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Terrorism


aimaad22
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4 hostages dead at the supermarket

:(

Watched this flicking between Sky news, BBC and France24, BBC reported before the assault on the supermarket, they had spoken to a woman who's daughter was inside and a hostage, she'd had a call from her daughter (who was hiding with others in the basement) who said there were more dead than the reported 2 from the very start of the siege, she thought 4 or 5.

 

If that's the case it looks like the assault actually saved all who were still alive by then yet all news agencies seem to be reporting it as if 4 were killed during the assault.

 

BTW - Sky News what a heap of shite, as the story unfolded they were surmising what was going on between the reporters, few minutes later reporting that supposition as fact, absolute bollocks.

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Aye I saw there was a video floating around. Not sure I'm up for watching it though.

It's not particularly graphic tbh, and I don't usually watch anything "gruesome". Bit like the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid, how they never shot each other !!!

 

That said, copper who goes into the supermarket alone to flush the fucker out deserves a big medal

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It has been striking how many ordinary, apparently non-political people have described this as an attack on the République. For a British person, this can seem a quite extraordinary belief in an abstraction. But it is a fact that Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, the defining code of the republic, does mean something. It is what it means to be French, in everyday life as well as in the world of high politics. If anything at all positive can be said about the atmosphere in Paris in recent days, it is the sense that this is a living reality for most people, and not just an empty slogan.

 

I thought about this the other night. If you ask a French person what does it mean to be French, they can point to Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité and say "there you go" in one neat and incedibly meaningful and insightful phrase. Am under no illusions that millions of French citizens of Arab and African backgrounds and Le Pen's knuckledraggers would snort derisively at this, but the signs are that France will get through this basically because they have this enshrined in the very fabric of their nation, "je suis Charlie" is just another manifistation of it.

 

Its the same in the US to a certain extent, where the declaration of independance is similarly noble in its tone and intent, although I think the physical vastness and the myriad collection of peoples that have colonised North America in the last 200 years and the huge economic success they acheived in the 20th century have lead to the ideals it espouses being (to say the very least) skewed to one extent or another. But they are both there, in black and white, in stark contrast to the UK, where the question is never really adequately answered because we have nothing equivaent, no bill of rights or written constitution to set an example, something enshrined to serve as the best example of how to live our our lives. For a lot of our history since The Enlightement we've not needed it (we didnt need anything in 1939 to show us the right way) but I think now in our post imperial existance we're missing something for all of us, native born or not, to aspire to.

 

If we did have something written down in the 18th century that still rings true 200+ years later in the way France has discovered this week then I think the inevitable break up of the UK in our lifetimes wouldnt even be on the agenda.

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