignified reaction compared to the reaction I saw from the US after September 11th. People weren’t calling for revenge, they just wanted to know who those bastards who bombed them were.

Maybe it would have been the same if I’d been in New York after the twin towers collapsed, it’s hard to know. The consequences of these two bombings were certainly in keeping with my initial impressions. The march in Madrid that followed the Atocha attacks was full of grief and an amazing positive, defiant attitude. I was so proud to be there. The atmosphere after the elections was incredibly hopeful and positive. The consequences of the New York attack have been ugly and seem so futile now. Revenge, repression, I can’t think of one good thing that has happened as a result apart from possibly more Americans know more about Islam than they did before. That, like many of the outcomes, would have seemed like a good thing to the hijackers. In Spain they have a new cool government. In America they have less freedom than they have had for a long time, a lot of parents have lost their children to brutal wars, an incompetent government has been able to wrap itself in the patriotic flag to avoid the blame for its mismanagement and the country is universally unpopular around the world. At the risk of sounding like a vicar, maybe there’s a lesson in this for how we deal with catastrophes in our own lives.